I argue in this paper that Heidegger, contrary to the view of many scholars, in fact endorsed a view of truth as a sort of correspondence. I first show how it is a mistake to take Heidegger's notion of 'unconcealment' as a definition of propositional truth. It is thus not only possible but also essential to disambiguate Heidegger's use of the word 'truth', which he occasionally used to refer to both truth as it is ordinarily understood and unconcealment understood (...) as the condition of the possibility of truth. I then show how Heidegger accepted that propositional truth, or 'correctness', as he sometimes called it, consists in our utterances or beliefs corresponding to the way things are. Heidegger's objection to correspondence theories of truth was not directed at the notion of correspondence as such, but rather at the way in which correspondence is typically taken to consist in an agreement between representations and objects. Indeed, Heidegger took his account of unconcealment as explaining how it is possible for propositions to correspond to the world, thus making unconcealment the ground of propositional truth. I conclude by discussing briefly some of the consequences for Heidegger interpretation which follow from a correct understanding of Heidegger's notion of propositional truth. (shrink)

This book presents a history of the correspondence principle from a new perspective. The author provides a unique exploration of the relation between the practice of theory and conceptual development in physics. In the process, he argues for a new understanding of the history of the old quantum theory and the emergence of quantum mechanics. The analysis looks at how the correspondence principle was disseminated and how the principle was applied as a research tool during the 1920s. It (...) provides new insights into the interaction between theoretical tools and scientific problems and shows that the use of this theoretical tool changed the tool itself in a process of transformation through implementation. This process, the author claims, was responsible for the conceptual development of the correspondence principle. This monograph connects to the vast literature in the history of science, which analyzed theoretical practices as based on tacit knowledge, skills, and calculation techniques. It contributes to the historical understanding of quantum physics and the emergence of quantum mechanics. Studying how physicists used a set of tools to solve problems, the author spells out the ‟skillful guessing” that went into the making of quantum theoretical arguments and argues that the integration and implementation of technical resources was a central driving force for the conceptual and theoretical transformation in the old quantum theory. (shrink)

The paper delineates a new approach to truth that falls under the category of “Pluralism within the bounds of correspondence”, and illustrates it with respect to mathematical truth. Mathematical truth, like all other truths, is based on correspondence, but the route of mathematical correspondence differs from other routes of correspondence in (i) connecting mathematical truths to a special aspect of reality, namely, its formal aspect, and (ii) doing so in a complex, indirect way, rather than in (...) a simple and direct way. The underlying idea is that an intricate mind is capable of creating intricate routes from language to reality, and this enables it to apply correspondence principles in areas for which correspondence is traditionally thought to be problematic. (shrink)

It is commonplace to describe the pragmatist conception of truth as incompatible with correspondence theory. This popular description relies on a deflationary reading of Peirce and James’s many apparent endorsements of correspondence. This reading says they regarded it as a mere platitude or truism, not as a substantive piece of philosophical theorizing. There are two main reasons typically offered in support of this platitude narrative – its consonance with Peirce’s original formulation of PT from 1878, and the objections (...) that pragmatists frequently raised against various notions traditionally associated with CT. I argue that neither reason is compelling and that PT and CT are compatible conceptions of truth. (shrink)

Many philosophers think truthmaker theory offers a correspondence theory of truth. Despite the similarities, however, this identification cannot be correct. Truthmaker theory offers no theory of truth, nor can it be employed to offer an acceptable substantive theory of truth. Instead, truthmaker theory takes truth for granted. Though truthmaker theory is not a correspondence theory, it shares with it the same motivational basis—that truth is worldly—and better accounts for what is pre-theoretically compelling about correspondence theories. As a (...) result, those at all attracted to correspondence theory (including many deflationists) should reject it and accept truthmaker theory instead. (shrink)

This volume is a critical edition of the eight-year correspondence between Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Burcher de Volder, professor of philosophy and mathematics at Leiden University. Containing the surviving correspondence between Leibniz and De Volder, the volume also presents a generous selection from the letters between Leibniz and his friend Johann Bernoulli, through whose intercession the correspondence began. Bernoulli acted as intermediary throughout, and the often candid discussions between Leibniz and Bernoulli provide illuminating background to the (...) class='Hi'>correspondence proper. Each of the selections appears both in the original Latin and in English translation. (shrink)

