Forums → WEPR → What is Truth?
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The meaning of the word truth extends from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular. The term has no single definition about which the majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree. Various theories of truth continue to be debated. There are differing claims on such questions as what constitutes truth; how to define and identify truth; the roles that revealed and acquired knowledge play; and whether truth is subjective, relative, objective, or absolute.
Here is a summary list of a few theories of truth:
Correspondence - claim that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs. This type of theory attempts to posit a relationship between thoughts or statements on the one hand, and things or objects on the other.
Coherence - 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.
Constructive - truth is constructed by social processes, is historically and culturally specific, and that it is in part shaped through the power struggles within a community. Constructivism views all of our knowledge as "constructed," because it does not reflect any external "transcendent" realities (as a pure correspondence theory might hold).
Minimalism - A number of philosophers reject the thesis that the concept or term truth refers to a real property of sentences or propositions. These philosophers are responding, in part, 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 the proposition â'2 + 2 = 4' is trueâ is logically equivalent to asserting the proposition â2 + 2 = 4â, and the phrase âis trueâ is completely dispensable in this and every other context.
These are just a few theories, but what is truth to you? Let's dig...
- 31 Replies
Ahhh makes sense! Where were you when I was getting my philosophy degree!
Yep. Nothing but the language of the mind can express what I try to say.
I really can't explain my idea of truth yet.
My interpretation of truth would be an idea that could be represented as a statement and would be true under all realistic premises. (truth is a slippery fish, and I'm not too confident with what I say.)
Also, I'm not sure what would absolutely determine the premises.
A good point, Eshploded. Here's something else about truth that creates quite a conundrum. What follows will probably be fairly lengthy, so feel free to skip over what I say (also, my spell check isn't working, so my apologies).
Consider something like a scientific truth. These are empirical truths that directly relate to the observable world. So let's take something that we want to establish as "fact." I'm a little drunk so I'm trying to think of a statement we would try to test: All crabs have claws. I don't know much about crabs, but let's say that every crab we've ever seen has claws (I realize crabs might lose claws for some reason). So every time you observe a crab with claws it empirically supports your statement. But it turns out that every observable thing could support your statement. Take a bird, for example, which doesn't have claws. This involves a bit of prepositional logic, but we can make the statement "If it is a crab, then it has claws." So having claws is a necessary condition for being a crab. Using the logical property of contraposition we can logically equate that to the statement "If it doesn't have claws, then it's not a crab." (If you'd like more explanation on this, let me know, it can be confusing). So everything we see without claws that isn't a crab also supports our claim. So the established criteria for trying to prove or disprove a theory has just been thrown out the window, because every observation we could possibly make can contribute to the trueness of the statement. The problem is we can't observe everything in the world and so certainty becomes very uncertain. I hope that made sense and I didn't just waste everyone's time
Truth is anything that actually happened, and anything that's been proven.
Pouring water on fire will put it out. That's been proven, therefore, it is true.
When I turned 16, I took my friends to see The Simpsons Movie. That's what actually happened, therefore it is true.
I hate having to explain truth to religious nuts. I hope there aren't any of those in here.
Okay, let's take the statement "Pouring water on fire will put it out."
First, how much water and how much fire? And then once you quantify those amounts, you have to assume the "truth" of the measurements which you are making. Also the phrase "will put it out" is ambiguous enough that it would need to be explained further in order to develop certainty. But these are the limitations of our language. It's funny, everyone knows what you're talking about and would agree, but I could pour a teaspoon of water on a forest fire and prove your fact wrong. It seems silly, but that's a valid interpretation.
Just reiterating, that would mean we would we would need a meta-language to fix our semantic problems, yes?
It would seem that way, but unless you can somehow express pure thought the metalanguage itself would need definitions in some language. And when I say pure thought, I mean a concept without any words attached to it whatsoever.
This is why I'm leaning towards the idea that truth really is a human construct and there is no actual external truth to which we can relate. I know it sounds stupid, and I don't really like the conclusion myself, but right now I'm just unable to reason my way out of this metaphysical hole I've dug for myself. I hate to admit it, but the Cubs are just particles that are weakly interacting with one another. We are just constructing names for a particular arrangement of particles.
It is heart breaking...but I can't dispute what you've displayed thus far. I can only agree. I might need to find my Truth book to read up on some theories.
Your crab theory is wrong IN MY OPINION.
The truth of one thing does not mean the inverse is true. You can only interprit the truth as it is said. If I said all crabs have claws, it just means that all crabs have claws. It can also mean that if it does not have claws it is not a crab. But to say if it has claws it is a crab is a different statement and a false one. Further research would be needed to prove that.
Other than that you are right.
truth is whatever wikipedia says lol. but honestly it's hard to describe truth with everything hapening in the world right now
As far as the crab thing, it's not really the inverse, it's the contraposition. Just a stupid little logic thing. Both statements are logically equivalent, although it does seem silly to go around to birds, bottle caps, and grains of sand to prove the theory that crabs have claws.
Well truth can only be what's proven. Everything else has to go to belief.
And same for untruth; the only way you can possibly declare something not true is by proving it's not true. What Moegreche said about interpretation is correct, though you usually assume someone is saying something that makes sense. So even though the statement isn't inherently true, it's considered true because in most practical cases, it will be.
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