What I Think I Think

I know I think that there are truths about what's good and bad, beautiful and ugly, just and unjust. What I don't know is why I really think this. I think I think it simply because I think truth functions as a kind of regulative ideal in all of these different domains, that without it you simply couldn't take seriously our ordinary practices of making and critically evaluating claims made within these different domains. Of course, there are a whole host of different sorts of philosophical attempts to make sense of how we might take these ordinary practices seriously without reserving a role for truth (or, more precisely: reserving a role for a univocal concept of truth that is the same across these different domains). But I guess I think all of these philosophical attempts fail. And, furthermore, I guess I think they're all bound to fail, that only a univocal concept of truth could occupy this function. It would be good to see someone raise precisely this question and really get a handle on the different sorts of responses that philosophers have to it. I'm going to try to raise in the paper I'm working on, but it remains to be seen whether I succeed.