![]() Very little in Peirce's thought can be understood in its proper light without understanding that he thinks all thoughts are signs, and thus, according to his theory of thought, no thought is understandable outside the context of a sign relation. The correspondence can be fairly arbitrary or it can take on the character of an analogy, an icon, or a morphism, whereby a representation is rendered true of its object by the existence of corresponding elements and a similar structure. The nature of the correspondence may vary from theory to theory in this family. In general terms, one says that a representation is true of an objective situation, more briefly, that a sign is true of an object. The truth predicate of interest in a typical correspondence theory of truth tells of a relation between representations and objective states of affairs, and is therefore expressed, for the most part, by a dyadic predicate. That said, given the generic division of truth predicates according to their arity, further species can be differentiated within each genus according to a number of more refined features. Several qualifications must be kept in mind with respect to any such radically simple scheme of classification, as real practice seldom presents any pure types, and there are settings in which it is useful to speak of a theory of truth that is "almost" k-adic, or that "would be" k-adic if certain details can be abstracted away and neglected in a particular context of discussion. For example, in a pragmatic theory of truth, one has to specify both the object of the sign, and either its interpreter or another sign called the interpretant before one can say that the sign is true of its object to its interpreting agent or sign. A triadic truth predicate is one that applies to its main subject only in reference to a second and a third subject.Most commonly, the auxiliary subject is either an object, an interpreter, or a language to which the representation bears some relation. A dyadic truth predicate is one that applies to its main subject only in reference to something else, a second subject.In this case one can say that a truthbearer is true in and of itself. A monadic truth predicate is one that applies to its main subject - typically a concrete representation or its abstract content - independently of reference to anything else.The kinds of truth predicates may then be subdivided according to any number of more specific characters that various theorists recognize as important. In formal logic, this number is called the arity of the predicate. ![]() The truth predicates that are used in different theories may be classified by the number of things that have to be mentioned in order to assess the truth of a sign, counting the sign itself as the first thing. Theories of truth may be described according to several dimensions of description that affect the character of the predicate "true". ![]() This judgment is typically expressed in the form of a specific truth predicate, whose positive application to a sign, or so on, asserts that the sign is true. Whatever the case, one has the task of judging whether the bearers of information, meaning, or significance are indeed truth-bearers. ![]() Depending on the context, this element might be called an artefact, expression, image, impression, lyric, mark, performance, picture, sentence, sign, string, symbol, text, thought, token, utterance, word, work, and so on. Most inquiries into the character of truth begin with a notion of an informative, meaningful, or significant element, the truth of whose information, meaning, or significance may be put into question and needs to be evaluated. In this view, truth cannot be discussed to much effect outside the context of inquiry, knowledge, and logic, all very broadly considered. In one classical formulation, truth is defined as the good of logic, where logic is a normative science, that is, an inquiry into a good or a value that seeks knowledge of it and the means to achieve it. Pragmatic ideas about truth are often confused with the quite distinct notions of "logic and inquiry", "judging what is true", and "truth predicates". Pragmatic theories of truth developed from the earlier ideas of ancient philosophy, the Scholastics. ![]() The common features of these theories are a reliance on the pragmatic maxim as a means of clarifying the meanings of difficult concepts such as truth and an emphasis on the fact that belief, certainty, knowledge, or truth is the result of an inquiry. Pragmatic theories of truth were first posited by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. A pragmatic theory of truth is a theory of truth within the philosophies of pragmatism and pragmaticism. ![]()
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