Truth correspondence theory

The correspondence theory of truth in the stipulated sense of the previous chapter is incompatible with this account on two counts. The correspondence theory in the stipulated sense is a Tarskian theory with reference understood as a non-epistemic relation to entities that are mind-independent in the sense of (MR1). The present account considers reference an epistemic relation, since it hinges on justification conditions, which are clearly epistemic. It also fits badly with the idea that the entities words refer to are ontologically independent of the human mind. The disagreement concerns both the nature of the reference relation but also one of the relata. This latter point may be less clear, since the three-step recipe does not say anything about the ontological status of the entities we refer to. So why does it naturally tie in with (IR1) rather than with (MR1) ... 

When the significance and the reliability of the correspondence between theories and experiments are considered, two main alternatives are available. The Standard View, based on the ideas of logical empiricism, assumes that the experiments can confirm a scientific theory, i.e., that they can increase its probability (here intended as logical confidence in its truth, i.e., in its correspondence with the real world). On the contrary, Falsificationism, first proposed by Karl Popper [17], claims that experiments cannot demonstrate the truth of a theory but can only falsify the theory, i.e., demonstrate that a theory is unfit to describe an experimental result. 

Again, this is a development of Putnam s description of internal realism, which goes as follows it is characteristic of this view (internal realism) to hold that what object does the world consist of is a question that it only makes sense to ask within a theory or description. Many internalist philosophers, though not all, hold further that there is more than one true theory or description of the world. Truth , in an internalist view, is some sort of (idealized) rational acceptability - some sort of ideal coherence of our beliefs with each other and with our experiences as those experiences are themselves represented in our belief system - and not correspondence with mind-independent or discourse-independent states of affairs . (Reason, Truth and History, 49-50) I have already indicated why I diverge from Putnam s formulation in connection with the metaphysical realist theses. 

The idea of holism that accounts for ontological reduction in terms of theory reduction is this If a reduces to b expresses a truth, then it does so because a is relevantly related to a theory t and b is relevantly related to a theory t, and t reduces to t. I will now argue that for a term a to be relevantly related to a theory is for it to have specific semantic properties other than reference (namely, those that are relevant for reduction as construed above), that are relevantly related to t. Thus, it follows that those who embrace this form of holism are committed to the assumption that the relevant semantic facts play a crucial role in reduction-statements. Since the accounts of theory reduction we are familiar with are, on the identity reading, also committed to the tmth of the corresponding metaphysical claims (those expressed by or rendering tme bridge-laws, or statements about analog relations or isomorphisms), holism based on these accounts does not come cheaper than the account presented above. 

If F-ness reduces to G-ness, then for every x that is F, it is F because it is G (this follows from the explication). Assume that F is a term of (the observational vocabulary of) our reduced theory. Then, by the transitivity of explanation, for every truth of the form x is F because jc is F , that is available in the reduced theory, there is a corresponding truth jc is F because x is G that is available in the reducing theory. Thus, transitivity plus reduction ensures that the range of explanation is preserved. Given the assumption that constitutive structures are explanatorily more informative, we get the desired result, namely, that a reducing theory has a greater range of explanation. 

Recall the distinctions suggested in the introduction concerning the connection between realist/anti-reaUst and conservative/eliminative versions of reductionism, that correspond to different interpretations of the alleged truth or relevance of high-level theories or sciences (see Table 9.1). 

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