Definition and etymology
The English word '' truth'' is derived fromMajor theories
The question of what is a proper basis for deciding how words, symbols, ideas and beliefs may properly be considered true, whether by a single person or an entire society, is dealt with by the five most prevalent substantive theories of truth listed below. Each presents perspectives that are widely shared by published scholars. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Supp., "Truth", auth: Michael Williams, pp. 572–73 (Macmillan, 1996) Theories other than the most prevalent substantive theories are also discussed. More recently developed " deflationary" or "minimalist" theories of truth have emerged as possible alternatives to the most prevalent substantive theories. Minimalist reasoning centres around the notion that the application of a term like ''true'' to a statement does not assert anything significant about it, for instance, anything about its ''nature''. Minimalist reasoning realises ''truth'' as a label utilised in general discourse to express agreement, to stress claims, or to form general assumptions. According to a survey of professional philosophers and others on their philosophical views which was carried out in November 2009 (taken by 3226 respondents, including 1803 philosophy faculty members and/or PhDs and 829 philosophy graduate students) 45% of respondents accept or lean towards correspondence theories, 21% accept or lean towards deflationary theories and 14% epistemic theories.Substantive
Correspondence
Correspondence theories emphasize that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs. This type of theory stresses a relationship between thoughts or statements on one hand, and things or objects on the other. It is a traditional model tracing its origins toCoherence
For coherence theories in general, truth requires a proper fit of elements within a whole system. Very often, though, coherence is taken to imply something more than simple logical consistency; often there is a demand that the propositions in a coherent system lend mutual inferential support to each other. So, for example, the completeness and comprehensiveness of the underlying set of concepts is a critical factor in judging the validity and usefulness of a coherent system. A pervasive tenet of coherence theories is the idea that truth is primarily a property of whole systems of propositions, and can be ascribed to individual propositions only according to their coherence with the whole. Among the assortment of perspectives commonly regarded as coherence theory, theorists differ on the question of whether coherence entails many possible true systems of thought or only a single absolute system. Some variants of coherence theory are claimed to describe the essential and intrinsic properties of formal systems in logic and mathematics. However, formal reasoners are content to contemplate axiomatically independent and sometimes mutually contradictory systems side by side, for example, the various alternative geometries. On the whole, coherence theories have been rejected for lacking justification in their application to other areas of truth, especially with respect to assertions about the natural world, empirical data in general, assertions about practical matters of psychology and society, especially when used without support from the other major theories of truth. Coherence theories distinguish the thought of rationalist philosophers, particularly of Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, along with the British philosopherPragmatic
The three most influential forms of the ''pragmatic theory of truth'' were introduced around the turn of the 20th century by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Although there are wide differences in viewpoint among these and other proponents of pragmatic theory, they hold in common that truth is verified and confirmed by the results of putting one's concepts into practice. Peirce defines truth as follows: "Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth."Peirce, C.S. (1901), "Truth and Falsity and Error" (in part), pp. 716–20 in James Mark Baldwin, ed., ''Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology'', v. 2. Peirce's section is entitled "''Logical''", beginning on p. 718, column 1, and ending on p. 720 with the initials "(C.S.P.)", see Google BookConstructivist
Consensus
Consensus theory holds that truth is whatever is agreed upon, or in some versions, might come to be agreed upon, by some specified group. Such a group might include all human beings, or a subset thereof consisting of more than one person. Among the current advocates of consensus theory as a useful accounting of the concept of "truth" is the philosopher Jürgen Habermas. Habermas maintains that truth is what would be agreed upon in anMinimalist
Deflationary
Modern developments in the field of philosophy have resulted in the rise of a new thesis: that the term ''truth'' does not denote a real property of sentences or propositions. This thesis is in part a response to the common use of ''truth predicates'' (e.g., that some particular thing "...is true") which was particularly prevalent in philosophical discourse on truth in the first half of the 20th century. From this point of view, to assert that "'2 + 2 = 4' is true" is logically equivalent to asserting that "2 + 2 = 4", and the phrase "is true" is completely dispensable in this and every other context. In common parlance, truth predicates are not commonly heard, and it would be interpreted as an unusual occurrence were someone to utilise a truth predicate in an everyday conversation when asserting that something is true. Newer perspectives that take this discrepancy into account and work with sentence structures