Dąmbska’s precisification of absolute truth through the concept of language

Abstract

Izydora Dąmbska has argued that since the concept of language is constructed within a language, the concept of truth cannot be exhausted by a choice between the different theories of truth, i.e., correspondence, coherence, or pragmatic. The aim of this paper is to show how Dąmbska’s distinction between the concept and property of truth gives rise to an absolute notion of truth. To achieve this aim, I begin in Section C with a brief history of the problem of truth in the Lvov-Warsaw School. In Section G, I turn to a discussion of the women philosophers in the Lvov-Warsaw School, specifically Kokoszyńska and Dąmbska, who offered novel analyses of the nature of truth. This section permits me to turn in Section J to Dąmbska’s concept of language and how that concept paves the way for a clear distinction between the concept and property of truth. Given that Dąmbska’s work does this, we see relatively immediately how an absolute notion of truth may arise from that distinction and how she carries on the tradition of defending truth against relativistic encroachment.