This paper studies the relationship between labelled and nested calculi for propositional intuitionistic logic, first-order intuitionistic logic with non-constant domains and first-order intuitionistic logic with constant domains. It is shown that Fitting’s nested calculi naturally arise from their corresponding labelled calculi—for each of the aforementioned logics—via the elimination of structural rules in labelled derivations. The translational correspondence between the two types of systems is leveraged to show that the nested calculi inherit proof-theoretic properties from their associated labelled calculi, such (...) as completeness, invertibility of rules and cut admissibility. Since labelled calculi are easily obtained via a logic’s semantics, the method presented in this paper can be seen as one whereby refined versions of labelled calculi (containing nested calculi as fragments) with favourable properties are derived directly from a logic’s semantics. (shrink)

Taking our inspiration from modal correspondence theory, we present the idea of correspondence analysis for many-valued logics. As a benchmark case, we study truth-functional extensions of the Logic of Paradox (LP). First, we characterize each of the possible truth table entries for unary and binary operators that could be added to LP by an inference scheme. Second, we define a class of natural deduction systems on the basis of these characterizing inference schemes and a natural deduction system for (...) LP. Third, we show that each of the resulting natural deduction systems is sound and complete with respect to its particular semantics. (shrink)

In recent years, historians of science have increasingly turned their attention to the “print culture” of early modern science. These studies have revealed that printing, as both a technology and a social and economic system, structured the forms and meanings of natural knowledge. Yet in early modern Europe, naturalists, including John Aubrey, John Evelyn, and John Ray, whose work is discussed in this paper, often shared and read scientific texts in manuscript either before or in lieu of printing. Scribal exchange, (...) exemplified in the circulation of writings like commonplace books, marginalia, manuscript treatises, and correspondence, was the primary means by which communities of naturalists constructed scientific knowledge. Print and manuscript were necessary partners. Manuscript fostered close collaboration, and could be circulated relatively cheaply; but, unlike print, it could not reliably secure priority or survival for posterity. Naturalists approached scribal and print communication strategically, choosing the medium that best suited their goals at any given moment. As a result, print and scribal modes of disseminating information, constructing natural knowledge, and organizing communities developed in tandem. Practices typically associated with print culture manifested themselves in scribal texts and exchanges, and vice versa. “Print culture” cannot be hived off from “scribal culture.” Rather, in their daily jottings and exchanges, naturalists inhabited, and produced, one common culture of communication. (shrink)

Kuhn argued against both the correspondence theory of truth and convergent realism. Although he likely misunderstood the nature of the correspondence theory, which it seems he wrongly believed to be an epistemic theory, Kuhn had an important epistemic point to make. He maintained that any assessment of correspondence between beliefs and reality is not possible, and therefore, the acceptance of beliefs and the presumption of their truthfulness has to be decided on the basis of other criteria. I (...) will show that via Kuhn’s suggested epistemic values, specifically via problem-solving, his philosophy can be incorporated into a coherentist epistemology. Further, coherentism is, in principle, compatible with convergent realism. However, an argument for increasing likeness to truth requires appropriate historical continuity. Kuhn maintained that the history of science is full of discontinuity, and therefore, the historical condition of convergent realism is not satisfied.Keywords: Thomas Kuhn; The correspondence theory of truth; The coherence theory of justification; Convergent realism; Rationalism. (shrink)

Recently we proposed "quantum language" (or, the linguistic Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics"), which was not only characterized as the metaphysical and linguistic turn of quantum mechanics but also the linguistic turn of Descartes=Kant epistemology. We believe that quantum language is the language to describe science, which is the final goal of dualistic idealism. Hence there is a reason to want to clarify, from the quantum linguistic point of view, the following problems: "brain in a vat argument", "the Cogito proposition", (...) "five-minute hypothesis", "only the present exists", "Copernican revolution", "McTaggart's paradox", and so on. In this paper, these will be discussed and clarified in quantum language. That is, these are not in quantum language. Also we emphasize that Leibniz's relationalism in Leibniz-Clarke correspondence is regarded as one of the most important parts of the linguistic Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. This paper is the revised version of the paper: Open Journal of Philosophy, 2018 Vol.8, No.5, 466-480). (shrink)

Recently discovered correspondence from Oskar Becker to Hermann Weyl sheds new light on Weyl's engagement with Husserlian transcendental phenomenology in 1918-1927. Here the last two of these letters, dated July and August, 1926, dealing with issues in the philosophy of mathematics are presented, together with background and a detailed commentary. The letters provide an instructive context for re-assessing the connection between intuitionism and phenomenology in Weyl's foundational thought, and for understanding Weyl's term ‘symbolic construction’ as marking his own considered (...) position in the foundational controversy of the 1920s. In addition, they reveal Weyl's hitherto unknown objections to Becker's detailed attempt (Mathematische Existenz, 1927) to ground the transfinite phenomenologically. (shrink)

