Redundancy theory of truth

The Redundancy theory of truth is a philosophical theory about the way in which the predicate "is true" functions in such sentences as "Snow is white is true".

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In its simplest version, the redundancy theory holds that "Snow is white is true" says no more than does "Snow is white". Nothing is added to the sentence by adding the suffix is true. From this, it is usually taken that the predicate is true is empty, adding nothing to the sentence. That is, that the predicate does not represent or attribute any particular property to its subject.

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The fact that we have the predicate "is true" in our language is, on this account, of historical but not of logical interest. Since other predicates name properties, we wrongly assume that is true does as well. But the redundancy theory holds that a closer analysis shows that this is not the case.

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The theory is commonly attributed to Frank P. Ramsey, in Facts and Propositions. There is however some debate as to the correct interpretation of Ramsey http://www.tcnj.edu/~lemorvan/ramsey_web.pdf.

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