The Metaphysics of Truth

What is truth? What role does truth play in the connections between language and the world? What is the relationship between truth and being? The Metaphysics of Truth tackles these fundamental philosophical questions and proposes a distinctive metaphysical worldview. Douglas Edwards develops a detailed pluralist theory, which holds that there are different relationships between language and the world in different subject areas, or 'domains'. He explains what domains are; how different domains are individuated; which metaphysical frameworks apply in different domains; and how a pluralist view of truth plays a key role. The connections between truth and being are explored, yielding a form of ontological pluralism-the idea that there are different ways of being-which increases the explanatory power of the view. This project is carried out in a climate where the traditionally central issue of the nature of truth has diminished in significance due to the rise of deflationary and primitivist views, which deny that there are interesting and informative things to say about truth. Edwards responds to these views, and demonstrates the importance of the metaphysics of truth with regard to both the study of truth itself, and metaphysical debates more generally. Moreover, Edwards pays particular attention to domains which have not been given much consideration in debates about truth, namely the institutional and social domains, and connects work on the metaphysics of truth and being to key issues in social construction.

Douglas Edwards works primarily on issues in metaphysics and the philosophy of language. He has published numerous articles in leading philosophy journals, including Analysis, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, The Journal of Philosophy, and Synthese. He is the author of Properties (Polity Press, 2014), and the editor of Truth: A Contemporary Reader (Bloomsbury Press, 2018). He received his PhD from the University of St Andrews, and has since held positions at University College Dublin, the University of Aberdeen, Hamilton College, and Utica College, where he currently works.

- Introduction - 1: Truth as a Property - 2: Substantivity and Sparseness - 3: Deflationism Revealed - 4: Language-World Connections - 5: Truth Re-Emerges - 6: From Truth to Being - 7: Models of Truth - 8: Models of Being - 9: Primitivism and Truth-Making - 10: Truth-Making and the Nature of Truth - Concluding Remarks