that are actually employed in common discourse can be broadly described: * as ''deflationary'' theories of truth, since they attempt to deflate the presumed importance of the words "true" or ''truth'', * as ''disquotational'' theories, to draw attention to the disappearance of the quotation marks in cases like the above example, or * as ''minimalist'' theories of truth. Whichever term is used, deflationary theories can be said to hold in common that " e predicate 'true' is an expressive convenience, not the name of a property requiring deep analysis." Once we have identified the truth predicate's formal features and utility, deflationists argue, we have said all there is to be said about truth. Among the theoretical concerns of these views is to explain away those special cases where it ''does'' appear that the concept of truth has peculiar and interesting properties. (See, e.g.,Performative
Attributed to P. F. Strawson is the performative theory of truth which holds that to say "'Snow is white' is true" is to perform the speech act of signaling one's agreement with the claim that snow is white (much like nodding one's head in agreement). The idea that some statements are more actions than communicative statements is not as odd as it may seem. For example, when a wedding couple says "I do" at the appropriate time in a wedding, they are performing the act of taking the other to be their lawful wedded spouse. They are not ''describing'' themselves as taking the other, but actually ''doing'' so (perhaps the most thorough analysis of such "illocutionary acts" is J. L. Austin, " How to Do Things With Words"). Strawson holds that a similar analysis is applicable to all speech acts, not just illocutionary ones: "To say a statement is true is not to make a statement about a statement, but rather to perform the act of agreeing with, accepting, or endorsing a statement. When one says 'It's true that it's raining,' one asserts no more than 'It's raining.' The function ofRedundancy and related
According to the redundancy theory of truth, asserting that a statement is true is completely equivalent to asserting the statement itself. For example, making the assertion that " 'Snow is white' is true" is equivalent to asserting "Snow is white". Redundancy theorists infer from this premise that truth is a redundant concept; that is, it is merely a word that is traditionally used in conversation or writing, generally for emphasis, but not a word that actually equates to anything in reality. This theory is commonly attributed to Frank P. Ramsey, who held that the use of words like ''fact'' and ''truth'' was nothing but a roundabout way of asserting a proposition, and that treating these words as separate problems in isolation from judgment was merely a "linguistic muddle". A variant of redundancy theory is the disquotational theory which uses a modified form of Tarski'sPhilosophical skepticism
Philosophical skepticism is generally any questioning attitude or doubt towards one or more items of knowledge orPluralist
Several of the major theories of truth hold that there is a particular property the having of which makes a belief or proposition true. Pluralist theories of truth assert that there may be more than one property that makes propositions true: ethical propositions might be true by virtue of coherence. Propositions about the physical world might be true by corresponding to the objects and properties they are about. Some of the pragmatic theories, such as those byFormal theories
Logic
Logic is concerned with the patterns in reason that can help tell if a proposition is true or not. Logicians use formal languages to express the truths which they are concerned with, and as such there is only truth under someMathematics
There are two main approaches to truth in mathematics. They are the '' model theory of truth'' and the '' proof theory of truth''. Historically, with the nineteenth century development ofTarski's semantics
The semantic theory of truth has as its general case for a given language: :'P' is true if and only if P where 'P' refers to the sentence (the sentence's name), and P is just the sentence itself.Kripke's semantics
Kripke's theory of truth (named after Saul Kripke) contends that a natural language can in fact contain its own truth predicate without giving rise to contradiction. He showed how to construct one as follows: * Beginning with a subset of sentences of a natural language that contains no occurrences of the expression "is true" (or "is false"). So ''The barn is big'' is included in the subset, but not "''The barn is big'' is true", nor problematic sentences such as "''This sentence'' is false". * Defining truth just for the sentences in that subset. * Extending the definition of truth to include sentences that predicate truth or falsity of one of the original subset of sentences. So "''The barn is big'' is true" is now included, but not either "''This sentence'' is false" nor "Folk beliefs
TheNotable views
Ancient Greek philosophy
Socrates',..Aristotle sounds much more like a genuine correspondence theorist in the ''Categories'' (12b11, 14b14), where he talks of "underlying things" that make statements true and implies that these "things" (pragmata) are logically structured situations or facts (viz., his sitting, his not sitting). Most influential is his claim in ''De Interpretatione'' (16a3) that thoughts are "likenesses" (homoiosis) of things. Although he nowhere defines truth in terms of a thought's likeness to a thing or fact, it is clear that such a definition would fit well into his overall philosophy of mind. ..ref name=StanfordCorr/>Similar statements can also be found in Plato's dialogues ('' Cratylus'' 385b2, '' 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
