Global Anti-realism

by James O Young

Published 14 February 1995
This text seeks to provide an answer to the perennial question "what is truth"? According to the global anti-realist the trust conditions of all classes of sentences are detectable by speakers. The author argues that the only way to be a global anti-realist is to maintain that the truth conditions of all sentences are the conditions under which they cohere with a system of beliefs. Global anti-realism is a form of coherence theory of truth. Realists are committed to some form of correspondence theory. Both camps are opposed to deflationary accounts of truth according to which truth is not a property of sentences. This book examines the arguments for and against anti-realism and traces its consequences and metaphilosophical implications.