In philosophy and

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epis ...

, epistemic theories of truth are attempts to analyze the

notion Notion or Notions may refer to: Software * Notion (music software), a music composition and performance program * Notion (productivity software), a note-taking and project-management program from Notion Labs Inc. * Notion (window manager), the s ...

truth Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belie ...

in terms of epistemic notions such as

knowledge Knowledge can be defined as Descriptive knowledge, awareness of facts or as Procedural knowledge, practical skills, and may also refer to Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called pro ...

belief A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take ...

, acceptance,

verification Verify or verification may refer to: General * Verification and validation, in engineering or quality management systems, is the act of reviewing, inspecting or testing, in order to establish and document that a product, service or system meets ...

, justification, and perspective. A variety of such conceptions can be classified into

verificationist Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine which maintains that only statements that are empirically verifiable (i.e. verifiable through the senses) are cognit ...

theories, perspectivist or

relativist Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assessed. Ther ...

theories, and

pragmatic Pragmatism is a philosophical movement. Pragmatism or pragmatic may also refer to: *Pragmaticism, Charles Sanders Peirce's post-1905 branch of philosophy *Pragmatics, a subfield of linguistics and semiotics *''Pragmatics'', an academic journal in ...

theories.

Verificationism Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine which maintains that only statements that are empirically verifiable (i.e. verifiable through the senses) are cogniti ...

is based on verifying

proposition In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...

s. The distinctive claim of verificationism is that the result of such verifications is, by definition, truth. That is, truth is reducible to this process of

. According to perspectivism and

relativism Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assessed. Ther ...

, a

is only true relative to a particular perspective. Roughly, a proposition is true relative to a perspective

if and only if In logic and related fields such as mathematics and philosophy, "if and only if" (shortened as "iff") is a biconditional logical connective between statements, where either both statements are true or both are false. The connective is b ...

it is accepted, endorsed, or legitimated by that perspective. Many authors writing on the topic of the notion of truth advocate or endorse combinations of the above positions. Each of these epistemic conceptions of truth can be subjected to various criticisms. Some criticisms apply across the board, while others are more specific.

Verificationist views

The two main kinds of verification philosophies are positivism and a-priorism. In positivism, a proposition is meaningful, and thus capable of being true or false, if and only if it is verifiable by sensory

experience Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these conscious processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involv ...

s. A-priorism, often used in the domains of

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...

and mathematics, holds a proposition true if and only if ''a priori'' reasoning can verify it. In the related certainty theory, associated with Descartes and

Spinoza Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, ...

, a proposition is true if and only if it is known with

certainty Certainty (also known as epistemic certainty or objective certainty) is the epistemic property of beliefs which a person has no rational grounds for doubting. One standard way of defining epistemic certainty is that a belief is certain if and o ...

. Logical positivism attempts to combine positivism with a version of a-priorism. Another theory of truth which is related to a-priorism is the concept-containment theory of truth. The concept-containment theory of truth is the view that a proposition is true if and only if the concept of the predicate of the proposition is "contained in" the concept of the subject. For example, the proposition that bachelors are unmarried men is true, on this view, because the concept of the predicate (unmarried men) is contained in the concept of the subject (bachelor). A contemporary reading of the concept-containment theory of truth is to say that every true proposition is an analytically true proposition.

Perspectivist views

According to perspectivism and

, a proposition is only true relative to a particular perspective. The Sophists' relativist and

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his car ...

's philosophy are some of the most famous examples of such perspectivism. There are three main versions of perspectivism, and some interesting subdivisions:

Individualist perspectivism

According to individualist perspectivism (also individual perspectivism) perspectives are the points of view of particular individual persons. So, a proposition is true for a person if and only if it is accepted or believed by that person (i.e., "true for me").

Collectivist perspectivism

In collectivist perspectivism, perspectives are understood as collective (

cultures Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tylo ...

-dependent). There are, roughly, three versions of collectivism:

Consensus

A perspective is, roughly, the broad opinions, and perhaps norms and practices, of a

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...

of people, perhaps all having some special feature in common. So, a proposition is true (for a community C) if, and only if, there is a consensus amongst the members of C for believing it.

