This text looks at the comparison objection against the correspondence theory of truth. The objections have usually been a key motivation for abandoning truth as correspondence and/or metaphysical realism but it has some problems, usually not accounted for. These problems are, to some extent, dealt with by the pragmatists tradition and I take inspiration from these writers to develop a new version of the objection. The argument in the text is as follows: There exist many, equally real, truth-like concepts. One reason to abandon one truth-like concept, in favour of another, is that the concept does not meet “the requirement of justified use”. The correspondence theory of truth cannot meet this requirement because it is not possible to compare our propositions with a mind-independent reality. The correspondence theory should therefore be abandoned in favour of a truth-like concept that does meet this requirement.The argument in the text does not target all versions of the correspondence theory but only those that combine it with metaphysical realism. The conclusion of the text is that the correspondence theory of truth is incompatible with metaphysical realism and that, at least, one of these positions must be rejected.
John Ljungblahd (Wed,) studied this question.