Truth

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See also Truth:An academic perspective, Truth by Wikipedia January 21, 2004 and Truth (Serious Account)

Truth is knowledge which conforms to reality, thus what truth means depends on the corresponding meanings which are used for knowledge and reality. Absolute truth, for example, is certain knowledge of ultimate reality. For ordinary human purposes, truth is knowledge gained by a reliable method about some aspect of reality which is observable.

When you are asked to testify at law truthfully, you are not being asked for absolute truth but for a good faith attempt to recount your memory of an observed event. That what one says may differ from true accounts of other witnesses is a commonplace of practical law.

Common dictionary definitions of truth mention some form of accord with fact or reality. There is, however, no single definition of truth about which scholars agree. Numerous theories of truth continue to be widely debated. There are many other issues about which scholars disagree. What sorts of things can properly be called true or false? What tests can establish a claim as being true? How do we know something to be true? Which truths, if any, are subjective, relative, objective, or absolute? Does truth, as a concept, have a rigorous definition, or is it unavoidably imprecise?

Contents

Overview of the philosophy of truth

Basic concepts

Signs, sentences, and propositions

In some branches of philosophy and fields of science, the set of entities which potentially convey truth may include almost any kind of meaningful, informative or significant element, commonly described by the generic terms sign or representation. Such entities may include words, pictoral representations, logical or mathematical symbols, etc., and also may include a wide variety of meaningful combinations or clusters of words or representations. Analytic philosophy, which exerted a dominant influence on philosophical discussion of truth throughout the 20th century, commonly begins with a focus on the words and syntax of a sentence, from which an attempt is made to determine its meaningful content, referred to as the corresponding proposition. A proposition is the content expressed by a sentence, held in a belief, or affirmed in an assertion or judgment. Thus it is not necessarily the literally interpreted sentence to which truth and falsity apply but what the sentence expresses, the proposition that it states.

Truthbearers

Truthbearer is used by a significant number of modern writers to refer to any entity that can be judged true or false. The term truthbearer may be applied to propositions, sentences, statements, ideas, beliefs, and judgments. Some writers exclude one or more of these categories, or argue that some of them are true (or false) only in a derivative sense.[1] Other writers may add additional entities to the list.[2] Truthbearer, in the context of modern philosophical discussion, is never applied to a person or group of persons; rather, the term is applied to the kinds of entities above because they are deemed specific enough to reasonably be subjected to a close analysis of whether or not they are true. Fictional forms of expression are usually regarded as false if interpreted literally, but may be said to bear a species of truth if interpreted suitably. Still other truthbearers may be judged true or false to a greater or lesser degree.

Truth predicates

Many discussions of truth allow for a number of phrases that are used to say in what ways signs or sentences or their abstract senses are regarded as true, either by themselves or in relation to other things. Theorists who admit the term call these phrases truth predicates. In ordinary parlance, the things that one says about a subject are expressed in predicates. If one says a sentence is true, then one is predicating truth of that sentence. Is this the same thing as asserting the sentence without the additional qualification that the sentence "is true"? This question serves as an important touchstone for sorting out some of the major theories of truth.

Truth as expressed in language

Questions about what is a proper basis on which to decide whether and to what extent words, symbols, ideas and beliefs may be said to be true, whether for a single person or an entire community or society, are among the many important questions addressed by the theories introduced below.

The major "substantive" or "robust" theories each deal with truth as something with a nature, a phenomenon, or thing, or type of human experience about which significant things can be said. These theories each present perspectives that are widely agreed by philosophers to apply in some way to a broad set of occurrences that can be observed in human interaction, or which offer significant, stable explanations for issues related to the idea of truth in human experience (thus the word "robust").[3] There also have more recently arisen so-called "deflationary" or "minimalist" theories of truth that are based on the idea that the application of a term like true to a statement does not assert anything significant about it, for instance, anything about its nature, but that the label truth is a tool of discourse used to express agreement, to emphasize claims, or to form certain types of generalizations.[4][5]

Substantive ("robust") theories of truth

Coherence theory
Main article: Coherence theory of truth

For coherence theories in general, truth requires a proper fit of elements within the whole system. Very often, though, coherence is taken to imply something more than simple logical consistency. For example, the completeness and comprehensiveness of the underlying set of concepts is a critical factor in judging the utility and validity of a coherent system.[6] 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 derivatively 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 characterize the essential and intrinsic properties of formal systems in logic and mathematics.[7] However, formal reasoners are content to contemplate axiomatically independent but mutually contradictory systems side by side, for example, the various alternative geometries. On the whole, coherence theories have been criticized as 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.[8]

Coherence theories distinguish the thought of continental rationalist philosophers, particularly of Spinoza, Leibniz, and G.W.F. Hegel, along with the British philosopher F.H. Bradley.[9] They have found a resurgence also among several proponents of logical positivism, notably Otto Neurath and Carl Hempel.

