Truth
Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defined truth in 2005 as the property of being in accord with fact or reality. Everyday language typically applies this term to things that aim to represent reality, such as beliefs, propositions, and declarative sentences. True statements are usually held to be the opposite of false statements. The concept of truth is discussed and debated in various contexts including philosophy, art, theology, law, and science. Most human activities depend upon the concept where its nature is assumed rather than being a subject of discussion. Some philosophers view the concept of truth as basic and unable to be explained in any terms that are more easily understood than the concept itself. Most commonly, truth is viewed as the correspondence of language or thought to a mind-independent world. This view is called the correspondence theory of truth. Various theories and views of truth continue to be debated among scholars, philosophers, and theologians. There are many different questions about the nature of truth which are still the subject of contemporary debates. These include the question of defining truth whether it is even possible to give an informative definition of truth. Other questions involve identifying things as truthbearers capable of being true or false. Scholars also debate if truth and falsehood are bivalent or if there are other truth values. Identifying the criteria of truth allows people to distinguish it from falsehood. Questions remain regarding the role that truth plays in constituting knowledge. Philosophers argue if truth is always absolute or if it can be relative to one's perspective.
Philosophers discuss which entities serve as truthbearers including sentences propositions and beliefs. Sentences are concrete linguistic entities composed of strings of words like It's raining in Nairobi. Their public nature and clear structure can aid philosophical analysis of truth-related phenomena. However it is not always possible to establish a straightforward relation between a sentence and its truth value since its meaning can be context-dependent. A sentence may be true under one interpretation and false under another. Another difficulty is that sentences belong to specific languages with the danger of limiting philosophical analysis to language-specific features. Propositions are typically understood as abstract entities that serve as the meanings of declarative sentences. They mitigate the difficulties of context dependence ambiguity and language specificity. Their abstract nature can make philosophical discussions less tangible and there is disagreement about the existence of abstract objects. Beliefs and related mental states are concrete psychological entities taking the form of subjective attitudes about what is the case. They establish a direct link between truth and cognition but are difficult to study because of their private nature. Monists argue that there is only a single kind of truthbearer while pluralists accept different kinds. Some identify one kind as primary explaining the truth values of secondary truthbearers in terms of the primary one. Truthmakers are real entities whose existence makes a truthbearer true establishing a link between language or thought and the world. An orange carrot could act as a truthmaker of the sentence the carrot is orange. Truthmakers are often treated as sufficient conditions: the existence of a truthmaker is enough for the sentence to be true independent of other factors.
The correspondence theory asserts that a belief or statement is true if it corresponds to facts. This view emphasizes the relation between thought or language and reality arguing that truth matches how things are. It is one of the oldest and most influential theories of truth. Correspondence theorists distinguish truthbearers from the reality they represent but the precise relation between the two is disputed. Fact-based theories hold that a statement expresses a fact and it is true if the fact obtains. One version asserts a one-to-one correlation between truths and facts while another understands correspondence more broadly as a structural similarity. Truthmaker theory stresses that truth depends on reality and analyzes the relation between truths and their truthmakers. Its most comprehensive form is truthmaker maximalism which asserts that every truth has a truthmaker. Atomic truthmaker theory limits this view to simple statements and analyzes the truth of complex statements in terms of simpler ones. A key challenge is to clarify how exactly truths relate to facts. Critics hold that the correspondence theory is uninformative or circular because it fails to explain what correspondence means. Coherence theory understands truth as a relation between beliefs rather than between a belief and a fact. It asserts that a belief is true if it is part of a coherent web of beliefs. Coherence theorists typically stress that beliefs do not occur in isolation but are part of a broader perspective on reality.
Empirical truths require sensory experience such as observing that water boils at 100°C. Logical truths can be known through pure reasoning such as a proof of a mathematical theorem. A sentence is synthetic if its truth depends on what the world is like such as Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth. A sentence is analytic if its truth depends only on the meanings of the terms as in all bachelors are unmarried. Logical truths are a special class of analytic truths whose truth is determined by the logical form of statements regardless of concrete contents. Most logicians consider all contradictions to be false to avoid absurdity. One exception is the school of dialetheism which holds that some contradictions are true arguing that reality itself can be contradictory. Evaluative truths are about what is good or bad in some sense including ethical truths which assess the moral status of principles actions and persons. Aesthetic truths are about the appeal of entities including judgments about what is beautiful and about the meanings of artworks. Subjective truths depend on individual attitudes or personal preferences meaning that a statement may be true from the perspective of one person and false from another. They contrast with objective truths which are verifiable and hold regardless of individual attitudes or perspectives.
