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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. 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?

Introduction

One way to approach a subject matter as complex as the philosophy of truth is to look back through the history of thought on the subject and spotlight those thinkers who very early on asked what are still the leading questions of the subject. This introduction adopts that approach as a way of highlighting the major themes in the philosophy of truth.

The subjects of meaning and truth are commonly treated together, the common notion being that only meaningful things can be true or false. This association is found in ancient times, and has become standard in modern times under the heading of semantics, especially formal semantics. Another association of longstanding interest is the relation between truth and logical validity, "because the fundamental notion of logic is validity and this is definable in terms of truth and falsehood" (Kneale & Kneale, 16). Though not the main subjects of this article, meaning and validity are truth's neighbors, and incidental inquiries of them can serve to cast light on truth's character.

In an ancient fragment of text called the Dissoi Logoi, the writer is evidently trying to prove the impossibility of speaking consistently about truth and falsehood. One of the conundrums put forward to confound the reader cites the case of the verbal form, "I am an initiate", which is true when A says it but false when B says it. Escape from befuddlement seems easy enough if one observes that it is not the verbal expression, the sentence, to which the predicates of truth and falsity apply but what the sentence expresses, the proposition that it states (Kneale & Kneale, 16).

The preceding example illustrates two themes of contemporary interest. The first is the dimension of variation that ranges from abstract propositions to concrete sentences. There is no simple distinction here, but a hierarchy in which more abstract entities and more concrete entities can always be found. The second is the character of a special type of sign, like the pronoun "I" in the example, that is commonly called demonstrative or indexical. Indices like these point to a relation between a sentence and something else, something that has to be taken into account before the truth of the proposition can be decided.

Philosophy of truth

Major theories of truth

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"). 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.

Substantive ("robust") theories of truth

Coherence theory

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. 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. 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.

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. They have found a resurgence also among several proponents of logical positivism, notably Otto Neurath and Carl Hempel.

Correspondence theory

Correspondence theories claim that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs. This type of theory, in essence, attempts to posit a relationship 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. 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 the 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)

According to Kant, the definition of truth as correspondence is a "mere verbal definition", here making use of Aristotle's distinction between a nominal definition, a definition in name only, and a real definition, a definition that shows the true cause or essence of the thing whose term is being defined. From Kant's account of the history, the definition of truth as correspondence was already in dispute from classical times, the "skeptics" criticizing the "logicians" for a form of circular reasoning, though the extent to which the "logicians" actually held such a theory is not evaluated.

A careful analysis of what Kant is saying here can help to explain why there are so many theories of truth on the contemporary scene. In other words, why would thinkers who examine the question of truth not be satisfied to rest with this very first theory that usually comes to mind?

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. 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

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 was among the first to claim that history and culture were man-made. Vico's epistemological orientation gathers the most diverse rays and unfolds in one axiom--verum ipsum factum--"truth itself is constructed." Hegel, Garns, and Marx were among the other early proponents of the premiss that truth is socially constructed.

Consensus theory

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An ancient criterion of truth, the consensus gentium (Latin: agreement of the people), states "that which is universal anong carries the weight of truth" (Vergilius Ferm, p. 64). A number of consensus theories of truth are based on variations of this principle. In some criteria the notion of universal consent is taken strictly, while others qualify the terms of consensus in various ways. There are versions of consensus theory in which the specific population weighing in on a given question, the proportion of the population required for consent, and the period of time needed to declare consensus vary from the classical norm. Among the current advocates of consensus theory as a useful accounting of the concept of "truth" is Jürgen Habermas. Among its current strong critics is the philosopher Nicholas Rescher.

Pragmatic theory

In pragmatic thought, broadly speaking, meanings are expressed not just in words but in deeds. But no statement that simple can go without immediate qualification, first by defining its terms and then by detailing the various meanings that different writers 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 agree on the finer points of their common philosophy. The most critical differences arise over the role of rationalism and realism within pragmatism.

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." 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." 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.

Minimalist (deflationary) theories 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, in part, 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 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

• 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 "he 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.

But it can be expressed succinctly by saying: Whatever Michael says is true.

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 'It's true that...' is to agree with, accept, or endorse the statement that 'it's raining.'"

Redundancy and related theories

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".

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."

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

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Semiotics

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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.