Correspondence theory
Main article: Correspondence theory of truth

Correspondence theories claim that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs.[10] This type of theory, in essence, attempts to posit a relationship (a "truth relation") between thoughts or statements on the one hand, and things or objects on the other, as it might theoretically exist independently of the persons involved in the exchange and independently of other issues. It is a traditional model which goes back at least to some of the classical Greek philosophers.[11] This class of theory holds that the truth or the falsity of a representation is determined in principle solely by how it relates to objective reality, by whether it accurately describes (that is, corresponds with) that reality.

Immanuel Kant discussed correspondence theory of truth in the following manner:

Truth is said to consist in the agreement of knowledge with the object. According to this mere verbal definition, then, my knowledge, in order to be true, must agree with the object. Now, I can only compare the object with my knowledge by this means, namely, by taking knowledge of it. My knowledge, then, is to be verified by itself, which is far from being sufficient for truth. For as the object is external to me, and the knowledge is in me, I can only judge whether my knowledge of the object agrees with my knowledge of the object. Such a circle in explanation was called by the ancients Diallelos. And the logicians were accused of this fallacy by the sceptics, who remarked that this account of truth was as if a man before a judicial tribunal should make a statement, and appeal in support of it to a witness whom no one knows, but who defends his own credibility by saying that the man who had called him as a witness is an honourable man. (Kant, 45)

Correspondence theory has traditionally operated on the assumption that there is an objective truth relation with which it is the human task to become properly aligned.[12] In practice, however, more recent theorists have articulated that this ideal cannot be achieved independently of some analysis of additional factors. For example, analyses of correspondence that are cast within particular languages are forced to admit the particular language in question as an additional parameter at the outset of theoretical work, and only gradually construct a language-independent truth predicate by means of a careful theory of translation among different languages. There are strong theoretical limitations on the extent to which this can be done. Commentators and proponents of several of the theories introduced below also have widely asserted that the correspondence theory neglects the role of the persons involved in the "truth relation."

Constructivist theory
Main article: Constructivist epistemology

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, including race, sexuality, and gender are socially constructed. Giambattista Vico, Hegel, Garns, and Marx were among the first to suggest such an ambitious expansion of social determinism.

Consensus theory
Main article: Consensus theory of truth

The consensus theory holds that truth is whatever is agreed upon, or in some versions, might come to be agreed upon, by some specified group. The label "consensus theory" of is variously attached to a number of otherwise very diverse philosophical perspectives. Some variants of "pragmatic theory of truth" have been included as consensus theory, though the range of "pragmatic theories" is sufficiently broad that it merits its own classification. Among the current advocates of consensus theory as a useful accounting of the concept of "truth" is J?Habermas. Among its current strong critics is the philosopher Nicholas Rescher.

Minimalist (deflationary) theories of truth

Main article: Deflationary theory of truth

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, at least in significant part, to the common use of truth predicates ("...is true" or its equivalent) that 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 ??2 + 2 = 4? is true? is logically equivalent to asserting the proposition ?2 + 2 = 4?, and the phrase ?is true? is completely dispensable in this and every other context. These positions are broadly described (1) as deflationary theories of truth, since they purport to deflate the presumptive importance of the concept truth, (2) as disquotational theories, to draw attention to the disappearance of the quotation marks in cases like the above example, or (3) as minimalist theories of truth. [13][14] Whichever term is used, deflationary theories can be said to hold in common that "[t]he predicate 'true' is an expressive convenience, not the name of a property requiring deep analysis." [14]

In addition to highlighting this formal feature 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.

But it can be expressed succinctly by saying:

Whatever Michael says is true.

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. The primary theoretical concern of these views is to explain away those special cases where it appears that the concept of truth does have peculiar and interesting properties. (See Semantic paradoxes, and below.)

Performative theory of truth

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 signalling 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. Consider, for example, that when the bride says "I do" at the appropriate time in a wedding, she is performing the act of taking this man to be her lawful wedded husband. She is not describing herself as taking this man. In a similar way, Strawson holds: "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 of [the statement] 'It's true that...' is to agree with, accept, or endorse the statement that 'it's raining.'" [15]

Redundancy and related theories
Main article: Redundancy theory of truth

According to the redundancy theory of truth, asserting that a statement is true is completely equivalent to asserting the statement itself. For example, asserting the sentence " 'Snow is white' is true" is equivalent to asserting the sentence "Snow is white". Redundant theorists infer from this premiss that truth is a redundant concept, that is, a mere word that is conventional to use in certain contexts of discourse but not a word that points to anything in reality. The theory is commonly attributed to Frank P. Ramsey. Ramsey 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".[16][17]

