A theory of truth has (as Tarski noted) to provide not only for occurrences of true in sentences in which what is being spoken of as true is specified, but also for occurrences in sentences in which no specification is given (e.g. The policeman's statement was true). According both to the speech-act theory, I presume, and to Ramsey's theory, at least part of what the utterer of such a sentence is doing is to assert whatever it was that the policeman stated. But the utterer may not56

Logic and Conversation

know what that statement was; he may think that the policeman's statement was true because policemen always speak the truth, or that that policeman always speaks the truth, or that policeman in those circumstances could not but have spoken the truth. Now assertion presumably involves committing oneself, and while it is possible to commit oneself to a statement which one has not identified (I could commit myself to the contents of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, without knowing what they say), I do not think I should be properly regarded as having committed myself to the content of the policeman's statement, merely in virtue of having said that it was true. When to my surprise I learn that the policeman actually said, Monkeys can talk, I say (perhaps), Well, I was wrong, not I withdraw that, or