Definition and etymology
The English word '' truth'' is derived from Old English ''tríewþ, tréowþ, trýwþ'', Middle English ''trewþe'', cognate to Old High German ''triuwida'', Old Norse ''tryggð''. Like ''Major 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 to ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. This class of theories holds that the truth or the falsity of a representation is determined in principle entirely by how it relates to "things" by whether it accurately describes those "things". A classic example of correspondence theory is the statement by the thirteenth century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas: "Coherence
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 thePragmatic
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 inConstructivist
Social constructivism holds that 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). Rather, perceptions of truth are viewed as contingent on convention, human perception, and social experience. It is believed by constructivists that representations of physical and biological reality, includingConsensus
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 an ideal speech situation. Among the current strong critics of consensus theory is the philosopherMinimalist
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., Semantic paradoxes, and below.) In addition to highlighting such formal aspects of the predicate "is true", some deflationists point out that the concept enables us to express things that might otherwise require infinitely long sentences. For example, one cannot express confidence in Michael's accuracy by asserting the endless sentence: :''Michael says, 'snow is white' and snow is white, or he says 'roses are red' and roses are red or he says ... etc.'' This assertion can also be succinctly expressed by saying: ''What Michael says is true''.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" isRedundancy and related
According to thePhilosophical skepticism
Philosophical skepticism is generally any questioning attitude or doubt towards one or more items of knowledge or belief which ascribe truth to their assertions and propositions. The primary target of philosophical skepticism is epistemology, but it can be applied to any domain, such as the supernatural, morality ( moral skepticism), and religion (skepticism about the existence of God). Philosophical skepticism comes in various forms. Radical forms of skepticism deny that knowledge or rational belief is possible and urge us to suspend judgment regarding ascription of truth on many or all controversial matters. More moderate forms of skepticism claim only that nothing can be known with certainty, or that we can know little or nothing about the "big questions" in life, such as whether God exists or whether there is an afterlife.Pluralist
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 by Charles Peirce and William James, included aspects of correspondence, coherence and constructivist theories. Crispin Wright argued in his 1992 book ''Truth and Objectivity'' that any predicate which satisfied certain platitudes about truth qualified as a truth predicate. In some discourses, Wright argued, the role of the truth predicate might be played by the notion of superassertibility. Michael Lynch, in a 2009 book ''Truth as One and Many'', argued that we should see truth as a functional property capable of being multiply manifested in distinct properties like correspondence or coherence.Formal 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 some interpretation or truth within some logical system. A logical truth (also called an analytic truth or a necessary truth) is a statement which is true in all possible worlds or under all possible interpretations, as contrasted to a '' fact'' (also called a '' synthetic claim'' or a '' contingency'') which is only true in this world as it has historically unfolded. A proposition such as "If p and q, then p" is considered to be a logical truth because of the meaning of the symbols andMathematics
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 of Boolean algebra mathematical models of logic began to treat "truth", also represented as "T" or "1", as an arbitrary constant. "Falsity" is also an arbitrary constant, which can be represented as "F" or "0". InTarski's semantics
TheKripke's semantics
Folk beliefs
The truth predicate "''P'' is true" has great practical value in human language, allowing ''efficient'' endorsement or impeaching of claims made by others, to emphasize the truth or falsity of a statement, or to enable various indirect ( Gricean) conversational implications. Individuals or societies will sometime punish "false" statements to deter falsehoods; the oldest surviving law text, the Code of Ur-Nammu, lists penalties for false accusations of sorcery or adultery, as well as for committingNotable views
Ancient Greek philosophy
Socrates', Plato's and Aristotle's ideas about truth are seen by some as consistent with correspondence theory. In his '' Metaphysics'', Aristotle stated: "To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true".David, Marion (2005)..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, ''
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, Thomas Aquinas stated in his ''Disputed Questions on Truth'': Thus, for Aquinas, the truth of the human intellect (logical truth) is based on the truth in things (ontological truth). Following this, he wrote an elegant re-statement of Aristotle's view in hiChanging concepts of truth in the Middle Ages
Richard Firth Green examined the concept of truth in the later Middle Ages in his ''A Crisis of Truth'', and concludes that roughly during the reign of Richard II of England the very meaning of the concept changes. The idea of the oath, which was so much part and parcel of for instance Romance literature, changes from a subjective concept to a more objective one (inModern philosophy
Kant (1724–1804)
Immanuel Kant endorses a definition of truth along the lines of the correspondence theory of truth. Kant writes in the '' Critique of Pure Reason'': "The nominal definition of truth, namely that it is the agreement of cognition with its object, is here granted and presupposed".Kant, Immanuel (1781/1787), '' Critique of Pure Reason''. Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), A58/B82. However, Kant denies that this correspondence definition of truth provides us with a test or criterion to establish which judgements are true. Kant states in his logic lectures:..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 objects and enables us to determine whether any given item falls within the definition.Alberto Vanzo, "Kant on the Nominal Definition of Truth", ''Kant-Studien'', 101 (2010), pp. 147–66. Kant holds that the definition of truth is merely nominal and, therefore, we cannot employ it to establish which judgements are true. According to Kant, the ancient skeptics were critical of the logicians for holding that, by means of a merely nominal definition of truth, they can establish which judgements are true. They were trying to do something that is "impossible without qualification and for every man".
