Jeremy J. Kelly (University of South Florida)
"The Purification and Elimination of Correspondence: a re-examination of the Austin-Strawson debate"
I argue that Austin’s early view on truth is deficient in a way that Strawson’s view is not and that the semantic categories with which we approach the truth-predicate are inadequate for an analysis of the concept of truth. To support this claim I show that the defects in Austin’s view are a consequence of failing to make a distinction between two concepts of truth. Austin claims that though we often “refer” to a given state of affairs in predicating ‘is true’ to a given sentence, an act of referring yields yet another sentence, which as asserted, receives a truth-value on grounds distinct from those by which we suppose the initial assertion to be true. While Austin’s view may be correct on this score, it can only be correct if we first observe the above distinction with respect to the concept of truth. On these grounds, I propose an amendment to Austin’s view that also incorporates Strawson’s deflationary insights.