Strawson thinks that the truth correspondence theory agreed by Austin can't satisfy him. Strawson does not object to Austin's use of "statement" as the carrier of truth, but he thinks that "my statement" can refer to what I said or the events I made. And what I said can be said to be "true" [30]. At this point, we can see that Strawson's interpretation of the word "statement" is different from Austin's, but he thinks that the carrier of truth is "what I said" rather than making a statement, which is not essentially different from Austin's view of the object of truth.
Strawson believes that when I assert that a statement is true, it is meaningless to discuss what kind of things or events I am talking about, because there is no such thing or event at all. Whenever we use a noun, we must refer to something, which is an old and worthless fallacy. In his view, the fact is not what we mean, but the object of true statement, which is not a part of the world.
The word "truth" cannot describe any semantic or other features, because it is an agent, not a description. It means that what we agree, acknowledge and confirm is only what we say or may say. It is a "type error" to think that a statement is true, that is, a speech event has some connection with the related person in an agreed way.
Statements are not "consistent" with people or things, but are made for people or things. [3 1] For example, it is not the cat itself, but the cat's condition that makes the statement that cats suffer from tinea come true. This is the fact that cats suffer from tinea (and this fact is not a part of the world). He believes that Austin did not clearly distinguish between "facts" and "things" and confused "facts" with "events" and "things".
Strawson believes that there are "events" and "things" in the world, but "facts" do not exist. The proposition that cats suffer from tinea can be divided into reference part and description part. Among them, the reference part (cat) refers to a thing in order to further describe it; The description part (tinea) describes the situation of the reference part. The description part describes the cat, not "suffering from tinea". "The cat has tinea disease" can only be regarded as a fact, not an event. There are only people and things in the world, and the world is the sum of things rather than facts. [32]
Strawson thinks that we should mention something first and then describe it further. This view is reasonable, but his view that facts are not part of the world is quite puzzling. Austin refuted Strawson's view of facts in his article Unfair to Facts.
In the last part, we mentioned Austin's division of "words" and "world", and he thought that the world was in contrast with language. When talking about the world, Austin mentioned terms such as reality, things, phenomena, facts, events, states of affairs and events. They all refer to things in the world, and there is no difference in essence. Everything that language can talk about is things in the world. [33]
Austin clearly pointed out that although we seldom say that something or someone is a "fact", there are many more people and things in the world. Phenomena, events, situations and events are generally considered to be real in the world (Strawson also admits that events are part of the world). Can be called "facts." "The demise of Nazi Germany is both an event and a fact" [34]. In this sense, since Strawson admits that there are events in the world, he should not deny that facts are also a part of the world.
Austin believes that saying something is true at least implies that it is something in the world. He also believes that Strawson did not correctly distinguish the boundaries of the use of the word "fact", saying that "X is a fact" is correct and "X is a fact" is wrong. That is, we can say that X is a fact, but we can't say that X is a definite fact. For example, we can say that rain is a fact, but we can't say that something is a fact. It is from the latter wrong structure that Strawson draws the wrong conclusion that "there are no facts in the world".
Austin also criticized Strawson's theory of truth subject and its development of redundant truth theory in the article Truth. Austin's concentrated refutation of redundancy theory has been mentioned above. Here is a brief introduction to his refutation of Strawson's realization theory.
Austin pointed out that Strawson rejected the semantic view of truth, and he thought that truth was not used to describe sentences (Austin also thought this was correct). Therefore, he made clever assumptions to show how meaning is mistaken for truth, but this seems to be insufficient to prove his view that truth is used to talk about statements. On the other hand, Austin thinks that Strawson did not clearly distinguish between statements and sentences.
On the one hand, Strawson supports the redundancy theory of truth. He admits that asserting a statement S is true and does not make any further conclusion than asserting statement S itself. On the other hand, he opposes the redundancy theory, thinking that saying that a statement S is true is not just making an assertion S, but confirming or agreeing with this assertion S. Austin explicitly opposes the first part above (such as the refutation of the redundancy theory mentioned above). For the second part, he admits that "saying statement S is true" is usually to confirm S or agree with S and so on. But this does not mean that "saying S is true" is not a judgment of S.
