BHA: criteria of success

[Ruth Groff <rgroff@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,


I don't *really* want to re-open this can o' worms, but...


Colin, you sound as though you're implicitly advancing a correspondence
criterion (as opposed to definition, as per the truth discussion) of truth
here:
"So-and-so is Jesus (son of God)" is true (although of course we could be
wrong) iff So-and-so is, indeed (to the best of our knowledge), Jesus (son
of God).
Isn't this "Snow is white" is true iff snow is white?


I've pretty much decided that the only *definition* of truth, anyway, that I
can make sense of is as a concept which refers to the idea of this kind of
correspondence, but I think that you defended something that you understood
to be different from this.  Could you -- or anyone else, for that matter --
explain a little more how your understanding of "the criteria for the
success of reference" as you put it, bypasses correspondence as either a
definition or criterion of truth?  I probably won't agree with you, but I'd
like to understand the position better.


I know that we wore ourselves out on this topic a few weeks back, so if
you're not in the mood to respond don't worry about it!

R.

> The mere existence of someone claiming to be Jesus, or claimed by others
>to be Jesus, doesn't make them Jesus. In order to do that they would have
>to meet the criteria by which a reference to Jesus can be said to succeed.
>If by Jesus you simply mean the person the Romans dealt with, then we might
>say your reference succeeds, but if by Jesus we mean the son of God, then
>it may fail.
>



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