ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how linguistic idealism fits into the realism-pragmatism debate. It is argued that the pragmatist is right, by the linguistic idealist’s lights, to think of communication as metaphysically basic, but wrong to think that truth consists in communal agreement. Rather, the role played by communication and agreement lies in transcendentally constituting the distinction between truth and falsity in the first place; but once that distinction is up and running it takes on a life of its own, and whether a given sentence is true or false is settled by ordinary science; in other words, the realist is right that the status of truth is objective and independent of human decision. Pragmatism, at least in the ordinary empirical versions familiar from the writings of Rorty and others, degenerates into an implausible relativism; so far as the traditional realism-pragmatism debate goes, the realist wins. The chapter also considers the extent to which disquotationalist accounts of the nature of truth are correct and are compatible with linguistic idealism. The predicate ‘is true’ is certainly disquotational; however, given certain adjustments and provisos, ‘is false’ is also a disquotational predicate. So the disquotationalist account cannot, on its own, elucidate either the basic difference between truth and falsity or the special importance attaching to the former in our lives. We need to adduce in addition Davidson’s principle of charity, understood as a logical principle governing communication and agreement. Perhaps this move vindicates a kind of transcendental pragmatism.