When I say "I believe you", sometimes I do show that I accept what you say, but at the same time I make an assertion that the proxy word "I accept what you say" can't make. "A general statement can have an agent aspect" (for example, if you are a cuckold, it may insult you, but at the same time you are making a statement that can judge whether it is true or not) "[35]. In a word, from the argument between Austin and Strawson on the question of truth, Austin's view is undoubtedly more convincing.
On the issue of fact, Austin did not confuse the difference between "fact" and "event" and "thing". Although facts are different from events and things, they exist in the world. When judging the word "truth", although it is asserted that a statement is true with an actor, Austin's view of truth mainly focuses on the complex relationship between the word and the world, that is, the appropriate conditions for the statement to be true, rather than the actor or evaluation of the statement.
The word "truth" is a dimension to evaluate the relationship between sentences and the world. Austin finally pointed out, "If we admit that the disturbing and satisfying relationship between words and the world does exist, then the word' truth' should be the way we describe this relationship. What else could it be? )"[36]
Problems existing in the view of truth of correspondence theory and its evaluation of Austin's view of truth
On the question of truth, we mainly talk about two things, one is the thing itself, the other is description, understanding and so on. The discussion of truth and falsehood in philosophy of language is mainly on the second level, that is, the level at which we speak. [37]
When philosophers study the question of truth, the first problem they encounter is the carrier of truth. Most philosophers generally believe that the carrier of truth is proposition. For example, Russell's definition of a proposition is "what we believe when we believe it is true or false." [38] Propositions are different from statements. Proposition is the content or meaning expressed by statement, and it is generally believed that only declarative sentences can express propositions. At this point, we can see Austin's revision of the previous view: he thinks that the proposition can't be true or false, because we don't say "the meaning of this statement is true". Moreover, the statement, the carrier of truth that Austin said, is not a grammatical statement.
Secondly, in the analysis of the word "truth", Russell and Moore once regarded it as a simple and inseparable property, and thought that "truth" was an initial word and could not be defined. Ramsey's redundancy theory holds that "being true" has no independent meaning, and judging a statement as true is only a sign of affirming it. Strawson believes that the word "truth" is an agent, just an act of agreeing or accepting a statement, rather than judging the nature of the statement. Therefore, truth is only a sign of affirmation and negation, and denying the concept of "truth" can be analyzed.
Talsky's view of semantic truth divides language into metalanguage and object language, and holds that "truth" is the predicate of object language in metalanguage and the essence of metalanguage. Among them, Talsky's view has aroused great repercussions in the philosophical circle, prompting many philosophers to adopt the theory of truth correspondence. [39] Austin believes that truth is the correspondence between statements and facts, which is realized through two sets of agreements. This consistency is the complex relationship between words and the world.
The theory of truth correspondence can be said to be the oldest truth theory in philosophy. Aristotle first proposed that "truth" is the relationship with facts. Locke further pointed out that the truth correspondence theory lies in the corresponding relationship between words and things. Russell and other analytical philosophers hold the view of correspondence theory, and from the perspective of analytical philosophy, they think that the basic level of cognition can be reached through analysis to test whether cognition conforms to the truth. [40]
The logical atomism put forward by Russell and Wittgenstein expounds the corresponding relationship between propositions and things: things are the smallest unit of the world, the arrangement of things constitutes simple facts (atomic events), and simple facts constitute complex facts. Correspondingly, propositions are also divided into simple propositions and complex propositions, which are composed of simple propositions and logical symbols such as conjunction, disjunction and implication. According to this correspondence theory, if the arrangement of names in a basic proposition coincides with the arrangement of simple things in an atomic state of affairs, the proposition is true, and vice versa.
Although the truth view of correspondence theory is more reasonable and widely accepted than the truth view of coherence theory and pragmatism, there are still some problems that have become the target of opponents' attacks on correspondence theory.
First of all, the correspondence theory is vague in a sense. What we said is consistent with the facts, but what does this consistency mean? When we say "the cat is real on the mat", it doesn't fit any characteristics of the cat or the mat, so it seems that these statements are not similar to the facts except other statements.
