Deflating the Success-Truth Connection

Abstract

According to a prominent objection, deflationist theories of truth can’t account for the explanatory connection between true belief and successful action [Putnam 1978 Putnam, Hilary 1978. Meaning and the Moral Sciences, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. [Google Scholar]]. Canonical responses to the objection show how to reformulate truth-involving explanations of particular successful actions, so as to omit any mention of truth [Horwich 1998 Horwich, Paul 1998. Truth, New York: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]]. According to recent critics, though, the canonical strategy misses the point. The deflated paraphrases lack the generality or explanatory robustness of the original explanatory appeals to truth [Kitcher 2002 Kitcher, Philip 2002. On the Explanatory Role of Correspondence Truth, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64/2: 346–64.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Lynch 2009 Lynch, Michael P. 2009. Truth as One and Many, Oxford: Clarendon Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Gamester 2018 Gamester, Will 2018. Truth: Explanation, Success, and Coincidence, Philosophical Studies 175/5: 1243–65.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]]. This article diagnoses the canonical response’s failure and shows how deflationists can make sense of appeals to truth in explaining practical success, in all of their generality and robustness, without construing truth as a substantial property.

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