Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Universals, Predication, and Truth
- 2 The Univocity of Truth
- 3 The Correspondence Theory for Predicative Sentences
- 4 Russell's Theory of Truth and Its Principal Problems
- 5 How Predicative Beliefs Correspond to the World
- 6 The Metaphysics of Facts
- 7 The Metaphysics of Propositions
- 8 The Correspondence Theory and Complex Propositions
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - How Predicative Beliefs Correspond to the World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Universals, Predication, and Truth
- 2 The Univocity of Truth
- 3 The Correspondence Theory for Predicative Sentences
- 4 Russell's Theory of Truth and Its Principal Problems
- 5 How Predicative Beliefs Correspond to the World
- 6 The Metaphysics of Facts
- 7 The Metaphysics of Propositions
- 8 The Correspondence Theory and Complex Propositions
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
THE OBJECTIONS TO RUSSELL'S THEORY ANALYSED AS DILEMMAS
One of the motivations behind Russell's multiple relation theory was to avoid true belief being a matter of thinking of a certain fact, since true belief and false belief are the same sort of thing, and false belief cannot be a matter of thinking of a certain fact. The components of the proposition must be brought together in such a way that they do not have the sort of unity appropriate to a fact, and yet, apparently, they are not to form merely an ordered set or a list. Candlish thinks that no middle way exists.
For the mind, in judging that, say, A loves B, is supposed to bring the real things A and B and love, not just mental or linguistic proxies, into the appropriate relation without actually making A love B. These powers are not only magical but mutually inconsistent.
True enough, if the relation “loves” is a relating relation, then it must relate particulars, and consequently a fact must exist. From which it follows that belief is possible only if the corresponding fact exists, even if belief cannot be credited with actually creating a fact. If, on the other hand, the relation “loves” is an abstract relation, then the unity that the terms of the belief have is that appropriate to an ordered set or a list.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Correspondence Theory of TruthAn Essay on the Metaphysics of Predication, pp. 108 - 139Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002