Alethic Functionalism and Our Folk Theory of Truth

Abstract

According to alethic functionalism, truth is a higher-order multiply realizable property of propositions. After briefly presenting the view's main principles and motivations, I defend alethic functionalism from recent criticisms raised against it by Cory Wright. Wright argues that alethic functionalism will collapse either into deflationism or into a view that takes ''true'' as simply ambiguous. I reject both claims.

Alethic Functionalism and the Norm of Belief

“…On the first version of his view (Lynch 2001), truth is the second-order functional property of having a property which plays the truth role, according to the analogy with functional properties in the philosophy of mind (thus pain is the second order property of having the properties which characterise the role of pain, and it is realised differently in various organisms).…”

“…But this move is hardly coherent, for two reasons. The first is that the norm of truth for belief, on Lynch's own view, has to be understood in cognitive or realist terms, for an expressivist reading of it is unstable : it oscillates between an "engaged" ethical standpoint, from which one employs the evaluative language just as the realist does, and a "disengaged" meta-ethical standpoint, from which ascriptions of correctness are neither true nor false (Lynch 2008). The second has already been indicated in the previous paragraph: the norm of truth would loose the uniformity which is needed if functionalism about truth is to work.…”

Truth, Ramsification, and the Pluralist's Revenge

“…Furthermore, as Bohnert [1967] less famously noted, the flight from informativeness is kept at a minimum. For instance, logically equivalent sentences, such as the conjunction of shorter conjunctions, Yet, as Lynch [2004Lynch [ , 2005 …”

“…Rather than simply dispensing with Ramsification itself [cf. Lynch 2009], I propose nine putative dissolutions to the problem. After explaining why each fails, I offer a positive solution on behalf of functionalists.…”

“…Yet, homomorphism is less intuitively plausible as a candidate for what truth consists in for true sentences in mathematics, comedy, 6 For further discussion of the scope problem, see Sher [1998Sher [ , 2004 and Lynch [2004]. For discussion of the problems faced by pluralists about truth, including equivocation, generalization, and mixed inference, see, e.g., Lynch [2000Lynch [ , 2004, Wright [2005], Sher [2005], and Pedersen [2006]. aesthetics and gastronomics, ethics, and a variety of other sectors of discourse.…”