Abstract

This doctoral dissertation aims to defend and develop the thesis that truth is a value concept, an idea captured in William James' slogan "truth is a species of good." There are four main parts of the work. The first part explains what is meant by the claim that truth is a value concept and defends this claim against immediate objections. The second is a critical reply to contemporary quietist philosophers who maintain that the project of developing a substantive theory of truth is futile or impossible. The third is a refutation of some contemporary minimalist and deflationist theories of truth. According to these theories, the concept of truth is fully explained by a class of simple equivalences involving the word 'true', equivalences after the pattern of 'It is true that snow is white just in case snow is white'. The fourth part explores ways to develop the fundamental claim that truth is a value concept. It includes discussion of value-based conceptions of truth in the philosophies of Rene Descartes and William James