Medieval philosophy
Avicenna (980–1037)
In early Islamic philosophy, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) defined truth in his work Kitab Al-Shifa '' The Book of Healing'', Book I, Chapter 8, as: Avicenna elaborated on his definition of truth later in Book VIII, Chapter 6: However, this definition is merely a rendering of the medieval Latin translation of the work by Simone van Riet. A modern translation of the original Arabic text states:Aquinas (1225–1274)
Reevaluating Avicenna, and also Augustine and Aristotle,Changing concepts of truth in the Middle Ages
Modern philosophy
Kant (1724–1804)
..Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its object. In consequence of this mere nominal definition, my cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object. Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only ''by cognizing it''. Hence my cognition is supposed to confirm itself, which is far short of being sufficient for truth. For since the object is outside me, the cognition in me, all I can ever pass judgement on is whether my cognition of the object agrees with my cognition of the object. The ancients called such a circle in explanation a ''diallelon''. And actually the logicians were always reproached with this mistake by the sceptics, who observed that with this definition of truth it is just as when someone makes a statement before a court and in doing so appeals to a witness with whom no one is acquainted, but who wants to establish his credibility by maintaining that the one who called him as witness is an honest man. The accusation was grounded, too. Only the solution of the indicated problem is impossible without qualification and for every man. ..ref name = "Kant-1801">Kant, Immanuel (1801), ''The Jäsche Logic'', in ''Lectures on Logic''. Translated and edited by J. Michael Young (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 557–58.This passage makes use of his distinction between nominal and real definitions. A nominal definition explains the meaning of a linguistic expression. A real definition describes the essence of certain
Hegel (1770–1831)
Georg Hegel distanced his philosophy from psychology by presenting truth as being an external self-moving object instead of being related to inner, subjective thoughts. Hegel's truth is analogous to theSchopenhauer (1788–1860)
For Arthur Schopenhauer, a judgment is a combination or separation of two or moreKierkegaard (1813–1855)
When Søren Kierkegaard, as his character ''Johannes Climacus'', ends his writings: ''My thesis was, subjectivity, heartfelt is the truth'', he does not advocate for subjectivism in its extreme form (the theory that something is true simply because one believes it to be so), but rather that the objective approach to matters of personal truth cannot shed any light upon that which is most essential to a person's life. Objective truths are concerned with the facts of a person's being, while subjective truths are concerned with a person's way of being. Kierkegaard agrees that objective truths for the study of subjects like mathematics, science, and history are relevant and necessary, but argues that objective truths do not shed any light on a person's inner relationship to existence. At best, these truths can only provide a severely narrowed perspective that has little to do with one's actual experience of life. While objective truths are final and static, subjective truths are continuing and dynamic. The truth of one's existence is a living, inward, and subjective experience that is always in the process of becoming. The values, morals, and spiritual approaches a person adopts, while not denying the existence of objective truths of those beliefs, can only become truly known when they have been inwardly appropriated through subjective experience. Thus, Kierkegaard criticizes all systematic philosophies which attempt to know life or the truth of existence via theories and objective knowledge about reality. As Kierkegaard claims, human truth is something that is continually occurring, and a human being cannot find truth separate from the subjective experience of one's own existing, defined by the values and fundamental essence that consist of one's way of life.Nietzsche (1844–1900)
..Some scholars regard Nietzsche's 1873 unpublished essay, "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" ("Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinn") as a keystone in his thought. In this essay, Nietzsche rejects the idea of universal constants, and claims that what we call "truth" is only "a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms." His view at this time is that arbitrariness completely prevails within human experience: concepts originate via the very artistic transference of nerve stimuli into images; "truth" is nothing more than the invention of fixed conventions for merely practical purposes, especially those of repose, security and consistence. ../blockquote> Separately Nietzsche suggested that an ancient, metaphysical belief in the divinity of Truth lies at the heart of and has served as the foundation for the entire subsequentWestern intellectual tradition The Western canon is the body of high culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly valued in the West; works that have achieved the status of classics. However, not all these works originate in the Western world, and ...: "But you will have gathered what I am getting at, namely, that it is still a metaphysical faith on which our faith in science rests—that even we knowers of today, we godless anti-metaphysicians still take ''our'' fire too, from the flame lit by the thousand-year old faith, the Christian faith which was also Plato's faith, that God is Truth; that Truth is 'Divine'..."
