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Truth and Objectivity
Crispin Wright offers an original perspective on the place of “realism” in philosophical inquiry. He proposes a radically new framework for discussing the claims of the realists and the anti-realists. This framework rejects the classical “deflationary” conception of truth yet allows both disputants to respect the intuition that judgments, whose status they contest, are at least semantically fitted for truth and may often justifiably be regarded as true. In the course of his argument, Wright offers original critical discussions of many central concerns of philosophers interested in realism, including the “deflationary” conception of truth, internal realist truth, scientific realism and the theoreticity of observation, and the role of moral states of affairs in explanations of moral beliefs.
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First published January 1, 1992
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August 19, 2026
I came to this book initially just to understand Wright’s notion of cognitive command, but it was too interesting that I had to read its core chapters. Wright is a remarkably careful thinker. I found myself struck by the arguments he gives; in areas that may seem impossible to find traction or grounds for settling head-locked disputes, he somehow manages to find paths forward. (I’ll give some examples of this below). Let me summarize what I’ve made of the key question and answer of this book, although I sense how my understanding at this time is severely limited, and I’d need to re-read relevant parts to gain an adequate understanding.
Wright’s overall aim is to show how statements in various discourses can be genuinely true, while there needn’t be a single metaphysically substantive theory of what makes something true. For example, it appears that with respect to discourses of ethics and mathematics, statements can be true, and yet it seems problematic to think they are true by virtue of corresponding to mind-independent parts of reality (as arguably true perceptual statements do). This investigation goes hand-in-hand with this to put on more nuanced or better foundations debates of realism v anti-realism; different philosophical questions get run together under this, and moreover, it is possible that these questions should be answered different depending on the discourse at hand.
Realism, at first glance, is the view that the meaning and truth of statements holds independently of whatever capacities we have to verify these statements or to gather evidence for their truth or falsity. Anti-realism, broadly, is the contrary view; the meaning and truth of statements rather depends on these capacities of ours. In order to assess whether realism or anti-realism holds of a given discourse (e.g., the discourses of ethical statements, of scientific statements, of statements concerning whether a piece of comedy is funny or not), it is critically helpful to gain a clearer view as to what it means for a statement to be true (or false).
The notion of objectivity is closely linked to that of truth. Wright argues that there are “three distinct species of objectivity”: (a) the objectivity of truth: a statement may be intelligible while it is impossible for us to tell whether it is T/F, even if our cognitive powers are idealized, (b) the objectivity of meaning: the meaning of a statement serves as a constraint that we must abide by, and verdicts about its truth value must conform or fail to conform to it, regardless of our opinions on the matter, and (c) the objectivity of judgment: statements are apt to represent or misrepresent features of reality that we can be sensitive to. Hume, as an anti-realist about causation, for example, would say that statements about causation are objective in sense (c) but not necessarily in senses (a) and (b). These distinctions reflect different roles that the notion of truth can serve.
Anti-realism about a given discourse is compatible with the claim that that discourse is truth-apt, and most of our statements are true. So, what’s really at stake between anti-realism and realism? To untangle that, Wright goes into the disquotational schema of the deflationary theory of truth: “‘P’ is true if and only if P” (for example, “snow is white” is true if and only if snow is white). What can we know about the predicate given this schema? The purported claim of this deflationary theory is that to say that P is true is merely to say that to assert P is warranted. But Wright offers an argument to the effect that the disquotational schema entails that and are not co-extensive. Every statement has a significant negation, so we can re-write the disquotational schema as “‘It is not the case that P’ is true iff it is not the case that ‘P’ is true.” If we replace “true” with “warrantably assertible,” however, the schema fails in cases where our evidence is neutral on P. In that case, it is possible that it is correct to say that it is not the case that P is warrantably assertible. But it is incorrect to say that not-P is warrantably assertible. Thus, the deflationary theory of truth is inherently unstable. It implies the opposite of what it centrally claims.
This launches Wright off to look for an alternative angle into thinking about truth that could explain this instability and preserve the deflationary theory of truth. (I’m not totally sure this is actually his aim… Its what it appears to be, but I might’ve misread him. Another attempt at his aim: Wright argues that general “platitudes” about truth, like the validity of the disquotational schema, do not yet commit us to any metaphysically substantive theory of truth, or what property truth consists in for a given domain or discourse. Wright ultimately argues, I think, that while there can conceptually be a unified conception of truth, this is compatible with pluralism about the properties that make a proposition true under a given discourse.)
