Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction

Theories of Truth provides a clear critical introduction to one of the most difficult areas of philosophy. It surveys all of the major philosophical theories of truth presenting the crux of the issues involved at a level accessible to nonexperts yet in a manner sufficiently detailed and original to be of value to professional scholars. Kirkhams systematic treatment and meticulous explanations of terminology ensure that readers will come away from this book with a comprehensive general understanding of one of philosophys thorniest set of topics. Included are discussions of the correspondence coherence pragmatic semantic performative redundancy appraisal and truth-as-justification theories. There are also chapters or sections of chapters on the liar paradox three-valued logic Fields critique of Tarski Davidsons program Dummetts theory of linguistic competence satisfaction recursion the extension/intension distinction and an explanation of how theories of justification properly understood differ from theories of truth. A persistent theme is that philosophers have too often failed to recognize that not all theories of truth are intended to answer the same question. When the various questions are made distinct it is apparent that many of the "debates" in this field are really cases of philosophers talking past one another. There is much less disagreement within the field than has commonly been thought.