Analysis Of The Debate Between Realism And Anti-Realism On Meaning And Truth

Firstly, the debate between realism and anti-realism is the most basic and important issue which had a great impact on the development of the Western philosophy. In particular, the debate between the realism represented by Davidson and the anti-realism represented by Dummett regarding whether truth value of sentences depends on the world besides language is the subject that the contemporary British and American philosophers are interested in. Moreover, the debate played an extremely important role in the development of Western philosophy, especially in the development of British and American philosophy as well as the modern logic. Therefore, the study and analysis of this debate is theoretically and practically of great importance.In this paper, there are three aspects of explaining the debate between the realism represented by Davidson and the anti-realism represented by Dummett regarding the meaning and truch: whether truth-condition semantics and coherence theory of truth can be set up, whether the principle of bivalence or law of excluded middle is universally valid. The idea of the realism represented by Davidson is that the main task of meaning is describing and understanding a sort of language, so that the speaker can determine the meaning of any expressions. Hence, although Davidson opposed traditional coherence theory and correspondence theory of truth, he thought a sentence's true must correspond with objective fact, and tried to set up a new road on coherence theory of truth between them. Moreover, according to his opinion, there is the object which doesn't depend on our heart. So we must accept the principle of bivalence of propositions, i.e., every proposition is either true or false. There is no proposition which is both not true and not false.The anti-realism mainly represented by Dummett, however, is rejected to these views and thoughts. According to their opinion, a proposition itself couldn't obtain true or false if it was independent on us. We obtained meaning of a proposition under which cases it is true and which cases it is false. Any theory that a proposition is independent on our cognitive ability and cognitive status to obtain truth value was affixed "realism" label. Furthermore, Dummett thought we must reject principle of bivalence or law of excluded middle. So that there are many sentences which can't be judged and aren't judged effectively and practically, i.e., at present we cannot determine the truth value of these sentences through finite steps.Secondly, because both of Davidson's theory and thought and Dummett's can't be fully agreed and Supported by philosophers, they defended and added their theory in the development of their philosophy. Therefore, I also analyze their defense about meaning and truth in this paper to understand their relations more deeply.I analyze some important concepts to which theory of meaning would be applied in this paperi-e.g., "truth", "meaning". Thus I expect this job can provide a little inspiration or help in the process of forming the theory of meaning. I emphasize on the following three points about the concept "truth":â‘ when we define "truth", we must associate it with cognitive ability and cognitive status of language users, and can't be from the subject "people".â‘¡when we define"truth" in reason, it will make recognizing truth more maneuverable.â‘¢The philosophers alwaysassociate interpretations on truth with his metaphysics.Finally, by using the points of the anti-realism, this paper analyzes some important issues of logic (principle of bivalence) and the contemporary metaphysics, e.g., quantitative statements, possible worlds. Herewith I point out that the principle of bivalence, the law of excluded middle and the law of contradiction aren't universally valid under any circumstances, but are valid relative to particular areas or conditions. Moreover, by analyzing some important metaphysical issues, such as the truth of quantitative statements, the truth of counterfactual condition sentences, I state that truth must associate with cognitive ability and cognitive status of language users, and we should emphasize on how to describe truth of sentences. Though the analysis of these issues, truth is related to metaphysics (ontology), and a lot of issues of metaphysics can be solved depending on the definition of "truth". The reasonable definition and interpretation on truth are key to solve the metaphysical issues, but also depend reasonably on the theory of meaning. Therefore, the analysis concerns about that the theory of meaning is an important method to solve metaphysical issues, and also a basic strategy to solve the debate between realism and anti-realism.