Power

In the power-oriented view, a perspective is a

enforced by

power Power most often refers to: * Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work" ** Engine power, the power put out by an engine ** Electric power * Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events ** Abusive power Power may a ...

, authority, military might, privilege, etc. So, a proposition is true if it "makes us powerful" or is "produced by power", thus the slogan "truth is power". This view of truth as a political stake may be loosely associated with

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th ce ...

or with Michel Foucault's specific analysis of historical and political discourse, as well as with some

social constructivist Social constructivism is a sociological theory of knowledge according to which human development is socially situated and knowledge is constructed through interaction with others. Like social constructionism, social constructivism states th ...

s. However, the

Nazi mysticism The association of Nazism with occultism occurs in a wide range of theories, speculation, and research into the origins of Nazism and into Nazism's possible relationship with various occult traditions. Such ideas have flourished as a part of popu ...

of a communitarian " blood community" conception radically differs from Heidegger or Foucault's criticism of the notion of the individual or collective subject.

Marxist

Truth-generating perspectives are collective and opposed to, or engaged in struggle against, power and authority. For example, the collective perspective of the " proletariat". So, proposition is true if it is the "product of political struggle" for the "

emancipation Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranch ...

of the workers" (

Theodor Adorno Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor. List of people with the given name Theodor * Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher * Theodor Aman, Romanian painter * Theodor Blue ...

). This view is again associated with some

s (e.g., feminist

epistemologists Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

Transcendental perspectivism

On this conception, a truth-conferring perspective is something transcendental, and outside immediate human reach. The idea is that there is a transcendental or ideal epistemic perspective and truth is, roughly, what is accepted or recognized-as-true from that ideal perspective. There are two subvarieties of

transcendental perspectivism Transcendental perspectivism (also transcendental perspectivalism) is a hybrid philosophy developed by German-born philosopher, Werner Krieglstein. A blending of Friedrich Nietzsche's perspectivism and the utopian ideals of the transcendentalism ...

Coherentism

The ideal epistemic perspective is the set of "maximally

coherent Coherence, coherency, or coherent may refer to the following: Physics * Coherence (physics), an ideal property of waves that enables stationary (i.e. temporally and spatially constant) interference * Coherence (units of measurement), a deri ...

and

consistent In classical deductive logic, a consistent theory is one that does not lead to a logical contradiction. The lack of contradiction can be defined in either semantic or syntactic terms. The semantic definition states that a theory is consistent ...

propositions". A proposition is true if and only if it is a member of this maximally coherent and consistent set of propositions (associated with several

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

and

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

19th century

idealist In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to id ...

s).

Theological perspectivism

Theological perspectivism is the idea that a proposition is true if and only if it agrees with the thoughts of

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

.R.T. te Velde, ''The Doctrine of God in Reformed Orthodoxy, Karl Barth, and the Utrecht School: A Study in Method and Content'', BRILL, 2013, p. 629.

Pragmatic views

Although the

pragmatic theory of truth A pragmatic theory of truth is a theory of truth within the philosophies of pragmatism and pragmaticism. Pragmatic theories of truth were first posited by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. The common features of these theories ...

is not strictly classifiable as an epistemic theory of truth, it does bear a relationship to theories of truth that are based on concepts of inquiry and knowledge. The ideal epistemic perspective is that of "completed science", which will appear in the (temporal) "limit of scientific inquiry". A proposition is true if and only if, in the long run it will come to be accepted by a group of inquirers using scientific rational inquiry. This can also be modalized: a proposition is true if, and only if, in the long run it would come to be accepted by a group of inquirers, if they were to use scientific rational inquiry. This view is thus a modification of the consensus view. The consensus need to satisfy certain constraints in order for the accepted propositions to be true. For example, the methods used must be those of scientific inquiry ( criticism, observation, reproducibility, etc.). This "modification" of the consensus view is an appeal to the correspondence theory of truth, which is opposed to the consensus theory of truth. Long-run scientific pragmatism was defended by

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...

. A variant of this viewpoint is associated with Jürgen Habermas, though he later abandoned it.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Epistemic Theories Of Truth Theories of truth