Frege hat über Jahrzehnte hinweg an einem Buch über die Grundlagen der Logik gearbeitet, dessen erster Teil folgenden Fragen gewidmet sein sollte: Ist Wahrheit definierbar oder ein „logisches Urelement“? Ist Wahrheit die Übereinstimmung eines inneren Bildes mit der Realität, oder ein Spezialfall der Beziehung zwischen dem Sinn eines Zeichens und seinem Bezug? Welchen Beitrag leistet der Sinn des Wortes ,wahr’ zu dem Sinn der Sätze, in denen es vorkommt? Sind die Wahrheitswerte – „das Wahre“ und „das Falsche“ – als Eigenschaften (...) oder als Gegenstände aufzufassen? Gehört das, was wahr oder falsch ist, der Innenwelt an? Was ist eine Tatsache? Frege war jedoch weit davon entfernt, seine Konzeption der Wahrheit in die Form einer systematischen Theorie zu bringen. Sie besteht vielmehr aus einem losen und überaus komplexen Konglomerat wahrheitstheoretischer Doktrinen, die – für sich genommen – sehr unterschiedlichen und teilweise auch gegensätzlichen Richtungen der Wahrheitstheorie zuzuordnen sind. Aus diesen Gründen hat die Konzeption bisher wenig Beachtung gefunden; sie gilt als weitgehend konfus und inkohärent. Die vorliegende Studie versucht dagegen zu zeigen, daß sich die Konzeption bei genauerer Betrachtung als ein Ansatz von hoher Überzeugungskraft und systematischer Geschlossenheit entpuppt. Die exegetische Hauptthese ist, daß die Konzeption auf einem originellen Grundverständnis von Wahrheit basiert, das sich durch die Orientierung an der „behauptenden Kraft“ auszeichnet: Unter „Wahrheit“ versteht Frege das, was in der natürlichen Sprache durch die „Form des Behauptungssatzes“ ausgedrückt wird. (shrink)

Every student of English-speaking analytical metaphysics is taught that the early twentieth century philosophical debate about truth confronted the correspondence theory, supported by Russell, Moore, the early Wittgenstein and, later, J.L. Austin, with the coherence theory advocated by the British Idealists. Sometimes the pragmatist conception of truth deriving from Dewey, William James, and C.S. Peirce is regarded as a third player. And as befits a debate at the dawn of analytical philosophy, the matter in dispute is normally taken to have (...) been the proper analysis of the concept.No doubt this conception nicely explains some of the characteristic turns taken in the debate. Analysis, as traditionally conceived, has to consist in the provision of illuminating conceptual equivalences; and illumination will depend, according to the standard rules of play, on the analysans’ utilizing only concepts which, in the best case, are in some way prior to and independent of the notion being analyzed — or, if that's too much to ask, then concepts which at least permit of some form of explication which does not in turn take one straight back to that notion. (shrink)

Translation of Frege's 'Über Begriff und Gegenstand' (1892). Translation by Peter Geach, revised by Max Black.

This book argues that correspondence theories of truth fail because the relation that holds between a true thought and a fact is that of identity, not correspondence. Facts are not complexes of worldly entities which make thoughts true they are merely true thoughts. According to Julian Dodd, the resulting modest identity theory, while not defining truth, correctly diagnoses the failure of correspondence theories, and thereby prepares the ground for a defensible deflation of the concept of truth.

F. H. Bradley was the foremost philosopher of the British Idealist school, which came to prominence in the second half of the nineteenth century. Bradley, who was a life fellow of Merton College, Oxford, was influenced by Hegel, and also reacted against utilitarianism. He was recognised during his lifetime as one of the greatest intellectuals of his generation and was the first philosopher to receive the Order of Merit, in 1924. His work is considered to have been important to the (...) formation of analytic philosophy. In metaphysics, he rejected pluralism and realism, and believed that English philosophy needed to deal systematically with first principles. This work, first published in 1893, is divided into two parts: 'Appearance' deals with exposing the contradictions that Bradley believed are hidden in our everyday conceptions of the world; and in 'Reality', he builds his positive account of reality and considers possible objections to it. (shrink)

This monograph reappraises the role of Bertrand Russell's philosophical works in establishing the analytical tradition in philosophy. It's main aims are to: * improve our understanding of the history of analytical philosophy * engage in the important disputes surrounding the interpretation of Russell's philosophy * make a contribution to central issues in current analytical philosophy. Drawing extensively from Russell's less well known and unpublished works, this book is a welcome addition to the literature and will undoubtedly find a place on (...) the bookshelves of philosophers around the world. (shrink)

This volume is designed to set out some of the central issues in the theory of truth. It draws together, for the first time, the debates between philosophers who favor 'robust' or 'substantive' theories of truth, and those other, 'deflationist' or minimalists, who deny that such theories can be given. The editors provide a substantial introduction, in which they look at how the debates relate to further issues, such as the Liar paradox and formal truth theories.

In this review article of Volumes 2 and 3 of _The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, I distinguish and attempt to clarify three periods of Russell's early philosophical development: R 'subscript 1', his Hegelian period of 1894-1898; R 'subscript 2', his Moore-influenced period from the end of 1898 to his meeting Peano in August 1900; and R 'subscript 3', the period after he met Peano through the completion of _The Principles of Mathematics. I argue that the position Russell defends in (...) R 'subscript 2' is in conflict with the logicism he develops in R 'subscript 3' and that this conflict within Russell's postidealist philosophy is reflected in the _Principles. (shrink)

Book synopsis: "What is truth?" has long been the philosophical question par excellence. The Nature of Truth collects in one volume the twentieth century's most influential philosophical work on the subject. The coverage strikes a balance between classic works and the leading edge of current philosophical research. The essays center around two questions: Does truth have an underlying nature? And if so, what sort of nature does it have? Thus the book discusses both traditional and deflationary theories of truth, as (...) well as phenomenological, postmodern, and pluralist approaches to the problem. The essays are organized by theory. Each of the seven sections opens with a detailed introduction that not only discusses the essays in that section but relates them to other relevant essays in the book. Eleven of the essays are previously unpublished or substantially revised. (shrink)