Epistemic Truth as a Regulative Idea for Assertoric Practice

Abstract This paper outlines a non-reductive epistemic conception of truth, compatible with an inferentialist conception of meaning. According to the non-reductive epistemic conception, truth is a regulative idea. I propose a general way of understanding the notion of “regulative idea”: a concept X is a regulative idea for a social practice P if seven principles (formulated in sections 4-10) apply to X and P. The non-reductive epistemic conception of truth consists of five statements: 1. the concept TRUE presupposes the concept JUSTIFIED ASSERTION; 2. the concept JUSTIFIED ASSERTION presupposes the concept TRUE; 3.“an assertion that p is justified” does not imply “it is true that p”; 4. “it is true that p” does not imply “an assertion that p is justifiable”; 5. TRUE is a regulative idea for assertoric practice. Statement 5 is explained by bringing together the seven general principles about regulativity and applying them to the concept TRUE and assertoric practice.