Britannica Sources used in this answer

Why do deflationists think the word “true” is useful for making broad generalizations?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Deflationists argue that the truth predicate is a highly useful linguistic device for making generalizations over large numbers of assertions, even if the term itself is essentially redundant.1

Without this device, expressing agreement with a series of statements—such as everything Winston Churchill ever said—would require an exhaustive and impractical repetition of every individual assertion he made. Instead, the phrase "Everything Churchill said was true" allows for an economical summary of those claims.1

Similarly, deflationists view broad claims involving truth as shorthand for an indefinitely large number of specific instances. For example, the statement "Science is useful because what it says is true" serves as a concise way to simultaneously assert a vast collection of individual claims, such as "Science is useful because it says that cholera is caused by a bacterium, and it is". By using "true" in this way, speakers can efficiently communicate complex positions without needing to list every underlying proposition.1