TRUTH, REALITY AND KNOWLEDGE
The Correspondence Theory of Truth
According to the most prevalent theory of truth, one accepted by the
majority of philosophers, and, as we shall see, implicitly accepted
by all philosophers, is the Correspondence Theory of
Truth. The correspondence theory says that truth is that which
corresponds with reality. To be more precise, truth is a quality
that applies to beliefs, statements and propositions which
describe reality the way it actually is.
Beliefs, statements and propositions represent or depict reality 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. If a belief statement or proposition depicts reality the
way it is, then it is true. If it depicts reality in a way
other than it actually is, then it is false.
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.
Again, when a belief, statement or proposition accurately describes
the world is, it is true. When it does not, 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.
Relativism
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.
Is Relativism Self-Referentially Incoherent?
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.
Is Truth Relative?
Have you ever had a false belief? Have you ever had an expectation
or prediction and been let down or surprised? When you’re trying to
make up your mind about what is true, do you look inward or outward.
Do you look at what’s in your mind or do you look for evidence and
use reason to evaluates the various alternatives? If the latter,
then truth isn’t dependent on the contents of your consciousness.
Truth is dependent on reality. When people don’t adjust their
beliefs in accordance with reality they are engaging in
self-deception and rationalization or exhibiting irrational bias.
People who never adjust their beliefs in accordance with reality are
institutionalized as mentally ill.
If truth is relative, there’s nothing to “figure out.” Evidence from
the world is irrelevant to your beliefs. They are already true
simply by virtue of your having them, and there’s no reason to
change them in the light of new evidence. Rather than being he sign
of an open mind, doesn’t that sound like a license for intellectual
laziness and a sign of arrogance and narcissism? Is such a person
any better than the dogmatist who claims to know the absolute truth?
Neither the relativist nor the dogmatist is willing to change their
beliefs in the face of contradicting evidence. Neither are engaging
in critical thinking. Note that the correspondence theory is not the
same as dogmatism. A person who holds to the correspondence theory
merely understands and accepts that there is objective truth, not
that they or anyone else knows all truths or is infallible.
Being A Relativist Means Never Having to Say
You're Sorry
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 on
the basis of the evidence?
Can Relativism Make Sense of How People Learn
from Experience and Revise Their Beliefs?
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!
Do we Create Our Own Reality?
If we are creating our own reality, that means that each person
lives in her own world and there is no objective world which
constrains, determines or affects it. Have you ever thought one
thing and found out reality is otherwise? Then you don’t create your
own reality. Has anything ever happened that you didn’t want to
happen? Did you “create” that or did it happen to you because there
is an objective world that doesn’t care about what you desire or
believe?
People have differences in subjective personal reactions to the
objective world. This can include what temperature of a room you
find comfortable, what kinds of food you like, what kinds of
activities interest you and emotional reactions to a bouquet of
flowers, an action movie, a political speech or a religious
testimony. These are affective (attitudinal or emotional)
differences, based on differences in physiology, personality and
individual experience and psychological associations. But attitudes
or feelings are different from objective facts. The correspondence
theory accepts that people have different physiology, personal
tastes, attitudes and preferences and personalities. That is an
objective fact of the world. In fact, when critically thinking, it
is crucial to distinguish personal taste, preference and cultural
norms from objective truth. This doesn’t mean that some truths are
relative and others are not. It means that some thing aren’t
“truths” at all. They are subjective. Truth is objective and open to
disputation and debate; matters of personal taste are not. Matters
of individual tastes and preference are about you. They can be used
with personal pronouns because they’re personal. There are your
tastes, my preferences, his attitudes or her feelings. Belief and
reality are not like that. According to the correspondence theory,
you should never use a personal pronoun with words like “truth” or
“reality” because they are personal or subjective; they are
impersonal and objective.
Sometimes people make mistakes. They believe their actions will lead
to one result and they lead to another. Sometimes people form
negative beliefs about themselves which turn into a “self-fulfilling
prophecy.” These are facts about human psychology and the way
personal attitudes or beliefs can affect behavior and in turn affect
objective outcomes. They are very different from saying you are
actually creating your own reality. Is the glass half empty or half
full? The level of water is a fact about the objective world.
Whether you interpret or think about the glass as half-empty or half
full has to do with the way you frame it in your mind and the
attitude you have about it. That doesn’t mean the level of water
depends on your thoughts about it or make how full (or empty) the
glass is relative.