Heidegger (1889–1976)
Other philosophers take this common meaning to be secondary and derivative. According to Martin Heidegger, the original meaning and essence of truth inAncient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...was unconcealment, or the revealing or bringing of what was previously hidden into the open, as indicated by the original Greek term for truth, ''aletheia ''Aletheia'' or Alethia (; grc, ἀλήθεια) is truth or disclosure in philosophy. Originating in Ancient Greek philosophy, the term was later used in the works of 20th-century philosopher Martin Heidegger. Although often translated as " ...''. On this view, the conception of truth as correctness is a later derivation from the concept's original essence, a development Heidegger traces to theLatin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...term '' veritas''.
Whitehead (1861–1947)
Alfred North Whitehead, a British mathematician who became an American philosopher, said: "There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil". The logical progression or connection of this line of thought is to conclude that truth can lie, since half-truths are deceptive and may lead to a false conclusion.
Peirce (1839–1914)
Pragmatists likeC. S. 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 ...take truth to have some manner of essential relation to human practices for inquiring into and discovering truth, with Peirce himself holding that truth is what human inquiry would find out on a matter, if our practice of inquiry were taken as far as it could profitably go: "The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth..."
Nishida (1870–1945)
According toKitaro Nishida was a Japanese moral philosopher, philosopher of mathematics and science, and religious scholar. He was the founder of what has been called the Kyoto School of philosophy. He graduated from the University of Tokyo during the Meiji period in 18 ..., "knowledge of things in the world begins with the differentiation of unitary consciousness into knower and known and ends with self and things becoming one again. Such unification takes form not only in knowing but in the valuing (of truth) that directs knowing, the willing that directs action, and the feeling or emotive reach that directs sensing."
Fromm (1900–1980)
Erich Fromm finds that trying to discuss truth as "absolute truth" is sterile and that emphasis ought to be placed on "optimal truth". He considers truth as stemming from the survival imperative of grasping one's environment physically and intellectually, whereby young children instinctively seek truth so as to orient themselves in "a strange and powerful world". The accuracy of their perceived approximation of the truth will therefore have direct consequences on their ability to deal with their environment. Fromm can be understood to define truth as a functional approximation of reality. His vision of optimal truth is described partly in ''Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics'' (1947), from which excerpts are included below. : the dichotomy between 'absolute = perfect' and 'relative = imperfect' has been superseded in all fields of scientific thought, where "it is generally recognized that there is no absolute truth but nevertheless that there are objectively valid laws and principles". : In that respect, "a scientifically or rationally valid statement means that the power of reason is applied to all the available data of observation without any of them being suppressed or falsified for the sake of the desired result". The history of science is "a history of inadequate and incomplete statements, and every new insight makes possible the recognition of the inadequacies of previous propositions and offers a springboard for creating a more adequate formulation." : As a result "the history of thought is the history of an ever-increasing approximation to the truth. Scientific knowledge is not absolute but optimal; it contains the optimum of truth attainable in a given historical period." Fromm furthermore notes that "different cultures have emphasized various aspects of the truth" and that increasing interaction between cultures allows for these aspects to reconcile and integrate, increasing further the approximation to the truth.
Foucault (1926–1984)
Truth, says Michel Foucault, is problematic when any attempt is made to see truth as an "objective" quality. He prefers not to use the term truth itself but "Regimes of Truth". In his historical investigations he found truth to be something that was itself a part of, or embedded within, a given power structure. Thus Foucault's view shares much in common with the concepts of Nietzsche. Truth for Foucault is also something that shifts through various episteme throughout history.
