Title: Alethic Pluralism and the Meaning of “True”

Abstract: Alethic pluralism is the view that there are many ways for truth-bearers to be true since different properties realise truth in different domains. Thus, especially in its strong version, pluralism amounts to the claim that the notion of truth we ordinarily employ is actually directly linked with a plurality of realizer properties. At the same time, this conceptual unity is normally taken to be mirrored at the linguistic level by the existence of a single truth predicate “True”, which must then also be characterised in plural terms. However, although much has been said about the relation between the concept of truth and its realizers, comparatively little attention has been devoted to the meaning of our ordinary predicate “True” and to model the plurality allegedly appearing in it.  In fact, if the concept of truth is realized by different properties in different domain, we should expect that different properties will also be relevant for different truth ascriptions (i.e. for different uses of the term “True”). In this paper I will offer a detailed discussion of various ways of modelling the alleged plurality in the meaning of “True”. First, I will consider and discard some constant plural semantic accounts, showing that “True” is importantly variable in meaning. Thene, I will discuss and also criticise some options for a context-sensitive semantic analysis of this predicate, showing that “True” is actually insensitive to contexts, standardly conceived. Finally, I will conclude this paper by arguing the “True”, within a strong pluralist picture, is actually polysemous.