Are Beliefs "Based on Your Perspective?"
Students often say that people base their beliefs "on their
perspective," belief system or what’s true for them. But what is a
perspective or belief system but a collection of beliefs? Since
what’s true are beliefs, isn’t “what’s true for them “also just more
beliefs. So they base their beliefs on their beliefs? This doesn’t
seem to make much sense. It seems circular and at odds with
experience.
If you think about how you form your own beliefs, you’ll see they
come from your experience of the external world, about which you
form beliefs. Your beliefs are not about other beliefs. Your beliefs
are about the external world, about reality. Not “your reality” or
“my reality,” but reality itself, the reality of which we are all a
part.
Now of course people remember their past experiences and draw
general conclusions about why things turned out the way they did and
attempt to explain them and predict the future. That’s part of
critical thinking and the basis of science. But these higher level
beliefs we use to evaluate new beliefs trace back to observation and
interpretation - or should do so.
Sometimes people simply adopt the beliefs of their parents, peers,
community, culture or political leaders. Merely accepting a belief
without questioning whether it represents reality is the opposite of
critical thinking. Critical thinking implies skepticism about
claims. Skepticism assumes the correspondence theory. When you are
skeptical, what are you skeptical about? You are skeptical about
whether a claim actually represents reality, that is whether it’s
true or not.
Most of the time you don’t base your beliefs on a perspective or
belief system; you have a perspective which is made up of
these higher level beliefs and may rely on it to help you decide
about new beliefs. But don’t confuse a belief system or perspective
with reality. A belief system ought to be a means to an end - the
end of having true beliefs - not an end in itself. A rational person
will revise a belief system in the light of internal inconsistencies
or as soon as she discovered it is at odds with reality.
Does the Existence of Bias Prove Relativism?
Think about it for a moment. Most of the time don’t you at least try
to base your beliefs on objective reality? Of course perspective is
influenced by our subjective experiences, and these can often be
predicted in groups (but not individuals) based on demographic data
such as age, sex, race, where you were raised and currently live,
etc., but that does not make truth relative. Social scientists use
these objective facts about people to make predictions about human
behavior and social and political change, many of which are
extremely accurate, indicating a correspondence with reality. These
predictions are made based on an acceptance of the objective world
and data which helps us understand human behavior, which is a part
of the world. Suppose that a person’s belief on the future outcome
of an election is based on who they want to win or who he “deserves”
to win. Is that belief just as good as a sociologist or political
scientist making a prediction based on demographics and polling
data? Interestingly, some of the spectacular failures of political
scientists, who should know better, on predicting the outcome of the
last election, seem to have been caused by such political prejudice.
Why is that a bad thing? It led to false predictions. But why rely
search for evidence or try to avoid bias if your beliefs are already
true for you?
Some forms of bias are due to a limitation of our experience and
knowledge, but many others due to psychological factors that are
under our control. Being aware of bias in ourselves and others helps
us have a more objective view of the world. If relativism were true,
bias wouldn’t matter. You believe what’s “true for you” and that’s
always just fine (or is if you believe it). Bias is bad because it
skews our view of objective reality. Relativism renders the concept
of bias and the fact that it is bad incoherent.
Watch Your Language (and Other Tips from
Analytic Philosophy)
Sometimes people speak in a loose fashion. When someone says that a
belief is "my truth" or “her reality,” what he may really mean is
“this is what I believe” or “she believes that so strongly that it’s
like she lives in her own little world.” This may seem innocuous,
but the words you use matter and using terms in a misleading way
like this can lead to conceptual confusions. In this case, it’s a
confusion between the fundamental concepts of subjectivity and
objectivity, which are crucial to critical thinking. Philosophers or
the analytic school, which traces back to Socrates, the father of
philosophy, see language as very important. In the Socratic
dialogues, the search for truth is couched in terms of a search for
the definition of a word, such as piety, virtue, justice or
knowledge. It is only after understanding what these words mean that
can answer questions such as “Can virtue be taught?” or “Is justice
good in itself or a means to something else?” or “What would a
completely just state look like?” Answering these questions means
grasping the essence of fundamental concepts, and that means having
rigorous definitions and using language in precise ways. Do you
really live in your own reality? Then how is it you're interacting
with others and affecting them through your actions? Do you create
your own reality? Then why do you get sick or have to pay bills or
suffer any kind of pain or deprivation? Are you a masochist?