Systems-theoretic approaches

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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

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Physical symbol systems

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Types of truth

Metaphysical subjectivism holds that the truth or falsity of all propositions depends, at least partly, on what we believe. In contrast, metaphysical objectivism holds that truths are independent of our subjective beliefs. Except for propositions that are actually about our beliefs or sensations, what is true or false is independent of what we think is true or false.

Relative truths are statements or propositions that are true only relative to some standard, convention, or point-of-view, such as that of one's own culture. Many would agree that the truth or falsity of some statements are relative: That the fork is to the left of the spoon depends on where one stands. Relativism is the doctrine that all truths within a particular domain (say, morality or aesthetics) are of this form, and entails that what is true varies across cultures and eras. For example, moral relativism is the view that moral expectations are socially determined.

Relative truths can be contrasted with absolute truths. The latter are statements or propositions that are taken to be true for all cultures and all eras. For example, for the microeconomist, that the laws of supply and demand determine the value of any consumable in a market economy is true in all situations; for the Kantian, "act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law" forms an absolute moral truth. They are statements that are often claimed to emanate from the very nature of the universe, God, human nature, or some other ultimate essence or transcendental signifier.

The concept of absolute truth, as understood in philosophy, should not be confused with the concept of absolute truth as it is used in religious traditions.

Absolutism in a particular domain of thought is the view that all statements in that domain are either absolutely true or absolutely false: none is true for some cultures or eras while false for other cultures or eras.

Truth in specialized contexts

Truth in the arts

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Truth in advertising

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While "false advertising" is a kind of fraud, and considered a crime in many countries, the standard for what constitutes truth and falsehood in claims is lower in advertising than in most other forms in which statements are presented: A claim such as This book will change your life is received by the regular consumer not so much as representing the literal statement as a fact, but rather as a device for drawing attention. Only when the form in which advertising claims are presented aims to suggest they are factual, research-based statements, does the possibility of fraud become actual.

Truth in jurisprudence

Truth, as a concept, is a central issue in law, though the actual use of the word "truth" in legal practice tends to be limited to certain very specific contexts. Witnesses who swear under oath to testify truthfully in courts of law are not expected to make infallibly true statements, but to make a good faith attempt to accurately recount prior events from memory, or provide expert testimony. Triers-of-fact are then charged with the responsibility to determine the credibility or veracity of a witness's testimony. Differing accounts from separate witnesses testifying in good-faith are commonplace. Errors are not attributed to perjury unless a very stringent standard of proof is met when charging a witness with lying under oath.

Beyond the standard oath taken by witnesses, the word "truth" is seldom officially used. Courts, judges and juries are never referred to, for instance, as "finders of truth." In addition to procedural and substantive legal rulings, courts designate a finder of fact (jury or judge) to decide what the facts are in a case given often conflicting sets of information. In a very specific and limited context, "truth" is also a legal term of art referring to a standard affirmative defense to a charge of defamation, this use of the term in this specific manner deriving from common law dating back at least seven centuries. William J. Shields summarizes the weight which the law gives to the word "truth" by noting that Black’s Law Dictionary devotes just a few lines to it: "1. A fully accurate account of events, factuality. 2. Defamation. An affirmative defense by which the defendant asserts that the alleged defamatory statement is substantially accurate." Shields goes on to say:

By contrast, the definition of “fact” covers about two full pages, with three principal meanings and 42 definitions of specific types of fact. “Evidence” covers five full pages with four principal meanings and 93 definitions of specific types. Even the definition of the crime of perjury avoids the use of “truth”: “the act or an instance of a person’s deliberately making material false or misleading statements while under oath.” Perusal of other legal references (treatises, dictionaries, periodicals, etc.) will yield the same results. Where “truth” or “true” is defined, it will be to the effect of “that which is a fact” or “that which is verifiable,” leading back to the legal concepts of evidence and proof.

Truth in mathematics

There are two main truth theories in mathematics. They are the model theory of truth and the proof theory of truth.

Historically, with the 19th 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". In propositional logic, these symbols can be manipulated according to a set of axioms and rules of inference, often given in the form of truth tables.

In addition, from at least the time of Hilbert's program at the turn of the 20th century to the proof of Gödel's theorem and the development of the Church-Turing thesis in the early part of that century, true statements in mathematics were generally assumed to be those statements which are provable in a formal axiomatic system.