The paper’s novelty is in combining two comparatively new fields of research: non-transitive logic and the proof method of correspondence analysis. To be more detailed, in this paper the latter is adapted to Weir’s non-transitive trivalent logic \({\mathbf{NC}}_{\mathbf{3}}\). As a result, for each binary extension of \({\mathbf{NC}}_{\mathbf{3}}\), we present a sound and complete Lemmon-style natural deduction system. Last, but not least, we stress the fact that Avron and his co-authors’ general method of obtaining _n_-sequent proof systems for any _n_-valent (...) logic with deterministic or non-deterministic matrices is not applicable to \({\mathbf{NC}}_{\mathbf{3}}\) and its binary extensions. (shrink)

Revised edition by Sarah Hutton.The revised edition contains some important letters not included in the first edition, plus a new introduction.

How does a predecessor theory relate to its successor? According to Heinz Post’s General Correspondence Principle, the successor theory has to account for the em- pirical success of its predecessor. After a critical discussion of this principle, I outline and discuss various kinds of correspondence relations that hold between successive scientific theories. I then look in some detail at a case study from contemporary physics: the various proposals for a theory of high-temperature superconductivity. The aim of this case (...) study is to understand better the prospects and the place of a methodological principle such as the Generalized Correspondence Principle. Generalizing from the case study, I will then argue that some such principle has to be considered, at best, as one tool that might guide scientists in their theoriz- ing. Finally I present a tentative account of why principles such as the Generalized Correspondence Principle work so often and why there is so much continuity in scientific theorizing. (shrink)

The Clarke-Collins correspondence was widely read and frequently printed during the 18th century. Its central topic is the question whether matter can think. Samuel Clarke defends the immateriality of the human soul against Anthony Collins’ materialism. Clarke argues that consciousness must belong to an indivisible entity, and matter is divisible. Collins contends that consciousness could belong to a composite subject by emerging from material qualities that belong to its parts. While many early modern thinkers assumed that this is not (...) possible, this correspondence offers an unusually detailed discussion of this issue. Clarke rejects emergentism because real qualities of a composite must be homogeneous with the qualities of the parts. This rejection is based on considerations about the nature of causation. In addition, the disagreement derives in part from a disagreement between Clarke and Collins about the limits of our knowledge. (shrink)

A common objection against deflationist theories of truth is that they cannot do justice to the correspondence intuition, i.e. the intuition that there is an explanatory relationship between, for instance, the truth of ‘Snow is white’ and snow's being white. We scrutinize two attempts to meet this objection and argue that both fail. We then propose a new response to the objection which, first, sheds doubt on the correctness of the correspondence intuition and, second, seeks to explain how (...) we may nonetheless have come to have that intuition. (shrink)

We will here describe a conception of truth that is robust rather than deflationist, and that differs in important ways from the most familiar robust conceptions.' We will argue that this approach to truth is intrinsically and intuitively plausible, and fares very well relative to other conceptions of truth in terms of comparative theoretical benefits and costs.

A supplement to "Metaphysics and Convention in Dimensional Analysis, 1914-1917" in HOPOS. Includes a transcription of the correspondence along with an editorial introduction and expository notes.

The present paper is intended to take up the basic issue in Marxist epistemology: does the development of human cognition include mechanisms that ensure the attainment of, or approximation to, the absolute truth?But to take up this issue we have to define the concept of absolute truth. This is why the paper begins with comment on the assumptions we adopt. This is followed by explanations of the concept of the absolute truth and that of relative truth and some of derivative (...) concepts, too. Section 3 is concerned with the problem of whether the absolute truth is attainable, and with the role played in the process by the correspondence principle, which is reconstructed in a specified way. (shrink)

Part of an eleven-volume set which contains all of Ricardo's published and unpublished writings, and provides great insight into the early era of political economics.

A scholarly edition of letters by Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More, and their friends. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

For this new edition, Roger Ariew has adapted Samuel Clarke's edition of 1717, modernizing it to reflect contemporary English usage. Ariew's introduction places the correspondence in historical context and discusses the vibrant philosophical climate of the times. Appendices provide those selections from the works of Newton that Clarke frequently refers to in the correspondence. A bibliography is also included.