Theories Of Truth In Philosophy

Theories Of Truth In Philosophy

Introduction

What does it mean by calling something true? In most cases it means in accordance with or corresponding to the facts. According to William James, “Truth, as any dictionary will tell you, is a property of certain of our ideas. It means their “agreement,” as falsity means their disagreement, with “reality”( Christensen, 2011). The official theories, for instance in mathematics and logics are sentences enclosed under the light of findings and logics. Philosophical theories, however, are far less formal. Several patently obvious theories of truth can be found in the philosophical literature. Several philosophers have projected self-evident theories of the property of truth.

The purpose of this document is to explore some of the theories that are widely found as recurring themes in the literature. The content of the document is designed to focus contextual, pragmatic, correspondence and axiomatic theories of truth.

Discussion

According to the Bertrand Russell, there is one requisite that any theory of truth must fulfill.

In an effort to discover the temperament of truth the evaluation of this requisite is very essential. The fundamental refers to the fact that any theory of truth should be able to acknowledge its opposite as falsehood. Several philosophers have been unsuccessful in justifying this criterion. They might prove their statement as truth but fail to prove its opposite as false.

The Correspondence Theory of Truth

The outlook of correspondence theory was advocated by Russel and Moore in twentieth century. The correspondence theory of truth states that a declaration or proposition is true when it is acknowledged by an appropriate fact. The correspondence theory of truth illustrates that the falsity or truth of a proclamation is determined by how the particular proclamation or proposition relates to the world and whether it perfectly portrays the actualities of that world.

This particular theory is usually connected with metaphysical pragmatism. A metaphysical pragmatist will grasp that the realism that "corresponds" is mind independent and objective. An idealist on the other hand might hold that although it is objective but it is not mind independent. The theory is traditionally opposed by theories of pragmatism and the coherence theory as these theories are associated with anti-realism, relativism and idealism. A correspondence theory asserts that accurate viewpoints and factual avowals correspond to the authentic situations. This nature of theory endeavors to hypothesize an affiliation between statements or thoughts on one hand, and facts or things on the other hand (Fumerton, 2002). This conventional model can be traced back to the time of some famous Greek theorists such as Aristotle, Socrates and Plato. This set of hypothesis advocates that the falsity or the truth of a demonstration can be determined only by the way it communicates with the reality, that is , if it describes and completely acknowledges the reality or not. According to Aristotle, “To say that [either] that which is, is not or that which is not is, is a falsehood; and to say that that which is, is and that ...