What is Truth?


According to the most prevalent theory, one accepted by the majority of philosophers, the Correspondence Theory of Truth, truth is that which corresponds with reality. To be more precise, truth is a quality which applies to beliefs, statements and propositions which describe the world the way it actually is. Beliefs, statements and propositions represent or depict the world as being a certain way. Beliefs are mental representations, statements are verbal or written representations, and propositions are the abstract logical entities which are expressed by beliefs and statements.

For example, consider the proposition, "The cat is on the mat." This proposition can be expressed as a belief in someone's mind, as when Jane believes "The cat is on the mat", or it can be expressed as a statement, as when John shouts "The cat is on the mat!" or writes it on a notepad and hands it to you because he has laryngitis from shouting about cats being on mats. Sometimes philosophers will also speak of the truth of sentences, which are statements specific to a particular language. So "Je parle le Français" and "I speak French" are different sentences (which can be spoken or written) but make the same statement. They have the same "propositional content" and are truth-functionally equivalent, meaning they hold the same truth value—either both are true or neither are.

When a belief, statement or proposition accurately describes the way the world is, we say that it is true. When it does not, we say that it is false. In the above example, if the cat really is on the mat, then beliefs, statements and propositions which make this claim are true. If the cat is not on the mat, then they are false. The philosopher Tarski put it this way: The statement "Snow is white" is true if and only if snow is white.

Now this may seem obvious, but very often people say things like "Well, that may be true for you, but that's not true for me," or say that we all have our own truths or create our own reality." These beliefs express the philosophy of relativism, which holds that truth is relative either to the individual or to one's culture or society. That is, the relativist believes that what counts as true depends upon what an individual or group of people believes, not on what corresponds with reality. Under individual relativism, often called subjectivism, each person determines what the truth is for herself. Truth, in this view, is defined simply by what an individual believes. What each individual believes is true for her.

Under cultural relativism, an individual can be wrong if his beliefs don't match up with his culture, each culture has its own standard of truth which is valid for it and it alone. For example, a relativist might say that it's true for us in 21st Century America that chronic seizures are caused by neurological diseases such as epilepsy, while it is true for pre-scientific cultures, that they are caused by evil spirits. Or, a cultural relativist might claim that it was true for people living in Medieval Europe that the sun revolved around the earth, but it is true for 21st Century Europe that the earth is round and revolves around the sun. Sometimes a distinction is made between holding this view for truth in general (metaphysical relativism) as opposed to holding it only for moral or ethical truths (moral or ethical relativism). For example, a moral relativist might say that it is true in 21st Century America that slavery is wrong, but it was not true the pre-Civil War Deep South or the Roman Empire. Or she may believe that abortion is not right for herself, but may be permissible for others. A person could hold either of these views about morality, yet still hold that truths about the causes of disease or shape of the earth are objective in nature, rejecting metaphysical relativism while still embracing moral relativism.

One problem with relativism is that it's not clear how to take the relativist's statement "Truth is relative." Does he mean truth is really, absolutely relative, or only relative from his or his society's perspective? If he means truth is relative in the absolute sense, then his view is contradictory; he is claiming that it is absolutely true that there is no absolute truth! Claiming that relativism is true in the ordinary, objective sense of the word appears to be self-referentially incoherent, that is, it is the very act of making the statement contradicts itself. This would be analogous to uttering the statement "I am not speaking now." By the very act of uttering the statement, you demonstrate that it is false.

On the other hand, if the relativist is only claiming that truth is relative in a relativistic sense, then he is not really making a claim about objective reality and there's no reason to consider or accept his claim. It may be an interesting fact about him or his culture, but what does it have to do with what I believe? Thus relativism seems to be either contradictory or to merely convey a subjective or cultural perspective, not something we should accept as representing reality.

Moreover, if you reflect upon your everyday experience, it is likely that you will see that you really don't accept relativism. For example, if truth is merely subjective belief, could you ever have a false belief? What would it mean to have a false belief if whatever you believed was "true for you." If in the course of conversation, someone refers to Los Angeles as the capital of the State of California is, would you say that that's true for them, or that they'd made a mistake? Or, suppose you, yourself believed that Los Angeles was the State Capitol, and someone showed you a map identifying Sacramento as the Capitol. Would you continue in your belief that it was Los Angeles, or would you change your belief in the basis of the evidence? Haven't you, in fact, changed your mind about your own beliefs on many occasions, and didn't you do it because of some new experience, piece of evidence or argument made it seem that your former belief did not represent the world the way it actually was? For example, you may have believed in Santa Claus, but as you grew up, you came to understand that such a person does not actually exist. Maybe you saw a parent hiding presents under the tree instead of Santa Claus, or you noticed that there were two different men in Santa Suits at the Mall and they both couldn't be the real Santa. Or perhaps you heard the testimony of playmates that they discovered their parents secretly bought presents and hid them in their bedroom until the proper time. You changed your belief in accord with the reasons and evidence before you. If relativism were true, evidence would not matter. You would simply choose beliefs on the basis of personal preference and any beliefs whatsoever you chose would be "true for you." But this is not the way we form most of our day to day beliefs. Just think if you acted as a relativist in balancing your checkbook or deciding whether it was safe to cross a busy intersection!

As soon as you make some claim about the way things are, you are making a claim about truth and assuming the correspondence theory of truth. After this section of the course, we'll assume the correspondence theory of truth, because to assume any other theory would mean that reasoned discourse over the nature of reality and evidence for various competing theories would be pointless. People could share their beliefs and opinions, but it would really be the intellectual version of "show and tell" not a serious discussion about which of the various competing theories is true in the ordinary sense of the word.

STUDY QUESTIONS

(1) What's the difference between someone who is a relativist, who says that truth is in the eye of the beholder and a skeptic, who says that truth is unattainable or hard to come by?

(2) Do you think truth is relative or absolute? If you think it's relative, what do you make of the claim that relativism is contradictory? If you think it's absolute, how do you respond to the charge that absolutism about truth encourages dogmatism and close-mindedness?

(3) If whatever you believe is "true for you" how could you ever have a false belief?

(4) Why do you think people are so put off by the concept of mind-independent reality, or the idea that some people might be objectively wrong, that is, have demonstrably false, implausible, doubtful or ridiculous beliefs? Is the objection primarily intellectual, or is a result of cultural conditioning? Could it be that people are confusing metaphysical relativism with having an ethic of tolerance?

(5) Analyze the statement "we create our own reality". What does it mean? Is it true?