Aristotle stated in his Metaphysics that to say of what is that it is not or of what is not that it is false while to say of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not is true. David Marion noted this in 2005 within the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Plato's dialogues contain similar statements such as Cratylus 385b2 and Sophist 263b. Some Greek philosophers maintained that truth was either not accessible to mortals or of greatly limited accessibility forming early philosophical skepticism. Among these were Xenophanes Democritus and Pyrrho the founder of Pyrrhonism who argued that there was no criterion of truth. The Epicureans believed that all sense perceptions were true and that errors arise in how we judge those perceptions. The Stoics conceived truth as accessible from impressions via cognitive grasping. Avicenna defined truth in his work The Book of Healing Book I Chapter 8 as conformity to reality. Thomas Aquinas reevaluated Avicenna Augustine and Aristotle stating in his Disputed Questions on Truth that truth is founded on being. Immanuel Kant endorsed a definition of truth along the lines of the correspondence theory in his Critique of Pure Reason published in 1781. He denied that this correspondence definition provides us with a test or criterion to establish which judgements are true.
Empirical scientists formulate testable hypotheses to explain phenomena relying on observation and experimentation to collect objective data. They compare results with initial hypotheses to confirm or disconfirm theories. Natural sciences engage in quantitative research employing precise numerical measurements often to arrive at exact general laws that can predict future outcomes. Qualitative research is more common in social sciences where researchers examine cultural phenomena social processes and subjective experiences. Formal sciences demonstrate the truth of theories through more abstract methods usually based on deductive reasoning. Mathematicians employ several proof methods to establish theorems such as direct proof proof by contradiction and mathematical induction. Formal logic studies the nature of deductive reasoning and the rules of inference it follows. A key principle in this field is that deductive inferences preserve truth if all premises are true then the conclusion cannot be false. Logicians develop formal systems abstract frameworks that precisely encode forms of deductive reasoning and examine which truths can and cannot be proven within a given formal system. Truth tables express how the truth values of compound propositions depend on those of their constituent propositions. Truth plays a central role in law as a guiding norm to which legal processes and decisions should align. Because of difficulties in reconstructing what happened this field relies on various standards of proof and evidentiary rules to ascertain pertinent facts.
Continue Browsing
Common questions
What is the definition of truth according to Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary in 2005?
Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defined truth in 2005 as the property of being in accord with fact or reality. This definition applies everyday language to things that aim to represent reality such as beliefs propositions and declarative sentences.
Who are the philosophers that discussed truthbearers including sentences propositions and beliefs?
Philosophers discuss which entities serve as truthbearers including sentences propositions and beliefs. Sentences are concrete linguistic entities composed of strings of words while propositions are abstract entities that serve as meanings of declarative sentences. Beliefs and related mental states are concrete psychological entities taking the form of subjective attitudes about what is the case.
Which theory asserts that a belief or statement is true if it corresponds to facts?
The correspondence theory asserts that a belief or statement is true if it corresponds to facts. This view emphasizes the relation between thought or language and reality arguing that truth matches how things are. It is one of the oldest and most influential theories of truth.
When did Immanuel Kant publish his Critique of Pure Reason endorsing a definition of truth along the lines of the correspondence theory?
Immanuel Kant endorsed a definition of truth along the lines of the correspondence theory in his Critique of Pure Reason published in 1781. He denied that this correspondence definition provides us with a test or criterion to establish which judgements are true.
What is the difference between empirical truths and logical truths according to the script text?
Empirical truths require sensory experience such as observing that water boils at 100°C. Logical truths can be known through pure reasoning such as a proof of a mathematical theorem and their truth is determined by the logical form of statements regardless of concrete contents.