Secondly, truth refers to propositions or statements that conform to reality, but there are no moral facts about moral issues; Besides, nothing is considered true about the past or the future.
Thirdly, from the epistemological point of view, conformity theory will inevitably lead to skepticism. Because the correspondence between our thoughts and reality is uncertain. We can't really "objectively" look at the corresponding relationship between thought and reality beyond the boundaries of thought. However, if we want to acquire knowledge, we must be close to reality itself, rather than relying on our cognition. It is impossible to get close to reality itself, so the correspondence theory seems to make it impossible to acquire knowledge.
For the above refutation of correspondence theory, Austin has more or less involved these problems in his thoughts, and his views have also revised the traditional truth view of correspondence theory.
For the first question, he thinks that the correspondence between truth and reality is not qualitative correspondence, but abstract structural correspondence. The statement that "the cat is on the mat" does not copy any characteristics of the cat or the mat, but corresponds to the structure of the cat on the mat, which is in line with the agreement. The truth of the statement does not copy the essence of reality, and not every true statement corresponds to a fact (which will make the world "overpopulated"). He thinks this is to misinterpret the world with the characteristics of language. The integration he expounded was accomplished through the consistency of description and explanation.
For the second question, the statement Austin refers to is our direct description of the present world. This seems to rule out moral problems and descriptions of the past and the future that we can't verify. Because moral issues can only be said to be legal or illegal, not true or false; The description of the past and the future depends on assumptions and arguments, and does not belong to statements such as "cats on mats".
The third rebuttal is based on the reasoning that if we want to acquire knowledge, we must know that a statement is true. In fact, the process of acquiring knowledge is not exactly the same as the process of determining truth. Moreover, many times when we use certain words, we don't know their true meaning exactly, or when we generally think a certain statement is right, we don't strictly prove it. For example, many people use the word "sofa", but they don't know the source of this word; When we said "it's snowing outside", we didn't prove whether it was true or not.
Austin believes that truth is a dimension to evaluate the relationship between our words and the world. We can feel that the complex relationship between words and the world does exist, so "truth" is the way to describe this relationship. Therefore, even if we can't really realize the reality itself, we can still gain knowledge about the world within our knowledge framework.
Austin's view of truth is based on his phenomenology of language. His Phenomenology of Language studies the use of language. He thinks that the relationship between language and the world is extremely important-we talk about the world through language and communicate with people through language.
Austin did not discuss the essence of the world in his philosophical thought system, nor did he seem to put forward a separate ontology or realism. [4 1] No matter whether most of his viewpoints are qualitative or not, Austin, for example, thinks that the word "truth" has no positive meaning and can only be understood by comparing it with its negative side. [42]
This form of thinking is also reflected in his view of truth: he believes that truth can not be defined, but can only be used as a test standard. But he also believes that there is no strict boundary between "truth" and "unreality". For example, a toy dog is not a "real" dog, but it is still a real toy dog. That is, a thing may not be true X, but it may be true Y at the same time. [43] The so-called "real world" is not more real than the phenomenon world.
In his view of truth, he also thinks that truth is not important, and there is no clear boundary between truth and fallacy. A statement can be said to be "true" on the premise that it is not false, but its degree of truth is different on different occasions; Eternal absolute truth is impossible to achieve, so it is meaningless to pursue absolute truth. Similarly, it is meaningless to distinguish between true and false statements.
In a word, no theory can explain everything perfectly, so it is inevitable that there will be refuters, and coincidence theory is no exception. As the most typical view of truth, correspondence theory is considered as the most convincing truth theory.
However, simple correspondence theory often has some obvious problems, so philosophers always modify and improve it. Austin made some modifications to the traditional view of truth of correspondence theory and expounded his own understanding. This purified correspondence theory is inseparable from his linguistic analysis background. Austin does not study the definition of truth, but mainly studies the standard of truth, which avoids his so-called futile efforts. On the carrier of truth, he pointed out that statement is the main carrier, while traditional propositions, such as photos, pictures, value judgments, mathematical propositions and some novels, etc. , can not be the carrier of truth, thus clarifying the misuse of its object when talking about truth in the past.