A variant of redundancy theory is the disquotational theory which uses a modified form of Tarski's schema: To say that '"P" is true' is to say that P. Yet another version of deflationism is the prosentential theory of truth, first developed by Dorothy Grover, Joseph Camp, and Nuel Belnap as an elaboration of Ramsey's claims. They argue that sentences like "That's true", when said in response to "It's raining", are prosentences (see pro-form), expressions that merely repeat the content of other expressions. In the same way that it means the same as my dog in the sentence My dog was hungry, so I fed it, That's true is supposed to mean the same as It's raining — if you say the latter and I then say the former. These variations do not necessarily follow Ramsey in asserting that truth is not a property, but rather can be understood to say that, for instance, the assertion "P" may well involve a substantial truth, and the theorists in this case are minimalizing only the redundancy or prosentence involved in the statement such as "that's true."[14]

Deflationary principles do not apply to representations that are not analogous to sentences, and also do not apply to many other things that are commonly judged to be true or otherwise. Consider the analogy between the sentence "Snow is white" and the person Snow White, both of which can be true in a sense. To a minimalist, saying "Snow is white" is true is the same as saying "Snow is white", but to say "Snow White is true" is not the same as saying "Snow White".

Other theories of truth predicates

Kripke's theory of truth

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:

  • Begin 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".
  • Define truth just for the sentences in that subset.
  • Then extend 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 "' The barn is big is true' is true".
  • Next, define truth for all sentences that predicate truth or falsity of a member of the second set. Imagine this process repeated infinitely, so that truth is defined for The barn is big; then for ' The barn is big is true'; then for "' The barn is big is true' is true", and so on.

Notice that truth never gets defined for sentences like This sentence is false, since it was not in the original subset and does not predicate truth of any sentence in the original or any subsequent set. In Kripke's terms, these are "ungrounded." Since these sentences are never assigned either truth or falsehood even if the process is carried out infinitely, Kripke's theory implies that some sentences are neither true nor false. This contradicts the Principle of bivalence: every sentence must be either true or false. Since this principle is a key premise in deriving the Liar paradox, the paradox is dissolved.

Semantic theory of truth

The semantic theory of truth has as its general case for a given language:

'P' is true if and only if P

where 'P' is a reference to the sentence (the sentence's name), and P is just the sentence itself.

Logician and philosopher Alfred Tarski developed the theory for formal languages (such as formal logic). Here he restricted it in this way: no language could contain its own truth predicate, that is, the expression is true could only apply to sentences in some other language. The latter he called an object language, the language being talked about. (It may, in turn, have a truth predicate that can be applied to sentences in still another language.) The reason for his restriction was that languages that contain their own truth predicate will contain paradoxical sentences like the Liar: This sentence is not true. See The Liar paradox. As a result Tarski held that the semantic theory could not be applied to any natural language, such as English, because they contain their own truth predicates. Donald Davidson used it as the foundation of his truth-conditional semantics and linked it to radical interpretation in a form of coherentism.

Bertrand Russell is credited with noticing the existence of such paradoxes even in the best symbolic formalizations of mathematics in his day, in particular the paradox that came to be named after him, Russell's paradox. Russell and Whitehead attempted to solve these problems in Principia Mathematica by putting statements into a hierarchy of types, wherein a statement cannot refer to itself, but only to statements lower in the hierarchy. This in turn led to new orders of difficulty regarding the precise natures of types and the structures of conceptually possible type systems that have yet to be resolved to this day.

Truth as expressed more generally

A realist theory of truth treats truth as a meaningful concept, having reference to a property or a relation that exists objectively or in reality. The latter terms imply that the property or relation in question exists independently of individual opinion or perception, and thus can be inquired into with a reasonable expectation of arriving at a definite answer. To speak of objectivity and reality in regard to truth is not to say that truth exists exclusively of mind in general or separate from all mention of conscious agents.

In this context the concept of truth may refer to any or all of the following types of things:

  1. A property of a meaning-bearing element that it possesses in and of itself.
  2. A relation among meaning-bearing elements in a system of signs.
  3. A relation among meaningful elements and other types of objects in reality.
  4. A relation among meaningful elements, objects in reality, and interpretive agents.

It is an assumption of realist theories that ascribing truth to meaning-bearing elements says something significant about them. Theorists working within realist conceptual frameworks analyze truth as a descriptive property with a character that can be discovered through philosophical investigation and reflection. The task for such theorists is to explain the alleged character of truth. Appreciating what these theories say and what they do not say is critically dependent on understanding the concepts of formal independence and formal invariance. In particular, it is crucial to observe the distinction between relations of independence or invariance and relations of exclusion or separation.