Wright offers the notion of “superassertibility” as a variety of the truth predicate in at least various discourses. A statement is superassertible if it is impossible to gain better or new information such that this overturns the current status of that statement being warrantably assertible. (I didn’t quite follow how this proposal is supposed to address the instability of the deflationary theory of truth…)
Next, Wright develops further his proposal that the deflationary theory is right that truth is not a metaphysically substantive notion, but there are various predicates that can serve as a truth predicate under different contexts, as long as these satisfy certain basic principles or “platitudes.” For example, it should be co-extensive with “truth” as used in the disquotational schema; that truth involves representation or correspondence, or more broadly, some relation; etc. Cognitive command should be included on this list, according to Wright. “A discourse exhibits Cognitive Command if and only if it is a priori that differences of opinion arising within it can be satisfactorily explained only in terms of ‘divergent input’, that is, the disputants' working on the basis of different information (and hence guilty of ignorance or error, depending on the status of that information), or ‘unsuitable conditions’ (resulting in inattention or distraction and so in inferential error, or oversight of data and so on), or ‘malfunction’ (for example, prejudicial assessment of data, upwards or downwards, or dogma, or failings in other categories already listed).” In other words, it is essential to our notion that a statement (of a given discourse) can be true if it is the case that we think that when there is disagreement over whether it is true, this disagreement must ultimately boil down to imperfections with regards to either the information/input disputants have, or the functioning of their cognitive capacities—rather than that this disagreement, for example, reflects that there are no ultimate facts on the ground, one might say.
Wright goes into a lengthy but interesting appendix of chapter 3 that draws on the classic Euthyphro dialogue. Consider a “basic equation” whose instance might be: “For any act x: x is pious if and only if it is loved by the gods.” Or, consider the formal version: “For all S, P: P if and only if (if CS then RS)” where “S” is any agent, “P” ranges over some class of judgments (e.g., perceptual or ethical ones), “RS” expresses S’s appropriate response (e.g., judging that P, having a visual experience of a color), and “CS” expresses that certain optimal conditions with respect to one’s capacity to give that appropriate response are satisfied (e.g., it is light out; the circumstances are such that there are no others that could’ve given S’s judgment in response greater credibility).
Then, Wright characterizes Socrates’ response to the Euthyphro problem as a matter of prioritizing the left-hand side of the biconditional; we can call this “detectivism.” Euthyphro prioritizes the right-hand side; we can call this “projectivism.” I found this a remarkably simple and illuminating way of thinking about realism v anti-realism. In sum, a realist thinks that a fact has explanatory priority over what a appropriate response (e.g., forming a judgment that correctly represents that fact) looks like, whereas an anti-realist thinks that our having these responses rather takes explanatory priority.
In chapter 4, Wright focuses on addressing objections to his proposal of cognitive command as a prerequisite for a predicate to count as a truth predicate in a given discourse. One might insist that it is trivial or there is no way of assessing whether a given discourse exhibits cognitive command or not. For example, why not say that even discourse about whether a joke is funny or not exhibits cognitive command? If this works, then it is not useful to invoke cognitive command in order to spell out what’s minimal to the concept of truth.
Wright’s response to this objection was quite interesting. First, he shows that the burden of proof is on the thinker who insists humor discourse exhibits cognitive command. Intuitively, it does not. Then, he shows that in order for the thinker to argue for this, she must either show that there is a quality of being humorous that holds independently of whatever human activity goes on in relation to it; or else, she must show that disagreements about whether a joke is humorous consist ultimately in faulty input or faulty ways by which our cognitive faculties are functioning (rather than something like differences in taste, something non-cognitive). Wright argues for why either track leads nowhere. In order to pursue the latter track, for example, she endorse that there is a noninferential “intuitionistic” mental faculty for tracking the property of humorousness (akin to perception or a priori intuition).
I don’t know where what I’ve learned so far in engaging with this book might take me. I’ve been thinking about self-knowledge, in particular knowledgeable self-ascriptions of belief, and have been concerned with standards we maintain in order for these judgments to count as knowledge. I get the sense that the realism v anti-realism debate as it applies typically to various discourses cannot apply straightforwardly to this one. There are constraints on our relation to our own beliefs that do no apply to our relation to other things even if they are as diverse as moral properties or mathematical facts. For our beliefs are the bread-and-butter of our own rationality, thought, and ultimately consciousness perhaps. For example, it is perhaps unacceptable to think that it could normally be the case that we have a belief that is impossible for us to know. (I’m not sure at this moment though). Belief typically occupies a role in rationality, so if that were the case, there should be inferences being drawn that we know nothing about. But rationality is unified; we’re responsible for our actions and can be regarded as epistemically virtuous. (In contrast, it is not problematic to say that normally it is possible for us to be incapable of knowing various moral properties or mathematical facts…) I get the sense that this starting point might be misguided, let alone that it is extremely minimal. I’ll sit on it.
