The Identity Theory of Propositional Truth in Dorion Cairns

Abstract

Previously unpublished passages from the Cairns Nachlass are assembled and commented on to present the identity theory in contrast with the traditional coherence and correspondence theories, and then seven more detailed analyses of related aspects are also edited.

To say that a syntactical object is true or is a fact, is to say that the act of intending it as having a perhaps indistinct structure and a perhaps obscure material content may unite in a positive synthesis of identification with an act wherein “the same” syntactical object is distinctly and clearly evident as having “the same” structure and content. The fulfilling act is eo ipso a grasping of the still grasped syntactical object as having been produced by a syntactical activity founded in original explication of the subject-matter. The realization of such a synthesis is a verification of the truth (and consistency) of the syntactical object, a verification of the “existence” of the fact (01710).