Baudrillard (1929–2007)
Jean Baudrillard considered truth to be largely simulated, that is pretending to have something, as opposed to dissimulation, pretending to not have something. He took his cue from iconoclasts whom he claims knew that images of God demonstrated that God did not exist.Jean Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan: Michigan University Press, 1994. Baudrillard wrote in "Precession of the Simulacra": ::Thesimulacrum A simulacrum ( plural: simulacra or simulacrums, from Latin '' simulacrum'', which means "likeness, semblance") is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, ...is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. ::—Ecclesiastes Some examples ofsimulacra A simulacrum ( plural: simulacra or simulacrums, from Latin ''simulacrum'', which means "likeness, semblance") is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, u ...that Baudrillard cited were: that prisons simulate the "truth" that society is free; scandals (e.g., Watergate) simulate that corruption is corrected; Disney simulates that the U.S. itself is an adult place. Though such examples seem extreme, such extremity is an important part of Baudrillard's theory. For a less extreme example, movies usually end with the bad being punished, humiliated, or otherwise failing, thus affirming for viewers the concept that the good end happily and the bad unhappily, a narrative which implies that the status quo and established power structures are largely legitimate.
Other contemporary positions
Truthmaker theory Truthmaker theory is "the branch of metaphysics that explores the relationships between what is true and what exists". The basic intuition behind truthmaker theory is that truth depends on being. For example, a perceptual experience of a green t ...is "the branch of metaphysics that explores the relationships between what is true and what exists". It is different from substantive theories of truth in the sense that it doesn't aim at giving a definition of what truth is. Instead, it has the goal of ''determining'' how truth depends on being.
Theological views
Hinduism
InHinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ..., truth is defined as "unchangeable", "that which has no distortion", "that which is beyond distinctions of time, space, and person", "that which pervades the universe in all its constancy". The human body, therefore, is not completely true as it changes with time, for example. There are many references, properties and explanations of truth by Hindu sages that explain varied facets of truth, such as the national motto ofIndia India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...: " Satyameva Jayate" (Truth alone wins), as well as "Satyam muktaye" (Truth liberates), "Satya' is 'Parahit'artham' va'unmanaso yatha'rthatvam' satyam" (Satya is the benevolent use of words and the mind for the welfare of others or in other words responsibilities is truth too), "When one is firmly established in speaking truth, the fruits of action become subservient to him (patanjali yogasutras, sutra number 2.36), "The face of truth is covered by a golden bowl. ''Unveil it, O Pusan (Sun), so that I who have truth as my duty (satyadharma) may see it!''" (Brhadaranyaka V 15 1–4 and the brief IIsa Upanisad 15–18), Truth is superior to silence (Manusmriti The ''Manusmṛiti'' ( sa, मनुस्मृति), also known as the ''Mānava-Dharmaśāstra'' or Laws of Manu, is one of the many legal texts and constitution among the many ' of Hinduism. In ancient India, the sages often wrote the ...), etc. Combined with other words, satya acts as a modifier, like ''ultra'' or ''highest'', or more literally ''truest'', connoting ''purity and excellence''. For example, satyaloka is the "highest heaven" and Satya Yuga is the "golden age" or best of the four cyclical cosmic ages in Hinduism, and so on.
Buddhism
InBuddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ..., particularly in the Mahayana tradition, the notion of truth is often divided into the two truths doctrine, which consists of relative or conventional truth and ultimate truth. The former refers to truth that is based on common understanding among ordinary people and is accepted as a practical basis for communication of higher truths. Ultimate truth necessarily transcends logic in the sphere of ordinary experience, and recognizes such phenomena as illusory. Mādhyamaka philosophy asserts that any doctrine can be analyzed with both divisions of truth. Affirmation and negation belong to relative and absolute truth respectively. Political law is regarded as relative, while religious law is absolute.
Christianity
Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...has asoteriological Soteriology (; el, σωτηρία ' " salvation" from σωτήρ ' "savior, preserver" and λόγος ' "study" or "word") is the study of religious doctrines of salvation. Salvation theory occupies a place of special significance in many reli ...view of truth. According to theBible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...in John 14:6,Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...is quoted as having said "I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me".