A quick hint of the main ideas involved here can be had by way of analogous ideas that emerged during the 20th century revolutions in physics. One theme that was placed in high relief by this process was the idea that all observation is participatory observation and thus involves an active relation between the objective world that is being observed and the subjective agent that is doing the observing. This has consequences for the kinds of objectivity that can be achieved and the means by which they can be achieved. It means that invariant laws and objective truths are not obtained by throwing out all relative data, or seeking data that has no shade of subjectivity, but only by using this data, the only kind of data that we ever really have, as the ore from which laws and truths are mined. Likewise, merely including interpretive agents in the transactions among meaning elements and objective realities does not in itself ruin the chances of truths having objective reference to mind-independent realities.

Approaches relating to signs in general

The analysis of linguistic forms reveals the structures of syntactic entities and the relations that exist among them. These structures and relations partly mirror structures and relations that exist in objective reality. To the extent that this mirroring takes place, language does not merely reference the world in logically symbolic terms, it represents the world in what are called analogical, iconic, or morphic forms. When this happens it rewards the work of linguistic analysis with an added bonus of information about the real character of the world. If the mirror of language were perfect, if it afforded an isomorphism, then there would be no need for any other source of information. But that is a picture too beautiful to be true. There is only so much that can be revealed about the world through the analysis of its reflection in a single medium of expression. And not all of the images reflected by an imperfect medium belong to the world reflected ? some of them are artifacts that are due to aberrations in the medium used. All of which means that it helps to collate, compare, and contrast the information that can be obtained through many different types of sign systems.

Hermeneutics
Main article: Hermeneutics
Semiotics
Main articles: Semeiotic and Semiotics

The disciplines that currently take up the study of signs in general, semeiotic, semiology, and semiotics, all differ from linguistics in that they generalize the definition of a sign to encompass signs in any medium or sensory modality. Thus they broaden the range of sign systems and sign relations, and extend the definition of language in what amounts to its widest analogical or metaphorical sense.

Pragmatic theory of truth
Main article: Pragmatic theory of truth

In pragmatic thought, very broadly speaking, meanings are expressed not just in words but in deeds. But no statement that short and simple can go without immediate and lengthy qualification, beginning with efforts to define the terms it invokes and extending through a discussion of the various glosses and hedges that different thinkers attach to each term. Indeed, questions about the kind of action that makes a difference to pragmatic meaning and truth led to one of the first schisms in the ability of the classical pragmatists, Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, to understand each other's variant emphases within that broader philosophy.

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."[18] This statement emphasizes Peirce's view that ideas of approximation, incompleteness, and partiality, what he describes elsewhere as fallibilism and "reference to the future", are essential to a proper conception of truth. Although Peirce uses words like concordance and correspondence to describe one aspect of the pragmatic sign relation, he is also quite explicit in saying that definitions of truth based on mere correspondence are no more than nominal definitions, which he accords a lower status than real definitions.

William James's version of the pragmatic theory, while complex, is often summarized by his statement that "the 'true' is only the expedient in our way of thinking, just as the 'right' is only the expedient in our way of behaving."[19] By this, James meant that truth is a quality the value of which is confirmed by its effectiveness when applying concepts to actual practice (thus, "pragmatic"). John Dewey, less broadly than James but more broadly than Peirce, held that inquiry, whether scientific, technical, sociological, philosophical or cultural, is self-corrective over time if openly submitted for testing by a community of inquirers in order to clarify, justify, refine and/or refute proposed truths.[20]

Systems-theoretic approaches

Main article: Cybernetics

In a number of applications it is necessary to take the concrete physical properties of symbol systems into account. There are in fact many different ways of doing this, depending on the application of interest, from audiology, to signal processing and telecommunications, to artificial intelligence, and even to art, music, and poetry.

Information systems
Physical symbol systems
Main article: Physical symbol system

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  • SEP = Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2006).
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  • Ramsey, F.P. (1990), Philosophical Papers, David Hugh Mellor (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
  • Rawls, John (2000), Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, Barbara Herman (ed.), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
  • Rescher, Nicholas (1973), The Coherence Theory of Truth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
  • Rorty, R. (1979), Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
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  • Runes, Dagobert D. (ed.), Dictionary of Philosophy, Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ, 1962.
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  • 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, UK, 1956. Reprinted, pp. 35?155 in The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, David Pears (ed.), Open Court, La Salle, IL, 1985.
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  • Tarski, Alfred (1956), Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics: Papers from 1923 to 1938, J.H. Woodger (trans.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1956. 2nd edition, John Corcoran (ed.), Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis, IN, 1983.
  • Williams, Bernard (2002), Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

Reference works

  • Audi, Robert (ed., 1999), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1995. 2nd edition, 1999. Cited as CDP.
  • Blackburn, Simon (1996), The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 1994. Paperback edition with new Chronology, 1996. Cited as ODP.
  • Runes, Dagobert D. (ed., 1962), Dictionary of Philosophy, Littlefield, Adams, and Company, Totowa, NJ. Cited as DOP.
  • 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.

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