ABSTRACT
The lesson of the chapter is that an interpretation of truth in terms of preferable — because 'successful' — belief, and hence as a species of good, results in relativism and a virtual abandonment of the idea of fixity of reference in different cases of referring. The supposition, that is, is not just that certain specified criteria for judging or believing a proposition true are fulfilled, but that the conditions of truth are fulfilled. In the remainder of this chapter the author propose to look more closely at the motivations as well as the implications of such a linkage by in particular considering the views of Newton and Leibniz. Philosophy, as he saw it, was interested in truth not results; i.e. it looked for an explanation which would show not simply how things worked out under different scenarios, but why things happened as they do.