See also
* Asha * Confirmation holism * Contextualism * Degree of truth * Disposition *Eclecticism Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories i ...*Epistemic theories of truth In philosophy and epistemology, epistemic theories of truth are attempts to analyze the notion of truth in terms of epistemic notions such as knowledge, belief, acceptance, verification, justification, and perspective. A variety of such conce ...* Imagination * Independence (probability theory) * Invariant (mathematics) *McNamara fallacy The McNamara fallacy (also known as the quantitative fallacy), named for Robert McNamara, the US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, involves making a decision based solely on quantitative observations (or metrics) and ignoring all others. T ...* Normative science * ''On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense ''On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense'' (german: Über Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne, also called ''On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense'' Walter Kaufmann's translation, appearing in ''The Portable Nietzsche'', 1976 edition. ...'' * Perspectivism *Physical symbol system A physical symbol system (also called a formal system) takes physical patterns (symbols), combining them into structures (expressions) and manipulating them (using processes) to produce new expressions. The physical symbol system hypothesis (PSS ...* Public opinion * Relativism * Religious views on truth * Revision theory * Slingshot argument * Subjectivity * Tautology (logic) * Tautology (rhetoric) * Theory of justification * Truth prevails * Truthiness * Unity of the proposition *Verisimilitude In philosophy, verisimilitude (or truthlikeness) is the notion that some propositions are closer to being true than other propositions. The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be clo ...
Other theorists
* Augustine of Hippo *Brand Blanshard Percy Brand Blanshard (; August 27, 1892 – November 19, 1987) was an American philosopher known primarily for his defense of reason and rationalism. A powerful polemicist, by all accounts he comported himself with courtesy and grace in philoso ...* Hartry Field * Gottlob Frege * Paul Horwich * Harold Joachim * Karl Popper
Notes
References
*Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ..., "The Categories",Harold P. Cooke Harold may refer to: People * Harold (given name), including a list of persons and fictional characters with the name * Harold (surname), surname in the English language * András Arató, known in meme culture as "Hide the Pain Harold" Arts ...(trans.), pp. 1–109 in ''Aristotle, Volume 1'', Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, 1938. * Aristotle, "On Interpretation",Harold P. Cooke Harold may refer to: People * Harold (given name), including a list of persons and fictional characters with the name * Harold (surname), surname in the English language * András Arató, known in meme culture as "Hide the Pain Harold" Arts ...(trans.), pp. 111–79 in ''Aristotle, Volume 1'', Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, 1938. * Aristotle, " Prior Analytics",Hugh Tredennick Hugh may refer to: * Hugh (given name) Noblemen and clergy French * Hugh the Great (died 956), Duke of the Franks * Hugh Magnus of France (1007–1025), co-King of France under his father, Robert II * Hugh, Duke of Alsace (died 895), modern-da ...(trans.), pp. 181–531 in ''Aristotle, Volume 1'', Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, 1938. * Aristotle, " On the Soul" (''De Anima''),W. S. Hett W. may refer to: * SoHo (Australian TV channel) (previously W.), an Australian pay television channel * ''W.'' (film), a 2008 American biographical drama film based on the life of George W. Bush * "W.", the fifth track from Codeine's 1992 EP ''Bar ...(trans.), pp. 1–203 in ''Aristotle, Volume 8'', Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, 1936. * Audi, Robert (ed., 1999), ''The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy'', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995. 2nd edition, 1999. Cited as CDP. * Baldwin, James Mark (ed., 1901–1905), ''Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology'', 3 volumes in 4, Macmillan, New York. * Baylis, Charles A. (1962), "Truth", pp. 321–22 in Dagobert D. Runes (ed.), ''Dictionary of Philosophy'', Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ. * Benjamin, A. Cornelius (1962), "Coherence Theory of Truth", p. 58 in Dagobert D. Runes (ed.), ''Dictionary of Philosophy'', Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ. * Blackburn, Simon, and Simmons, Keith (eds., 1999), ''Truth'', Oxford University Press, Oxford. Includes papers by James, Ramsey, Russell, Tarski, and more recent work. * Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan (1987), ''Truth and Beauty. Aesthetics and Motivations in Science'', University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. * Chang, C.C., and Keisler, H.J., ''Model Theory'', North-Holland, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1973. * Chomsky, Noam (1995), ''The Minimalist Program'', MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. * Church, Alonzo (1962a), "Name Relation, or Meaning Relation", p. 204 in Dagobert D. Runes (ed.), ''Dictionary of Philosophy'', Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ. * Church, Alonzo (1962b), "Truth, Semantical", p. 322 in Dagobert D. Runes (ed.), ''Dictionary of Philosophy'', Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ. * Clifford, W.K. (1877), "The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays". (Prometheus Books, 1999)
