Posted by alexandra_k on November 18, 2004, at 15:11:51
In reply to What is TRUTH?, posted by Jai Narayan on November 18, 2004, at 12:44:04
Jai, oh Jai, you need to study philosophy :-)
'What is beauty' is a topic in aesthetics.
'What is truth' is a topic in epistemology (theory of knowledge).
Then there is reality, justice, morality, mind, meaning, god, etc etc.There would seem to be different kinds of truths.
eg. 2+2=4 (which is a necessary truth given the meaning of the terms)
'killing someone is worse than lying to them' which is a moral truth.
'I am now sitting in front of a computer'.There are three main theories of truth:
The CORRESPONDANCE THEORY where truth is a correspondance relation between a statement and a state of affairs (or maybe a fact). So, for example, 'I am now sitting in front of a computer' is true if and only if it is a fact that I am now sitting in front of my computer.
Another way of saying this is that 'snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white. (I shudder to think how much research finding went into that one!) That is a kind of simpler version of the correspondance theory of truth that is known as the disquotational theory of truth.
Then there is the COHERENCE THEORY OF TRUTH where what is true is true because it coheres with (most plausibly) some idealised system of non-contradictory beliefs.
And there is the PRAGMATIC THEORY OF TRUTH where what is true is what it is useful for us to believe is true. Sometimes they say that it is the 'ultimate opinion fated to be agreed upon by all' and bring in the notion of a final science as the most useful science.
It seems to me that the different theories handle different kinds of truths best. The correspondance theory of truth works best for the truth of claims about states of affairs in the world (such as scientific truths). It can't handle moral truths - unless there are moral facts which is controversial to say the least.
Any way, that is probably more information than you wanted or needed...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:417479
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20041114/msgs/417537.html