The works of Kurt Gödel, Alan Turing, and others shook this assumption, with the development of statements that are true but cannot be proven within the system.. Two examples of the latter can be found in Hilbert's problems. Work on Hilbert's 10th problem led in the late 20th century to the construction of specific Diophantine equations for which it is undecidable whether they have a solution , or even if they do, whether they have a finite or infinite number of solutions. More fundamentally, Hilbert's first problem was on the continuum hypothesis. Gödel and Paul Cohen showed that this hypothesis cannot be proved or disproved using the standard axioms of set theory. In the view of some, then, it is equally reasonable to take either the continuum hypothesis or its negation as a new axiom.

Truth in science

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Truth in religion

Most religious traditions hold a body of truths that are part of the particular tradition. Such truths may be considered to be spiritually revealed, or may be developed through tradition, or may be a combination of both. Whatever these truths are for the particular religious tradition, they can be called part of the doctrine of that tradition.

Christianity

Assertions of truth based upon history, revelation and testimony set forward in the Bible are central to Christian beliefs. Some denominations have asserted additional authorities as sources of doctrinal truth — for instance, in Roman Catholicism the Pope is asserted to be infallible on matters of church doctrine.

Biblical inerrancy

Some Christian traditions hold a doctrine called Biblical inerrancy, which asserts that the Bible is without error, that is, it can be said to be true as to all issues contained within, whether Old Testament or New. Various interpretations have been applied, depending on the tradition. According to some interpretations of the doctrine, all of the Bible is without error, i.e., is to be taken as true, no matter what the issue. Other interpretations hold that the Bible is always true on important matters of faith, while yet other interpretations hold that the Bible is true but must be specifically interpreted in the context of the language, culture and time that relevant passages were written.

"Double truth" theories

In thirteenth century Europe, the Roman Catholic Church denounced what it described as theories of "double truth," i.e. theories to the effect that although a truth may be established by reason, its contrary ought to be believed as true as a matter of faith. The condemnation was aimed specifically at a "Latin Averroist" (see Averroës), Siger of Brabant, but it was more broadly an attempt to halt the spread of Aristotle's ideas, which the reconquest of Spain and, accordingly, access to the libraries of the Moors had re-introduced into the Latin literate world. At the time, much of the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church was based upon neoplatonic ideas, and Aristoteleanism struck many as heresy. Siger and others seem to have conceded this, and to have used the sharp reason/faith distinction that came to be known as "double truth" as a way of legitimizing discussion of Aristotle despite that concession.

Jainism

Although, historically, Jain authors have adopted different views on truth, the most important view is the system of anekantavada or "not-one-sidedness". Underlying this epistemic framework is the notion that there is one truth, but that only enlightened beings can perceive it in its entirety. The unenlightened being, then, can only perceive partial truths. This system is presented as a middle way between the perceived Buddhist denial of the absolute reality of anything (cf. pratitya-samutpada) and the perceived Hindu claim that everything is really one thing (cf. Advaita Vedanta and Tat Tvam Asi). Against the doctrine of continuous coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be Jainism holds that matter (dravya) continues to exist. However, against monism, Jainism holds that matter changes, that is, it is always becoming something else and ceasing to be what it was before. This allows for the first two viewpoints of anekantavada: (1) seen in a certain way, it is and (2) seen in a certain way, it is not. Following from this is the conjunction of the two (3) seen in a certain way, it is and is not. Combined with this is the notion that there are certain ways of perceiving things that cannot be understood by the ordinary being or expressed in ordinary language. Thus, (4) seen in a certain way, it is indescribable, is added. The conjunctions of these four views yield the last three: (5) seen in a certain way, it is and is indescribable; (6) seen in a certain way, it is not and is indescribable and (7) seen in a certain way, it is, is not, and is indescribable.

Additional observations about truth

Honest intentions play a unique role in the ethics of epistemology. Jurgen Habermas understands truthfulness to be one of the dimensions of valid speech. The moral importance of honest intent is underscored by the remarks of Buddha: “Herein someone avoids false speech and abstains from it. He speaks the truth, is devoted to truth, reliable, worthy of confidence, not a deceiver of people. Being at a meeting, or amongst people, or in the midst of his relatives, or in a society, or in the king's court, and called upon and asked as witness to tell what he knows, he answers, if he knows nothing: "I know nothing," and if he knows, he answers: "I know"; if he has seen nothing, he answers: "I have seen nothing," and if he has seen, he answers: "I have seen." Thus he never knowingly speaks a lie, either for the sake of his own advantage, or for the sake of another person's advantage, or for the sake of any advantage whatsoever.” In its most extreme form, the obligation to tell the truth may manifest itself as a strong form of evidentialism, which holds that "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything on insufficient evidence".