Usually when faced with these kinds of questions, people will
retreat to a more restricted claim that our beliefs can affect our
behavior and that this can in turn affect the outcome of events in
the real world, but this is quite different from the claim we create
our own reality. They may also point out that people with different
sets of preexisting beliefs may interpret objective events
differently or have a different subjective experience than another
person, but again, this is a claim about the objective world. If you
believe you have no shot at getting a job, that might result in a
lackluster interview after which you indeed wouldn't get the job,
even if your chances of getting it were objectively quite good. If
you think no one likes you and you ask a clerk for assistance and
receive no response, you are likely to believe they intentionally
ignored you when they may simply be daydreaming after a long day or
hard of hearing. These are well-documented facts of human
psychology, but none of them imply anything about truth or reality
being subjective.
What is a Question?
Let’s try to step back to the most fundamental level of intellectual
inquiry. What is a question? That which is in search of an answer.
What distinguishes one question from another? The particular answer
for which it searches. What is an answer? An answer represents a
state of affairs in the world, conceptual or empirical. An answer is
a proposition. What is a proposition? A simple declarative statement
about the character or nature of a thing, or the state of affairs of
the world. Some answers are about definitions and concepts, such as
the answer I just gave to the question "What is a question?" These
are conceptual propositions. Some answers are not about concepts but
about what exists, what is real or is the case, such as "Is it
raining?" These are empirical propositions. When a proposition
describes the world as it is and corresponds with reality, we say
that it is true. If it describes the world in a way other than it
is, we say that it is false. When we ask a question, we evaluate
answers based on how likely they seem to match up with reality. We
thus assume the correspondence theory of truth by the very act of
questioning. If what I believed was already automatically true
for me, what need would I have for questions? Why would I need to
ask anyone else, think, ponder or read a book? I would already have
"my truth."
What Are Beliefs? What Are Beliefs About?
Propositions must be given concrete expression to be understood and
communicated. A belief is a mental representation, a propositional
attitude such that the subject views a given proposition as true. The
belief is subjective, but what the belief is about is not
subjective. A belief is not about itself or (typically) about
other beliefs. A belief is the world, about reality. Whether the
belief is true or false does not depend on the subjective mental
state of the believer but rather the state of affairs of the world
referenced in the proposition the belief is about. "It is raining"
is not about the believer's subjective mental state; it is about the
external world. If the world is otherwise, the belief is false,
regardless of how convinced the believer is of its truth.
Don't Confuse Truth with Rational Justification
("Proof")
Whether you can prove a belief is irrelevant to whether it is
true, though using evidence and logic is the only way to discover
whether or not a belief is true. A belief is true depending on
whether or not it corresponds with reality. Even though we may lack
the evidence to tell whether a well-specified, non-ambiguous,
meaningful belief is true or false, we know that it is either
true or false. There is no third (or forth) choice. This is
known as the Law of Excluded Middle. When there is
insufficient evidence, the rational thing to do is to withhold
judgement, as W. K. Clifford suggests in his famous essay, "The
Ethics of Belief." Clifford also suggests that it is your moral duty
as a human being and a member of the human community to do so, and
that not doing so can lead to disastrous consequences for yourself
and others.
Does A Lack of Consensus Mean Truth is Relative?
Widespread disagreement does not indicate the truth is relative; it
indicates a lack of sufficient evidence available to some or all
parties or perhaps that various forms of bias are at work. The
proper attitude in these circumstances is extra caution and skepticism,
not concluding that in the absence of consensus that one belief is
as good as any other (relativism). There is always one right answer
to any question. That right answer will be the one which corresponds
with reality, which describes the world as it is. This right answer
not defined by your subject feelings or decided by some external
authority. It is defined but the way the world is and is to be
discerned, if at all, through dispassionate, rational argument, that
is, through critical thinking.
Truth and Knowledge
To sum up, truth is correspondence with reality, beliefs may or may
not correspond with reality. When a belief does correspond with
reality, it is true. When a belief describe reality other than it
is, that belief is false. The way we figure out whether a given
belief is true or false is through the use of empirical evidence and
logic, but whether we can prove a belief or not is different from
its being true. Evidence and logic are how we prove a belief is true
but that’s not what makes it true, i.e. what its being true
means. What makes a belief true is that it corresponds
with reality. When we have sufficient evidence that a belief
is true and it is in fact true, then we know it to
be true.