Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T02:03:06.347Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

True1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

J. R. Lucas
J. R. Lucas
Affiliation:
Merton College, Oxford.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

“Ich liebe dich 3” the swains in mountain valleys of Austria inscribe on their presents to those to whom they plight their troth. The pun is a rare one in German. Only in remote valleys does the word for ‘three’ rhyme with joy; and the word for ‘true’ is usually ‘wahr’ not ‘treu’ ‘Wahr’ is more propositional, less evaluative than our ‘true’. So too in Latin and the romance languages ‘verum’, ‘Vrai’ ‘vera’ ‘verdadero’ carry a lighter load of feeling. Only the Hebrews resembled us in giving their word for ‘true’ strong moral overtones, and using the same or some cognate word to praise him who had used no deceitfulness to his neighbour as to recommend some statement as being meet to be believed.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 44 , Issue 169 , July 1969 , pp. 175 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1969

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 See Dodd, C. H., The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, Cambridge, 1953, ch. 4, pp. 170–178, esp. p. 173; and pp. 139–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Strawson, P. F., “Truth”, Analysis, 1949, pp. 93, 95.Google Scholar

4 Austin, J. L., “Other Minds”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume XX, 1946, pp. 169–175Google Scholar; reprinted in Austin, J. L., Philosophical Papers, Oxford, 1961, pp. 66–68.Google Scholar

5 For a fuller discussion, see Prior, A. N., “On Spurious Egocentricity”, Philosophy, XLII, 1967, § 2, pp. 326–328CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in Prior, A. N., Papers on Time and Tense, Oxford, 1968, pp. 15–17.Google Scholar

6 Stevenson, C. L., Ethics and Language, New Haven, 1944, p. 21.Google Scholar

7 Walsh, W. H., “A note on truth”, Mind, 1952, LXI, pp. 72–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Timothy, I.1, 15 (Prayer Book translation).Google Scholar

9 Wiener, Norbert, Cybernetics, 2nd ed., Cambridge, Mass., 1961, ch. III, p. 61Google Scholar. See also Sayre, K. M., “Choice, Decision and Information”, in Crosson, Frederick J. and Sayre, Kenneth M., eds., Philosophy and Cybernetics, Notre Dame, 1967, pp. 73–74Google Scholar. Brillouin, Leon, Science and Information Theory, 2nd ed., New York, 1962, ch. 1, section 1.)Google Scholar

10 Ramsey, F. P., The Foundations of Mathematics, London, 1931, pp. 142–3.Google Scholar

11 Aristotle, , Metaphysics, B, 2, 996b29.Google Scholar

12 Tarski, Alfred, Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, tr. Woodger, J. A., Oxford, 1956, pp. 187–188, 247.Google Scholar

13 “Not ‘Therefore’ but ‘But”, Philosophical Quarterly, 16, 1966, pp. 289–307Google Scholar, and “The Philosophy of the Reasonable Man”, Philosophical Quarterly, 13, 1963, pp. 97–106.Google Scholar

14 See Church, Alonzo, Introduction to Mathematical Logic, Princeton, 1956, ch. II, section 26, pp. 140–141.Google Scholar

15 See Hart, H. L. A., “The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1948–1949, pp. 171–194Google Scholar; reprinted in Flew, A. G. N., Logic and Language, Series I, Oxford, 1951, pp. 145–165.Google Scholar