Like troth, it is a -th nominalisation of the adjective true (Old English tréowe). The English word truth is derived from Old English tríewþ, tréowþ, trýwþ, Middle English trewþe, cognate to Old High German triuwida, Old Norse tryggð. There are many different questions about the nature of truth which are still the subject of contemporary debates, such as: How do we define truth? Is it even possible to give an informative definition of truth? What things are truthbearers and are therefore capable of being true or false? Are truth and falsehood bivalent, or are there other truth values? What are the criteria of truth that allow us to identify it and to distinguish it from falsehood? What role does truth play in constituting knowledge? And is truth always absolute, or can it be relative to one’s perspective? Definition and etymologyĪn angel carrying the banner of “Truth”, Roslin, Midlothian Various theories and views of truth continue to be debated among scholars, philosophers, and theologians. This is called the correspondence theory of truth. Most commonly, truth is viewed as the correspondence of language or thought to a mind-independent world. 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 of truth itself. Most human activities depend upon the concept, where its nature as a concept is assumed rather than being a subject of discussion these include most of the sciences, law, journalism, and everyday life. The concept of truth is discussed and debated in various contexts, including philosophy, art, theology, and science. Truth is usually held to be the opposite of falsehood. In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, propositions, and declarative sentences. Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality. Tarski suggested a table by which these values could be determined (although he was less sure about whether the same rules could be applied to natural languages).Ī Tarski, ‘The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages’, Logic, Semantics and Metamathe-matics (1956) Truth theory concerns the truth-values of sentence structures in various formal logical languages. Its validity is the process of its validation.Semantic concept formalized by the Polish-American mathematician and logician Alfred Tarski (1902-1983), although other thinkers had previously discussed the idea. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its verification. “Any idea upon which we can ride … any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of our experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, saving labor is true for just so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally.”.The truth is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite assignable reasons: ‘The true’, to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as ‘the right’ is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.”.Pragmatists object to traditional ideas that truth is fixed and absolute- human beings create their own truth- there can be many truths at onceįamous Proponent: William James (1842-1910).If something works, is useful or successful, then it is for all intents and purposes true.Holds that the ideas of true or false relate directly to the usefulness or uselessness of beliefs, propositions or statements.Truth must be discussed in terms of its consequences.Judgements are either completely true or false There is no such thing as shades of truth- nothing can more or less true. Circular logic- X is true because Y is true.Cannot guarantee truth- what if the body of knowledge using to verify the truth of a belief is false?.Instead, the truth of a belief can only consist in its coherence with other beliefs. A belief cannot be true because it corresponds to something which is not a belief.Was a radical idealist- believed that reality was composed of a collection of beliefs.Led to coherence theory through his metaphysical beliefs.Also allows for the possibility that belief accepted as truth now could be rejected in the futureįamous Proponent: Georg Hegel (1770-1831) Allows for different degrees of truth (not simply untrue because it does not match facts).Beliefs or judgements are compared to other beliefs or judgements (not to something unlike a belief or judgement like a measurable fact).

Belief is considered true if it coheres or is consistent with an existing belief or body of knowledge.

Coherence theory of truth