Truth as a cultural value

Abstract

In this commentary, I offer an extended evaluation of the strategy for thinking about truth’s nature that Sher proposes. This strategy—which I call the ‘value-first strategy’—has it that we should first observe that truth is an intrinsic human value and then develop an account of truth’s nature on the basis of this observation. I begin by arguing that truth is best described as a cultural, rather than a human, value. I then argue that because truth is a cultural value, the value-first strategy compels us to seriously consider some novel ideas about truth’s nature that are respectively grounded in discussions about truth pluralism and some remarks by Alfred Tarski.