True Proposition

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A True Proposition is a proposition that corresponds to a real world.



References

2012

  • http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/propositions/
    • QUOTE: ... Aristotle expends great energy in investigating what in reality makes true statements true, but less investigating the nature of truth-bearers themselves. In his most significant discussions of truth and falsehood, he seems not to take a clear stand on the question of propositions. In On Interpretation 1 16a, for instance, Aristotle remarks that falsity and truth require combination and separation, whether of names and verbs in speech, or of elements in thought. However, it is unclear whether the resulting combination of thought elements is anything other than a token thought, as opposed to something which is the content of the token thought and which could be thought by others, could be denied, asserted, etc.

      ...

      One of the chief difficulties for Carnap is to explain the truth of internal statements. If ‘there are propositions’ is true, even within a framework, what does its truth consist in? If truth in a framework is explained in terms of truth given the axioms of the framework, we will want to know about the truth-value of the axioms themselves. If they are true, what makes them true? If they are not true, why can't we conclude that there really are no propositions?

      ...

      The Easy Arguments rely on an assumption about entailment and truth, namely:

      (Assumption A) If a proposition <p> fails to entail a proposition <q>, then it is possible for <p> to be true while not-q.

      ...

      Frege famously wrote, “‘Facts, facts, facts’ cries the scientist if he wants to bring home the necessity of a firm foundation for science. What is a fact? A fact is a thought that is true.” (1918, p. 25)

      Is a fact just a true proposition? There are metaphysical and linguistic arguments to the contrary. Here is a standard metaphysical argument. The fact that snow is white couldn't exist if snow wasn't white, but the true proposition would (only it would be false). Therefore, the fact isn't the true proposition (See Moore 1953, p. 308). Facts might be, still, in some sense, derivative from true propositions, even if the identity claim fails. Following Moore (1953, pp. 261–2) and Slote (1974, p. 99), Kit Fine (1982, pp. 52–3) suggests that facts may be conceived as concretizations of true propositions. Thus, the fact that p is the truth of

      . However, so construing facts makes them poor candidates for truthmakers: the truth of p, presumably, is not what makes

      true.

1999