Quine's Two Conceptions of Truth: Immanent and Transcendent

蒯因對於真理概念的兩種看法：內在性與超越性

10.7065/MRPC.200808.0143

米建國(Chien-Kuo Mi)

真理 ； 真理理論 ； 蒯因 ； 塔斯基 ； 內在的 ； 超越的 ； truth ； theory of truth ； Quine ； Tarski ； immanent ； transcendent

哲學與文化

35卷8期（2008 / 08 / 01）

143 - 161

英文

真理概念在哲學的討論中是很具歧義性的。自從塔斯基在他的真理理論中試圖定義真這個述詞後，真理概念就經常被兩種不同的方式來加以解讀：一種是把真視為相對於某個個別語言的述詞，另一種則是把真視為一種普遍的概念，並且可以運用到不同的語言中。蒯因善用了塔斯基的真理理論，並發展出他自己對於真理概念的一種「去括號理論」。但是，奇怪的是，蒯因不僅認為真理概念必須具有一種內在於語言的特性，也就是當我們稱一個語句為真的時候，我們只是把它歸屬於某個語言之中；蒯因同時也認為真理概念具有一種超越的特性，這種真理概念是所有科學家所追求的目標，它並不只侷限於某個語言之內。真理的內在性對蒯因來說是相當透明的一種概念，但是真理的超越性卻顯得格外的神秘。我們不禁要質疑，同一個概念為什麼會有這麼截然不同的兩種特性？本文試圖提出一種語言學上的解決方式，用來同時說明真理概念的內在性與超越性，而不至於有任何形上學中神祕的概念出現。

The concept of truth is ambiguous in the philosophical jargon. Since Tarski showed how we can avail ourselves of the truth predicate by his theory of truth, the concept of truth has been understood in two different ways. On the one hand, the truth predicate involved in the T-sentences can be interpreted as truth for (or relative to) a particular language. On the other hand, the truth predicate can also be interpreted as truth for all languages. Quine has made use of Tarski's theory of truth and developed his own disquotational view regarding the concept of truth. However, Quine recognizes that the disquotational feature of truth has to be immanent: to call a sentence true is just to include it in our language, in our own theory of world, or in our science. But neither our language nor our science can fix truth. Quine knows very well that truth should hinge on reality but not language, and that our theory of world can be proved wrong. It seems to be this concern that leads Quine to puzzle over a transcendent sense of truth, and allows the kind of truth to be something that scientists are always in quest of, or something that ”looms as a heaven that we keep steering for and correcting to”. It will be shown that Quine's immanent concept of truth should be understood as ”truth-in-L1” in Tarski's theory, and that the transcendent concept of truth can be identified as the general concept of truth which is supposed to be applied to all languages. I will argue that both of Quine's immanent and transcendent concepts should be accommodated at the linguistic level or in the semantic project, rather than being defined and explained from a metaphysical point of view.

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