Hegel (1770–1831)
Schopenhauer (1788–1860)
For Arthur Schopenhauer, aKierkegaard (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 forNietzsche (1844–1900)
Friedrich Nietzsche believed the search for truth, or 'the will to truth', was a consequence of the ''..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 subsequent Western intellectual tradition: "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 andessence Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it ...of truth in Ancient Greece 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''. 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 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 the power of the ...term ''veritas Veritas is the name given to the Roman virtue of truthfulness, which was considered one of the main virtues any good Roman should possess. The Greek goddess of truth is Aletheia (Ancient Greek: ). The German philosopher Martin Heidegger argues ...''.
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, sincehalf-truth A half-truth is a deceptive statement that includes some element of truth. The statement might be partly true, the statement may be totally true, but only part of the whole truth, or it may use some deceptive element, such as improper punctuation, ...s are deceptive and may lead to a false conclusion.
Peirce (1839–1914)
Pragmatists like C. S. Peirce 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 to Kitaro Nishida, "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 ofNietzsche 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 .... Truth for Foucault is also something that shifts through variousepisteme In philosophy, episteme (; french: épistémè) is a term that refers to a principle system of understanding (i.e., knowledge), such as scientific knowledge or practical knowledge. The term comes from the Ancient Greek verb grc, ἐπῐ́ ...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": ::The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. ::—Ecclesiastes Some examples of simulacra 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 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
In Hinduism, 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 seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...: " 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), 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 religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ..., 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 Mādhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no ''svabhāva'' doctrine"), refers to a tradition of Buddhist ...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 pop ...has a soteriological view of truth. According to the Bible in John 14:6, Jesus 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 Contextualism, also known as epistemic contextualism, is a family of views in philosophy which emphasize the ''context'' in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs. Proponents of contextualism argue that, in some important respect, the a ...* Degree of truth * Disposition * Eclecticism * Epistemic theories of truth * Imagination * Independence (probability theory) *Invariant (mathematics) In mathematics, an invariant is a property of a mathematical object (or a class of mathematical objects) which remains unchanged after operations or transformations of a certain type are applied to the objects. The particular class of objects ...* McNamara fallacy *Normative science In the applied sciences, normative science is a type of information that is developed, presented, or interpreted based on an assumed, usually unstated, preference for a particular outcome, policy or class of policies or outcomes. Regular or tradit ...* '' On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense'' * Perspectivism * Physical symbol system *Public opinion Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. Etymology The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...*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 ...*Religious views on truth Religious views on truth vary both between and within religions. The most universal concept of religion that holds true in every case is the inseparable nature of truth and religious belief. Each religion sees itself as the only path to truth. Re ...* Revision theory * Slingshot argument * Subjectivity * Tautology (logic) *Tautology (rhetoric) In literary criticism and rhetoric, a tautology is a statement that repeats an idea, using near-synonymous morphemes, words or phrases, effectively "saying the same thing twice". Tautology and pleonasm are not consistently differentiated in li ...*Theory of justification Justification (also called epistemic justification) is the property of belief that qualifies it as knowledge rather than mere opinion. Epistemology is the study of reasons that someone holds a rationally admissible belief (although the term is a ...*Truth prevails "Truth prevails" ( cs, Pravda vítězí, sk, Pravda víťazí, la, Veritas vincit) is the national motto of the Czech Republic. The motto appears on the standard of the President of the Czech Republic, which the Czech Constitution designate ...*Truthiness Truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. Truthiness can range from i ...* Unity of the proposition * Verisimilitude
Other theorists
* Augustine of Hippo * Brand Blanshard * Hartry Field * Gottlob Frege * Paul Horwich * Harold Joachim * Karl Popper
Notes
References
* Aristotle, "The Categories", Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 1–109 in ''Aristotle, Volume 1'', Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, 1938. * Aristotle, "On Interpretation", Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 111–79 in ''Aristotle, Volume 1'', Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, 1938. * Aristotle, " Prior Analytics", Hugh Tredennick (trans.), pp. 181–531 in ''Aristotle, Volume 1'', Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, 1938. * Aristotle, " On the Soul" (''De Anima''), W. S. Hett (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 Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...(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 and James H. Tufts, ''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 (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 ''The Phenomenology of Spirit'' (german: Phänomenologie des Geistes) is the most widely-discussed philosophical work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel; its German title can be translated as either ''The Phenomenology of Spirit'' or ''The Phenomen ...'', 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 Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemolo ...(1800), ''Introduction to Logic''. Reprinted,Thomas Kingsmill Abbott Reverend Thomas Kingsmill Abbott (26 March 1829 – 18 December 1913) was an Irish scholar and educator. Abbott was born in Dublin and was educated at Trinity College. He was elected a scholar in 1848, graduated in 1851 as a senior moderator in m ...(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 Charles Hartshorne (; June 5, 1897 – October 9, 2000) was an American philosopher who concentrated primarily on the philosophy of religion and metaphysics, but also contributed to ornithology. He developed the neoclassical idea of God and ...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 (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 (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'', 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
{{Authority control Concepts in epistemology Concepts in logic Concepts in metaphysics Ethical principles Meaning (philosophy of language) Ontology Philosophical logic Philosophy of mind Reality Theories of truth Virtue