Myśl i prawda. Bradleyowska koncepcja prawdy i jej teoretyczne podstawy

Abstrakt

The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss the theory of truth developed by Francis Herbert Bradley in the context of his logical and metaphysical views. The British idealist’s reflections on truth were not contained in a single work, but are found in many of his works, which makes it somewhat difficult to understand his concepts adequately and, as I show, has led to a misinterpretation of his views. In this paper, I analyze and identify the logical and metaphysical foundations of his theory, focusing mainly on his two most important works: Appearance and Reality – his most significant metaphysical work – and The Principles of Logic – his main work on logic. In order to adequately understand the Oxford idealist’s position that truth is something that concerns the relationship between logical judgment and reality, I examine especially his conception of judgment contained in The Principles of Logic and his conception of reality developed in Appearance and Reality. As early as 1883, in The Principles of Logic, Bradley distinguished between a surfaced grammatical sentence and an implicit logical form of judgment. On this basis, I point out that Bradley’s theory should not be classified – as has not infrequently been attributed to him – as a coherence theory, but that it is in fact an identity theory. I also point out that Bradley’s adversaries, such as Bertrand Russell, have misunderstood his theory.