Notes

1. Blackburn, Simon, and Simmons, Keith (eds., 1999),Truth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Includes papers by James, Ramsey, Russell, Tarski, and more recent work.
2. Horwich, Paul, Truth, (2nd edition, 1988),
3. Field, Hartry, Truth and the Absence of Fact (2001).
4. Immanuel Kant, for instance, assembled a controversial but quite coherent system in the early 19th Century, whose utility and validity continues to be debated even today. Similarly, the systems of Leibniz and Spinoza are characteristic systems that are internally coherent but controversial in terms of their utility and validity.
5. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Coherence Theory of Truth", auth:Alan R. White, p130-131 (Macmillan, 1969)
6. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Coherence Theory of Truth", auth:Alan R. White, p131-133, see esp., section on "Epistemological assumptions" (Macmillan, 1969)
7. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Coherence Theory of Truth", auth:Alan R. White, p130
8. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Correspondence Theory of Truth", auth:Arthur N. Prior, p223 Macmillan, 1969)
9. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Correspondence Theory of Truth", auth:Arthur N. Prior, p223-224 Macmillan, 1969)
10. See, e.g., Bradley, F.H., "On Truth and Copying", in Blackburn, et al (eds., 1999),Truth, 31-45.
11. Peirce, C.S. (1901), "Truth and Falsity and Error" (in part), pp. 718–720 in J.M. Baldwin (ed.), Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, vol. 2. Reprinted, CP 5.565–573.
12. James, William, The Meaning of Truth, A Sequel to 'Pragmatism', (1909).
13. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.2, "Dewey, John", auth Richard J. Bernstein, p383 (Macmillan, 1969)
14. Blackburn, Simon, and Simmons, Keith (eds., 1999), Truth in the Introductory section of the book.
15. ^ Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Supp., "Truth", auth:Michael Williams, p572-573 (Macmillan, 1996)
16. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.6: Performative Theory of Truth, auth:Gertrude Ezorsky, p88 (Macmillan, 1969)
17. Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Supp., "Truth", auth:Michael Williams, p572-573 (Macmillan, 1996)
18. Ramsey, F.P. (1927), "Facts and Propositions", Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 7, 153–170. Reprinted, pp. 34–51 in F.P. Ramsey, Philosophical Papers, David Hugh Mellor (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1990
19. Susan Haack, “truth, truths, “truth,” and “truths” in the law, Journal of Philosophy, Science & Law, Volume 3, September 2003.
20. William M. Shields, J.D., ""Truth in Legal Practice", in Journal of PHilosophy, Science and Law, Volume 3, November 2003.
21. Ibid.
22. Black’s Law Dictionary, ed. Bryan A. Garner, 7th Edition, 1999, 1520.
23. Docherty, Bonnie, "Defamation Law: Positive Jurisprudence" in Harvard Human Rights Journal, Vol 13, (Spring 2000) 264 ff.
24. Shields, op cit intro section of article.
25. Ibid. Shields's footnotes eliminated here.
26. See, e.g., Chaitin, Gregory L., The Limits of Mathematics (1997) esp. 89 ff.
27. M. Davis. "Hilbert's Tenth Problem is Unsolvable." American Mathematical Monthly 80, pp. 233-269, 1973
28. Yandell, Benjamin H.. The Honors Class. Hilbert's Problems and Their Solvers (2002).
29. Chaitin, Gregory L., The Limits of Mathematics (1997) 1-28, 89 ff.
30. See, e.g., Richard F. Costigan, The Consensus Of The Church And Papal Infallibility: A Study In The Background Of Vatican I (2005)
31. See, e.g. Norman L. Geisler, Inerrancy (1980)
32. Stephen T. Davis, The debate about the Bible: Inerrancy versus infallibility (1977)
33. See, e.g. Marcus J. Borg, Reading the Bible Again For the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously But Not Literally (2002) 7-8
34. See, e.g., Gilson, Etienne, "La doctrine de la double vérité," Études de philosophie médiévale (1921), pp. 51-69; translated as, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (1955).
35. See, e.g.,
36. Habermas, Jurgen, 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., 1979)
37. Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood
38. Clifford, William K., The Ethics of Belief (1877).

