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Truth bearers

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Truth bearers

Emil O. W. Kirkegaard
Nov 18, 2009
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Truth bearers

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The truth bearers are the kind of entities that have the property true. It is thought that it is the same kind of entities that have the property false too. They are sometimes referred to as the bearers of truth/falsity. I shall just refer to them as “truth bearers”.

Theories of truth bearers

There are multiple theories for what kind of entities truth bearers are. Some think it is sentences that are true/false but I think that there are too many problems with these theories. I shall call such theories for sentence theories of truth bearers.

Others, like me, think that it is propositions that are true/false, proposition theories of truth bearers.

Some presumably think something else, perhaps that it is beliefs that are truth bearers, belief theories of truth bearers.

Multiple truth bearers

It is often written “the bearers of truth/falsity”. Note the definite article “the”, it seems to imply (implicature (SEP), not implication) that there is only one kind of entities that are true/false. But could it not be that there were multiple kinds of entities that are true/false? I can see no good reason not to think this possible. The only objection that I can think of is parsimony/Occam's Razor (Wiki); “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity” and this presumably applies to properties too. One should not multiply properties if unnecessary. “Necessary for what?”, one might ask. “Necessary to explain truth and falsity”, I answer.

Proposed terminology

We may call theories that restrict the properties of truth/falsity to a single kind of entities for monist theories of truth bearers. Theories that allow for multiple kinds of entities may be called pluralistic theories of truth bearers.

If there entities that are always true/false, they may be called the primary truth bearers. Other entities that only in some cases bear truth/falsity may be called secondary truth bearers.

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