Wright’s overall aim is to show how statements in various discourses can be genuinely true, while there needn’t be a single metaphysically substantive theory of what makes something true. For example, it appears that with respect to discourses of ethics and mathematics, statements can be true, and yet it seems problematic to think they are true by virtue of corresponding to mind-independent parts of reality (as arguably true perceptual statements do). This investigation goes hand-in-hand with this to put on more nuanced or better foundations debates of realism v anti-realism; different philosophical questions get run together under this, and moreover, it is possible that these questions should be answered different depending on the discourse at hand.
Realism, at first glance, is the view that the meaning and truth of statements holds independently of whatever capacities we have to verify these statements or to gather evidence for their truth or falsity. Anti-realism, broadly, is the contrary view; the meaning and truth of statements rather depends on these capacities of ours. In order to assess whether realism or anti-realism holds of a given discourse (e.g., the discourses of ethical statements, of scientific statements, of statements concerning whether a piece of comedy is funny or not), it is critically helpful to gain a clearer view as to what it means for a statement to be true (or false).
The notion of objectivity is closely linked to that of truth. Wright argues that there are “three distinct species of objectivity”: (a) the objectivity of truth: a statement may be intelligible while it is impossible for us to tell whether it is T/F, even if our cognitive powers are idealized, (b) the objectivity of meaning: the meaning of a statement serves as a constraint that we must abide by, and verdicts about its truth value must conform or fail to conform to it, regardless of our opinions on the matter, and (c) the objectivity of judgment: statements are apt to represent or misrepresent features of reality that we can be sensitive to. Hume, as an anti-realist about causation, for example, would say that statements about causation are objective in sense (c) but not necessarily in senses (a) and (b). These distinctions reflect different roles that the notion of truth can serve.
Anti-realism about a given discourse is compatible with the claim that that discourse is truth-apt, and most of our statements are true. So, what’s really at stake between anti-realism and realism? To untangle that, Wright goes into the disquotational schema of the deflationary theory of truth: “‘P’ is true if and only if P” (for example, “snow is white” is true if and only if snow is white). What can we know about the predicate given this schema? The purported claim of this deflationary theory is that to say that P is true is merely to say that to assert P is warranted. But Wright offers an argument to the effect that the disquotational schema entails that and are not co-extensive. Every statement has a significant negation, so we can re-write the disquotational schema as “‘It is not the case that P’ is true iff it is not the case that ‘P’ is true.” If we replace “true” with “warrantably assertible,” however, the schema fails in cases where our evidence is neutral on P. In that case, it is possible that it is correct to say that it is not the case that P is warrantably assertible. But it is incorrect to say that not-P is warrantably assertible. Thus, the deflationary theory of truth is inherently unstable. It implies the opposite of what it centrally claims.
This launches Wright off to look for an alternative angle into thinking about truth that could explain this instability and preserve the deflationary theory of truth. (I’m not totally sure this is actually his aim… Its what it appears to be, but I might’ve misread him. Another attempt at his aim: Wright argues that general “platitudes” about truth, like the validity of the disquotational schema, do not yet commit us to any metaphysically substantive theory of truth, or what property truth consists in for a given domain or discourse. Wright ultimately argues, I think, that while there can conceptually be a unified conception of truth, this is compatible with pluralism about the properties that make a proposition true under a given discourse.)
Wright offers the notion of “superassertibility” as a variety of the truth predicate in at least various discourses. A statement is superassertible if it is impossible to gain better or new information such that this overturns the current status of that statement being warrantably assertible. (I didn’t quite follow how this proposal is supposed to address the instability of the deflationary theory of truth…)
Next, Wright develops further his proposal that the deflationary theory is right that truth is not a metaphysically substantive notion, but there are various predicates that can serve as a truth predicate under different contexts, as long as these satisfy certain basic principles or “platitudes.” For example, it should be co-extensive with “truth” as used in the disquotational schema; that truth involves representation or correspondence, or more broadly, some relation; etc. Cognitive command should be included on this list, according to Wright. “A discourse exhibits Cognitive Command if and only if it is a priori that differences of opinion arising within it can be satisfactorily explained only in terms of ‘divergent input’, that is, the disputants' working on the basis of different information (and hence guilty of ignorance or error, depending on the status of that information), or ‘unsuitable conditions’ (resulting in inattention or distraction and so in inferential error, or oversight of data and so on), or ‘malfunction’ (for example, prejudicial assessment of data, upwards or downwards, or dogma, or failings in other categories already listed).” In other words, it is essential to our notion that a statement (of a given discourse) can be true if it is the case that we think that when there is disagreement over whether it is true, this disagreement must ultimately boil down to imperfections with regards to either the information/input disputants have, or the functioning of their cognitive capacities—rather than that this disagreement, for example, reflects that there are no ultimate facts on the ground, one might say.
