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The past decade has marked a period of significant development for pluralist theories of truth. This chapter utilizes several distinctions to categorize the current theoretical landscape and then compares the theoretical structure of four pluralist theories—namely, strong alethic pluralism, alethic disjunctivism, second-order functionalism, and manifestation functionalism. The chapter concludes by arguing that it is difficult for adherents of the three other pluralist views to reject the viability of some form of alethic disjunctivism. By this it is meant that, by the lights of each of these other views, there is a disjunctive truth property that ought to qualify as a legitimate truth property.

This chapter continues elaborating and defending alethic functionalism. Particular attention is paid to how the functionalist can counter the problems of mixed inferences and mixed compounds that plague pluralist theories of truth. The second half of the chapter discusses the question of whether alethic functionalism entails a form of logical pluralism — the idea that there is more than one form of logical consequence.

A common objection to deflationism is that it is unable to account for the normative import of truth as a norm for assertion and belief. Most of the versions of truth pluralism agree, against deflationism, that the normativity of truth is a substantive feature of it. Alethic functionalism, as defended by Lynch in Truth as One and Many, includes it among the platitudes characteristic of the role of truth that are manifested differently in various domains. But this chapter argues that this multiple manifestation is incompatible both with the uniformity and the substantiveness of the norm of truth for belief. Either alethic functionalism has to reject the first, but then it cannot maintain the view that the same norm of truth applies across domains, or it gives up the second and comes dangerously close to deflationism.

What are the differences and similarities between deflationary views of truth and alethic functionalism? And why should we think that functionalism is the superior view? This chapter addresses these questions, arguing that functionalism has the significant advantage of keeping truth in our explanatory toolkit — it is compatible with the idea that understanding the nature of truth can help us understand other issues of philosophical importance.

The literature on truth pluralism has been growing steadily for the past twenty years. Truth pluralism is an interesting topic in its own right. Part I of the volume is thus dedicated to the development, investigation, and critical discussion of different forms of pluralism. An additional reason to look at truth pluralism with interest is the significant connections it bears to other debates in the truth literature—the debates concerning traditional theories of truth and the deflationism/inflationism divide being cases in hand. Parts II and III of the volume connect truth pluralism to these two debates. This introduction provides a very short overview of the different parts of the volume by highlighting selected aspects of the individual contributions.

This chapter puts three questions to the pluralist and provide three answers. How can those properties by virtue of which propositions are true be identified? Answer: by seeing which properties play the truth-role and hence have the truish features. How are those properties related to truth? Answer: Truth as such is the property that has the truish features essentially. But truth can be immanent in distinct properties, properties that have the truish features accidentally. What determines which of these properties a given proposition much have in order to be true? Answer: two things. First, the logical structure of the proposition and second, the subject matter of the proposition. These are not the only three questions a pluralist must answer. Nor, perhaps, are these the only answers available. But if the pluralist wishes to make sense of her view, some such answers must be given. Avoiding them is not an option.

How can we understand truth as both many and one? This chapter supplies an answer: truth is an immanent functional property. This is alethic functionalism. To say that truth is a functional property implies that propositions are true when they have a property that plays the truth-role. A property plays the truth-role when it has the truish features — those features described by the folk truisms discussed in Chapter 1. The property of truth itself is the property that has those features essentially, or plays the truth-role as such. But that single property can be manifested by other properties — properties that play the truth-role in some domains but not in others. In some domains of inquiry, superwarrant plays the truth-role; in other domains, the role is played by representation. The chapter articulates and begins to defend these views.

In his book, Truth as One and Many, Michael Lynch presents a theory of truth with two main components. The first is a functionalist account of truth: a proposition is true just when it has some property that plays a certain characteristic role, the truth-role. The second is the thesis that truth is multiply realizable: truth can be realized by different properties for propositions belonging to different domains of discourse. This chapter looks at the structure of Lynch’s functionalist account of truth while keeping a close eye on his multiple-realizability thesis. It is not a straightforward matter to understand how the two components of his theory fit together. The main aim of the chapter is to provide constructive criticism and clarification. It scrutinizes relevant aspects of Lynch’s view in considerable detail, hoping that this will tell us something interesting about functionalism concerning truth and maybe even about functionalism in general.

This chapter makes three points. First, it argues that talk of the value of truth often slides back and forth between talk of two very different values. Second, it urges that reflection on those values helps us to understand what truth is. In this respect, the chapter agrees with Huw Price, who has throughout his career championed the normative character of truth. For both Price and this chapter, to understand truth one must understand what it does, its role in our cognitive economy, and truth’s normative dimension is an integral part of that role. But Price also thinks that we should regard truth-conceived of as a property of our beliefs-as something like a metaphysical myth. Here the chapter disagrees. The third point is that reflection on truth’s values pushes us in a slightly different direction, one that opens the door to certain metaphysical possibilities that even a Pricean pragmatist can love.