Introduction

Summary

The simplest version of the correspondence theory of truth is that a proposition or a sentence is true when it corresponds to an appropriate fact, which is something in the world that makes a proposition or a sentence true. This theory requires propositions or sentences as things that can be true or false, the truth bearers, and it requires facts as things in the world as the truth makers. Consequently, a work on the correspondence theory must not only give an account of how propositions and sentences correspond to the world, but must also discuss the nature of propositions and the nature of facts. The core of this work is therefore the discussion of these four topics:

1. How sentences correspond to the world.

2. How propositions correspond to the world.

3. The nature of propositions.

4. The nature of facts.

Most of the discussion concerns predicative propositions and predicative sentences, which are ones that ascribe properties and relations to particulars; they will be regarded as foundational, though how the notion of truth applies equally to other types of propositions and sentences will also be considered.

This work is written from a metaphysical point of view, and within a tradition that is realist about universals. There is an obvious connection between realism about universals and the correspondence theory of truth, since realism about universals implies that there is something in the world other than particulars in virtue of which sentences and propositions are true.