infidels.org
* Dewey, John (1900–1901), ''Lectures on Ethics 1900–1901'', Donald F. Koch (ed.), Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL. * Dewey, John (1932), ''Theory of the Moral Life'', Part 2 of John Dewey andJames H. Tufts James Hayden Tufts (1862–1942), an influential American philosopher, was a professor of the then newly founded Chicago University. Tufts was also a member of the Board of Arbitration, and the chairman of a committee of the social agencies ..., ''Ethics'', Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1908. 2nd edition, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1932. Reprinted, Arnold Isenberg (ed.), Victor Kestenbaum (pref.), Irvingtion Publishers, New York, 1980. * Dewey, John (1938), ''Logic: The Theory of Inquiry'' (1938), Holt and Company, New York. Reprinted, ''John Dewey, The Later Works, 1925–1953, Volume 12: 1938'',Jo Ann Boydston Jo, jo, JO, or J.O. may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Jo'' (film), a 1972 French comedy * ''Jo'' (TV series), a French TV series *"Jo", a song by Goldfrapp from '' Tales of Us'' *"Jo", a song by Mr. Oizo from ''Lambs Anger'' * Jo a ficti ...(ed.), Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL, 1986. * Field, Hartry (2001), ''Truth and the Absence of Fact'', Oxford University Press, Oxford. * Foucault, Michel (1997), ''Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, Volume 1, Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth'', Paul Rabinow (ed.), Robert Hurley et al. (trans.), The New Press, New York. * Garfield, Jay L., and Kiteley, Murray (1991), ''Meaning and Truth: The Essential Readings in Modern Semantics'', Paragon House, New York. * Gupta, Anil (2001), "Truth", in Lou Goble (ed.), ''The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic'', Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. * Gupta, Anil and Belnap, Nuel. (1993). ''The Revision Theory of Truth''. MIT Press. * Haack, Susan (1993), ''Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology'', Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. * Habermas, Jürgen (1976), "What Is Universal Pragmatics?", 1st published, "Was heißt Universalpragmatik?", ''Sprachpragmatik und Philosophie'', Karl-Otto Apel (ed.), Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. Reprinted, pp. 1–68 in Jürgen Habermas, ''Communication and the Evolution of Society'', Thomas McCarthy (trans.), Beacon Press, Boston, 1979. * Habermas, Jürgen (1990), ''Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action'', Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen (trans.), Thomas McCarthy (intro.), MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. * Habermas, Jürgen (2003), ''Truth and Justification'', Barbara Fultner (trans.), MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. * Hegel, Georg, (1977), '' Phenomenology of Spirit'', Oxford University Press, Oxford, . * Horwich, Paul, (1988), ''Truth'', 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford. * James, William (1904), ''A World of Pure Experience''. * James, William (1907), ''Pragmatism, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, Popular Lectures on Philosophy'', Longmans, Green, and Company, New York. * James, William (1909), ''The Meaning of Truth, A Sequel to 'Pragmatism'', Longmans, Green, and Company, New York. * James, William (1912), ''Essays in Radical Empiricism''. Cf. Chapt. 3, "The Thing and its Relations", pp. 92–122. * James, William (2014), ''William James on Habit, Will, Truth, and the Meaning of Life''. James Sloan Allen (ed.), Frederic C. Beil, Publisher, Savannah, GA. * Kant, Immanuel (1800), ''Introduction to Logic''. Reprinted, Thomas Kingsmill Abbott (trans.), Dennis Sweet (intro.), Barnes and Noble, New York, 2005. * Kirkham, Richard L. (1992), '' Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction'', MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. * Kneale, W., and Kneale, M. (1962), ''The Development of Logic'', Oxford University Press, London, 1962. Reprinted with corrections, 1975. * Kreitler, Hans, and Kreitler, Shulamith (1972), ''Psychology of the Arts'', Duke University Press, Durham, NC. * Le Morvan, Pierre (2004), "Ramsey on Truth and Truth on Ramsey", ''British Journal for the History of Philosophy'', 12 (4) 2004, 705–18
* Peirce, C.S., Bibliography. * Peirce, C.S., ''Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce'', vols. 1–6, Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (eds.), vols. 7–8, Arthur W. Burks (ed.), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1931–1935, 1958. Cited as CP vol.para. * Peirce, C.S. (1877), "The Fixation of Belief", ''Popular Science Monthly'' 12 (1877), 1–15. Reprinted (CP 5.358–387), (CE 3, 242–257), (EP 1, 109–123)
Eprint
