Truth: Its Nature, Criteria and Conditions

Truth: Its criteria and conditions is an in-depth critical-and-constructive inquiry in almost equal measure. The theories of the nature of empirical truth critically considered include two forms of the traditional correspondence theory; truth as appraisal; truth as identity of proposition and truth; en emotive theory of truth; P.F. Strawson s performative theory, and N. Rescher s novel theory of a coherentist criterion of truth. The constructive parts include an analysis of the concept of a fact, the meaning and uses of true and false in empirical statements, together with the various sorts of conditions for their correct application; the appraisive/evaluative uses of true and false statements; and the performative-cum-cognitive uses of true empirical statements; and the conditions of the performative uses of true. A significant claim about the concept of truth is its indefinablity; albeit for quite different reasons from Gottlob Frege s reason based on his argument against the correspondence theory of truth.