References

Abbreviations for frequently cited works

• CDP = Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (1999).
• EBR n = Encylopedia Brittanica (1985), vol. n.
• MEP n = Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1969), vol. n.
• MWC = Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1983).
• MWU = Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged (1950).
• ODP = Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (1996).
• SEP = Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2006).

• Aristotle, "The Categories", Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 1–109 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.

• Aristotle, "On Interpretation", Harold P. Cooke (trans.), pp. 111–179 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.

• Aristotle, "Prior Analytics", Hugh Tredennick (trans.), pp. 181–531 in Aristotle, Volume 1, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.

• Aristotle, "On the Soul" (De Anima), W.S. Hett (trans.), pp. 1–203 in Aristotle, Volume 8, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1936.

• Audi, Robert (ed., 1999), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 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, NY.

• Baylis, Charles A. (1962), "Truth", pp. 321–322 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, UK. 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 (1995), The Minimalist Program, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

• 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. Reprinted, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1999. Eprint.

• 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, NY, 1908. 2nd edition, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1932. Reprinted, Arnold Isenberg (ed.), Victor Kestenbaum (pref.), Irvingtion Publishers, New York, NY, 1980.

• Dewey, John (1938), Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938),Holt and Company, New York, NY. Reprinted, John Dewey, The Later Works, 1925–1953, Volume 12: 1938, Jo Ann Boydston (ed.), Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL, 1986.

• Ferm, Vergilius (1962), "Consensus Gentium", p. 64 in Runes (1962).

• Field, Hartry (2001), Truth and the Absence of Fact, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

• 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, NY.

• Garfield, Jay L., and Kiteley, Murray (1991), Meaning and Truth: The Essential Readings in Modern Semantics, Paragon House, New York, NY.

• Haack, Susan (1993), Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK.

• 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, MA, 1979.

• Habermas, Jürgen (1990), Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, Christian Lenhardt and Shierry Weber Nicholsen (trans.), Thomas McCarthy (intro.), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

• Habermas, Jürgen (2003), Truth and Justification, Barbara Fultner (trans.), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

• Horwich, Paul, (1988), Truth, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

• 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, NY.

• James, William (1909), The Meaning of Truth, A Sequel to 'Pragmatism', Longmans, Green, and Company, New York, NY.

• James, William (1912), Essays in Radical Empiricism. Cf. Chapt. 3, "The Thing and it's Relations", pp. 92–122.

• Kant, Immanuel (1800), Introduction to Logic. Reprinted, Thomas Kingsmill Abbott (trans.), Dennis Sweet (intro.), Barnes and Noble, New York, NY, 2005.

• Kirkham, Richard L. (1992), Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

• Kneale, W., and Kneale, M. (1962), The Development of Logic, Oxford University Press, London, UK, 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, 705–718, PDF.

• Peirce, C.S., Bibliography.

• Peirce, C.S., Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vols. 1–6, Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (eds.), vols. 7–8, Arthur W. Burks (ed.), Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 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. 718–720 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. 185–196 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, MA, 1976.

• Quine, W.V. (1980 a), From a Logical Point of View, Logico-Philosophical Essays, 2nd edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

• Quine, W.V. (1980 b), "Reference and Modality", pp. 139–159 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, NY.

• Ramsey, F.P. (1927), "Facts and Propositions", Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 7, 153–170. Reprinted, pp. 34–51 in F.P. Ramsey, Philosophical Papers, David Hugh Mellor (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1990.

• 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.

• 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, NY, 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, UK, 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, UK, 1956. Reprinted, Routledge, London, UK, 1992.

• Russell, Bertrand (1985), The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, David Pears (ed.), Open Court, La Salle, IL.

• Smart, Ninian (1969), The Religious Experience of Mankind, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, NY.

• Tarski, A., 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.

• Wallace, Anthony F.C. (1966), Religion: An Anthropological View, Random House, New York, NY.

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.

See also

Truth in logic

Theories of truth

Major theorists

External links

• Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Double Truth
• An Introduction to Truth by Paul Newall, aimed at beginners.
• A brief history of truth by Nic Damjanovich

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
  • Truth
  • Coherence theory of truth
  • Correspondence theory of truth
  • Deflationary theory of truth
  • Identity theory of truth
  • Revision theory of truth
  • Tarski's definition of truth
  • Axiomatic theories of truth

• Harold Joachim's The Nature of Truth
• Truth Alone Will Triumph - Hindu Viewpoint

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