Austin's revision of the traditional study of truth is also reflected in his evaluation of truth: he points out that truth is not redundant as redundancy theory says, but it is not important because it is not the only measure for us to evaluate the relationship between language and the world. In the study of philosophy, don't simplify the complex relationship between language and the world into some simple corresponding relationships, let alone pay too much attention to the question of truth, and always talk about truth and fallacy. This view that truth is useless and unimportant is not only a criticism of predecessors' views, but also a development of one's own philosophical thought.
Although there are some problems in Austin's exposition of truth that he can't solve clearly, this unique view of truth has a very important enlightening effect and leads us to a clearer perspective in the exploration of truth.
[1] Truth, J.L. Austin's Philosophical Papers, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 1 17.
[2] Yang Yucheng, Austin: Linguistic Phenomenology and Philosophy, The Commercial Press, 2002, p. 130.
[3] Truth, philosophical papers, p. 1 19.
[4] ibid.
[5] ibid.
[6] ibid., p. 120.
7 ditto
8 ibid
[9] Austin believes that agent discourse is the use of a language. He believes that language can be divided into two categories according to its use: narrative discourse and agent discourse. There is no grammatical difference between agent discourse and statement, but it does not state anything, so it is neither true nor false. This kind of discourse is mainly social behavior such as making promises, promises and apologies. , in order to complete the behavior (see Austin: Phenomenology and Philosophy of Language, Chapter 3, Section 1).
[10] Truth, philosophical papers, p. 13 1 p.
[1 1] same as above.
[12] ibid., p. 65438.
[13] ditto
[14] ibid., p. 122.
[15] Austin: Linguistic Phenomenology and Philosophy, page 140.
[16] Truth, philosophical papers, p. 123.
[17] When we say "the leaves are green" and we say "the tree is very tall", we are both aiming at the object of "the tree". If we think that there is a fact that makes every statement true, then there are two kinds of "trees", namely, a tree with green leaves and a very tall tree. In this way, there are too many language copies superimposed in the world.
[18] Truth, philosophical papers, p. 123.
[19] ibid., p. 124.
[20] ibid., p. 125.
[2 1] For example, George Leikauf mentioned in his book Women, Fire and Dangerous Things that the category of balan can be used to represent women, fire, dangerous things, non-dangerous birds, platypus and many other special animals.
22 Ibid.
[23] The marsupial wolf is the largest carnivorous marsupial in Australia. Due to excessive hunting by local residents, no live wild animals have been found since 1933, which is estimated to be extinct.
[24] "Truth", philosophical papers, the first 127 pages.
[25] "Truth", philosophical papers, the first 127 pages.
[26] ibid., p. 128.
[27] ibid., p. 129.
[28] ibid., p. 130.
[29] Strawson, a famous Oxford analytical philosopher, put forward some new ideas in the philosophy of daily language and did a lot of research on "descriptive metaphysics". The debate between him and Austin on the question of truth is also a famous debate in the history of philosophy.
See strawson's article Truth.
[3 1] See Strawson's article The Truth.
[32] See Chen Jiaying, Philosophy of Language, Peking University Publishing House, 2003, p. 233.
[33] See Austin: Phenomenology and Philosophy of Language, p. 39.
[34] Unfair to Facts, Philosophical Papers, p. 156.
[35] Truth, Philosophical Papers, p. 1 133.
36 ibid
[37] See Philosophy of Language, p. 58.
[38] See Du Renzhi and Tu's Contemporary Anglo-American Philosophy, China Social Sciences Press, 1988, p. 274.
[39] See Contemporary Anglo-American Philosophy, p. 275-274.
[40] See Philosophy of Language, p. 60.
[4 1] See Austin: Linguistic Phenomenology and Philosophy, p. 38.
[42] See Austin: Phenomenology and Philosophy of Language, p. 40.
[43] See Austin: Linguistic Phenomenology and Philosophy, p.41.