* Peirce, C.S. (1901), "Truth and Falsity and Error" (in part), pp. 718–20 in J.M. Baldwin (ed.), ''Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology'', vol. 2. Reprinted, CP 5.565–573. * Polanyi, Michael (1966), ''The Tacit Dimension'', Doubleday and Company, Garden City, NY. * Quine, W.V. (1956), "Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes", ''Journal of Philosophy'' 53 (1956). Reprinted, pp. 185–96 in Quine (1976), ''Ways of Paradox''. * Quine, W.V. (1976), ''The Ways of Paradox, and Other Essays'', 1st edition, 1966. Revised and enlarged edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1976. * Quine, W.V. (1980 a), ''From a Logical Point of View, Logico-Philosophical Essays'', 2nd edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. * Quine, W.V. (1980 b), "Reference and Modality", pp. 139–59 in Quine (1980 a), ''From a Logical Point of View''. * Rajchman, John, and West, Cornel (ed., 1985), '' Post-Analytic Philosophy'', Columbia University Press, New York. * Ramsey, F.P. (1927), "Facts and Propositions", ''Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 7'', 153–70. Reprinted, pp. 34–51 in F.P. Ramsey, ''Philosophical Papers'', David Hugh Mellor (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990. * Ramsey, F.P. (1990), ''Philosophical Papers'', David Hugh Mellor (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. * Rawls, John (2000), ''Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy'', Barbara Herman (ed.), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. * Rorty, R. (1979), ''Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature'', Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. * Russell, Bertrand (1912), ''The Problems of Philosophy'', 1st published 1912. Reprinted, Galaxy Book, Oxford University Press, New York, 1959. Reprinted, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1988. * Russell, Bertrand (1918), "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism", ''The Monist'', 1918. Reprinted, pp. 177–281 in ''Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901–1950'',Robert Charles Marsh The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, ho ...(ed.), Unwin Hyman, London, 1956. Reprinted, pp. 35–155 in ''The Philosophy of Logical Atomism'', David Pears (ed.), Open Court, La Salle, IL, 1985. * Russell, Bertrand (1956), ''Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901–1950'',Robert Charles Marsh The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, ho ...(ed.), Unwin Hyman, London, 1956. Reprinted, Routledge, London, 1992. * Russell, Bertrand (1985), ''The Philosophy of Logical Atomism'', David Pears (ed.), Open Court, La Salle, IL. * Schopenhauer, Arthur, (1974), ''On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason ''On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason'' (german: Ueber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde) is an elaboration on the classical Principle of Sufficient Reason, written by German philosopher Arthur Schopen ...'', Open Court, La Salle, IL, . * Smart, Ninian (1969), ''The Religious Experience of Mankind'', Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. * Tarski, A., ''Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics: Papers from 1923 to 1938'', J.H. Woodger (trans.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1956. 2nd edition, John Corcoran (ed.), Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis, IN, 1983. * Wallace, Anthony F.C. (1966), ''Religion: An Anthropological View'', Random House, New York.
Reference works
* Audi, Robert (ed., 1999), ''The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy'', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995. 2nd edition, 1999. Cited as CDP. * Blackburn, Simon (1996), ''The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994. Paperback edition with new Chronology, 1996. Cited as ODP. * Runes, Dagobert D. (ed.), ''Dictionary of Philosophy'', Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ, 1962. * ''Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged'' (1950), W.A. Neilson, T.A. Knott, P.W. Carhart (eds.), G. & C. Merriam Company, Springfield, MA. Cited as MWU. * ''Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary'' (1983), Frederick C. Mish (ed.), Merriam–Webster Inc., Springfield, MA. Cited as MWC.
External links
An Introduction to Truth
by Paul Newall, aimed at beginners. * Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: *
"Truth"
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"Pluralist Theories of Truth"
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Theory"
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Theory of Truth"
* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: *
Truth
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Coherence theory of truth
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Correspondence theory of truth
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Deflationary theory of truth
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Identity theory of truth
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Revision theory of truth
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Tarski's definition of truth
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Axiomatic theories of truth
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