Editing Deflationary theory of truth (section)

==Objections to deflationism==
One of the main objections to deflationary theories of all flavors was formulated by Jackson, Oppy and Smith in 1994 (following Kirkham 1992). According to the objection, if deflationism is interpreted as a ''sentential'' theory (that is, one where truth is predicated of sentences on the left hand side of the biconditionals such as (T) above), then deflationism is false; on the other hand, if it is interpreted as a ''propositional'' theory, then it is trivial. Examining another simple instance of the standard equivalence schema:

:''Grass is green'' is true if and only if grass is green.

the objection is just that, if the italicized words are taken as a ''sentence'', then it is false, because something more is required for the whole statement to be true than merely the fact that "grass is green" is true. It is also necessary that the sentence "grass is green" means that grass is green and this further ''linguistic'' fact is not dealt with in the equivalence schema.

However, if we now assume that ''grass is green'' on the left-hand side refers to a proposition, then the theory seems trivial since grass is green is defined as true if and only if grass is green. Note that the triviality involved here is not caused by the concept of truth but by that of ''proposition''.  In any case, simply accepting the triviality of the propositional version implies that, at least within the Deflationary Theory of Truth, there can be no explanation of the connection between sentences and the things that they express; i.e., propositions.

===Normativity of assertions===
[[Michael Dummett]], among others, has argued that deflationism cannot account for the fact that truth should be a normative goal of assertion. The idea is that truth plays a central role in the activity of stating facts. The deflationist response is that the assertion that truth is a norm of assertion can be stated only in the form of the following infinite conjunction:

<blockquote>One should assert the proposition that grass is green only if grass is green and one should assert the proposition that lemons are yellow only if lemons are yellow and one should assert the proposition that a square circle is impossible only if a squared circle is impossible and...</blockquote>

This, in turn, can be reformulated as:

:For all propositions P, speakers should assert the propositions that P only if the proposition that P is true.

It may be the case that we use the truth-predicate to express this norm, not because it has anything to do with the nature of truth in some inflationary sense, but because it is a convenient way of expressing this otherwise inexpressible generalization.