Abstract

Kwasi Wiredu argues that the correspondence theory of truth is tautologous and thus not a genuine theory of truth. After contrasting his pragmatist theory of truth with what I call Peirce's pragmaticist theory of truth, in his terminology the realist conception of reality, I argue Wiredu's pragmatist theory of truth is not a theory of the sort of truth which correspondence theory is talking about because correspondence theory is a theory of truth full-stop, while Wiredu instead offers a theory of perspective-indexed truth. If we take the pragmaticist theory of truth as pointing us towards the criteria for truth which we seem to use in everyday life and in our scientific endeavors, the correspondence theory can be seen to have explanatory power, even granting that it is in some sense tautologous. While the correspondence theory alone might only give what we already mean when we say "is true," allied with the pragmaticist theory of truth as a starting point, correspondence theory then constitutes a theory in the full sense that includes the idea of possessing explanatory power.