Wright goes into a lengthy but interesting appendix of chapter 3 that draws on the classic Euthyphro dialogue. Consider a “basic equation” whose instance might be: “For any act x: x is pious if and only if it is loved by the gods.” Or, consider the formal version: “For all S, P: P if and only if (if CS then RS)” where “S” is any agent, “P” ranges over some class of judgments (e.g., perceptual or ethical ones), “RS” expresses S’s appropriate response (e.g., judging that P, having a visual experience of a color), and “CS” expresses that certain optimal conditions with respect to one’s capacity to give that appropriate response are satisfied (e.g., it is light out; the circumstances are such that there are no others that could’ve given S’s judgment in response greater credibility).
Then, Wright characterizes Socrates’ response to the Euthyphro problem as a matter of prioritizing the left-hand side of the biconditional; we can call this “detectivism.” Euthyphro prioritizes the right-hand side; we can call this “projectivism.” I found this a remarkably simple and illuminating way of thinking about realism v anti-realism. In sum, a realist thinks that a fact has explanatory priority over what a appropriate response (e.g., forming a judgment that correctly represents that fact) looks like, whereas an anti-realist thinks that our having these responses rather takes explanatory priority.
In chapter 4, Wright focuses on addressing objections to his proposal of cognitive command as a prerequisite for a predicate to count as a truth predicate in a given discourse. One might insist that it is trivial or there is no way of assessing whether a given discourse exhibits cognitive command or not. For example, why not say that even discourse about whether a joke is funny or not exhibits cognitive command? If this works, then it is not useful to invoke cognitive command in order to spell out what’s minimal to the concept of truth.
Wright’s response to this objection was quite interesting. First, he shows that the burden of proof is on the thinker who insists humor discourse exhibits cognitive command. Intuitively, it does not. Then, he shows that in order for the thinker to argue for this, she must either show that there is a quality of being humorous that holds independently of whatever human activity goes on in relation to it; or else, she must show that disagreements about whether a joke is humorous consist ultimately in faulty input or faulty ways by which our cognitive faculties are functioning (rather than something like differences in taste, something non-cognitive). Wright argues for why either track leads nowhere. In order to pursue the latter track, for example, she endorse that there is a noninferential “intuitionistic” mental faculty for tracking the property of humorousness (akin to perception or a priori intuition).
I don’t know where what I’ve learned so far in engaging with this book might take me. I’ve been thinking about self-knowledge, in particular knowledgeable self-ascriptions of belief, and have been concerned with standards we maintain in order for these judgments to count as knowledge. I get the sense that the realism v anti-realism debate as it applies typically to various discourses cannot apply straightforwardly to this one. There are constraints on our relation to our own beliefs that do no apply to our relation to other things even if they are as diverse as moral properties or mathematical facts. For our beliefs are the bread-and-butter of our own rationality, thought, and ultimately consciousness perhaps. For example, it is perhaps unacceptable to think that it could normally be the case that we have a belief that is impossible for us to know. (I’m not sure at this moment though). Belief typically occupies a role in rationality, so if that were the case, there should be inferences being drawn that we know nothing about. But rationality is unified; we’re responsible for our actions and can be regarded as epistemically virtuous. (In contrast, it is not problematic to say that normally it is possible for us to be incapable of knowing various moral properties or mathematical facts…) I get the sense that this starting point might be misguided, let alone that it is extremely minimal. I’ll sit on it.
November 2, 2008
I liked a fair amount of ideas presented in the book, but the writing style/organization killed it for me a bit. Interesting stuff, though, and worth reading.
Read
August 12, 2010Analytic philosophy in the trenches: impressively gnarly distinction-mongering and subtlety, painted in many more shades than just Scylla and Charybdis.
July 24, 2025
why does the book look like that. anyway fun read! it's like an attempt to get to the starting line for realism-antirealism debates, which of course is impossible without already taking something of a side, though wright is remarkably subtle and non-partisan about it all. difficult but not symbol-mongering. i'm not sure superassertibility makes much sense though
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