Truth is conformity toreality or fact. It contrasts withfalsity or misrepresentation that fails to align with the world. Truth is typically treated as aproperty oftruthbearers, such assentences,propositions, orbeliefs that describe things as they are. It is closely related to truthfulness, avirtue associated withhonesty, and totruthlikeness, a characteristic of theories that approximate the truth.
Varioustheories of the nature of truth have been proposed, but its precise definition remains contested. Thecorrespondence theory holds that a statement is true if it corresponds to facts. According to thecoherence theory, truth consists in logical consistency and mutual support among beliefs.Pragmatists understand truth in terms of practical consequences and epistemic practices, claiming that truth is what works or what would withstand the test of unlimited inquiry. Thesemantic theory analyzes thetruth conditions of sentences in an object language from the perspective of ametalanguage.Deflationary theories argue that truth has no significant intrinsic nature, holding that the linguistic role of truth-related expressions exhausts the concept of truth.Pluralists assert that the definition of truth varies with the domain of analysis, whilerelativists maintain that the same statement can be true in one perspective and false in another. Theories of truth are challenged by logicalparadoxes, such as theliar paradox. There are also discussions about the existence of additional truth values besidestrue andfalse and about the possibility of truth value gaps—statements that have no truth value.
Truth is conformity tofacts or accordance withreality. It is often understood as a property ofstatements orbeliefs that present the world as it is, or as a relation between language or thought and how things actually are. However, its precise definition is disputed, with different theories focusing on elements such as correspondence, coherence, or practical usefulness.[1] In a slightly different sense, the term can also refer to genuineness, as in "a true friend" or "true gold", spiritual teachings, like "the truth of the scriptures", or facts themselves, such as "in truth, the product was defective."[2]
Truth contrasts withfalsehood or falsity, which encompasses misrepresentations that do not meet this standard and fail to align with reality. Thenegation of a true statement is a falsehood.[3] Truth plays a central role in many human endeavors. It acts as a goal of inquiry when deciding what to believe and as a standard to which right conduct should conform by being responsive to how things actually are. People refer to truth to indicate reliable information, mark scientific findings well supported byevidence, distinguish accurate legaltestimony from misrepresentation, and emphasize honesty and sincerity in personal life. Truth is typically regarded as a positive value, either because of its beneficial consequences or as anintrinsic good pursued for its own sake.[4]
Truth is commonly treated as a feature of truthbearers—entities that can be true or false. Philosophers discuss which entities serve as truthbearers, includingsentences,propositions, andbeliefs. Sentences are concrete linguistic entities composed of strings of words, like "It's raining in Nairobi." Their public nature and clear structure can aid philosophical analysis of truth-related phenomena. However, it is not always possible to establish a straightforward relation between a sentence and its truth value since its meaning can becontext-dependent and may also be influenced byambiguous terms. As a result, a sentence may be true under oneinterpretation and false under another. Another difficulty is that sentences belong to specific languages, with the danger of limiting philosophical analysis to language-specific features rather than articulating universal principles.[6][a]
Propositions are typically understood asabstract entities that serve as the meanings of declarative sentences, mitigating the difficulties of context dependence, ambiguity, and language specificity. However, their abstract nature can make philosophical discussions less tangible, and there is disagreement about the existence of abstract objects. Beliefs and relatedmental states are concrete psychological entities, taking the form of subjective attitudes about what is the case. They establish a direct link between truth andcognition but are difficult to study because of their private nature.[8]
Monists argue that there is only a single kind of truthbearer, whilepluralists accept different kinds. Some identify one kind as primary, explaining the truth values of secondary truthbearers in terms of the primary one. For example, one proposal reduces the truth of beliefs to sentences since sentences can be used to express beliefs.[9]
David Malet Armstrong emphasized the role of truthmakers in establishing a connection between truth and being.[10]
Various theories rely on the concept of truthmakers as the counterpart of truthbearers. A truthmaker is a real entity whose existence makes a truthbearer true, establishing a link between language or thought and the world. For example, an orange carrot could act as a truthmaker of the sentence "the carrot is orange". Truthmakers are often treated assufficient conditions: the existence of a truthmaker is enough for the sentence to be true, independent of other factors.[11] Philosophers discuss which entities function as truthmakers, with candidates including facts orstates of affairs,tropes, andparticular objects.[12]
Truthmakers are closely related to truth conditions, which are ways or circumstances under which a statement is true. Truth conditions are requirements of how the world must be for a statement to be true. For instance, one truth condition of the sentence "it is raining" is that raindrops are falling. Truth conditions are often treated as necessary conditions: if a truth condition does not obtain, then the sentence cannot be true, independent of other factors.[13][b] A key motivation for truthmakers and truth conditions is the idea that truth depends on reality: truth is not a free-floating convention but is anchored in how things are.[15]
Truthfulness is avirtue[c] associated withhonesty and consistency among one's words, beliefs, and behavior. It is closely related to speaking the truth but differs in some key aspects. For example, if a person sincerely states a belief, they may be truthful even if the belief is false. Conversely, someone may state a truth with the intent todeceive, or aliar may accidentally tell a truth. In both cases, truth alone is insufficient for truthfulness. Truthfulness contrasts with deception and dishonesty. Lying occurs when a speaker intentionally says something they believe to be false.[17]Bullshitting is a related phenomenon in which a speaker is indifferent to truth or falsehood, for instance, because they only care about persuading or manipulating their audience.Truthiness, a similar term, refers to the tendency to prioritize intuition andgut feelings over evidence andrational analysis.[18] Its meaning overlaps with the termpost-truth, which denotes situations in whichpublic opinion is shaped byappeal to emotions rather than objective facts.[19] Deception can also takenon-verbal forms, such as edited photographs,deepfakes, andAI-generated content intended to mislead or fabricate events.[20]
Truthlikeness or verisimilitude is a concept applied to theories or statements that are close to the truth. It is often used in the context of inquiry to indicate that a theory is not fully true but approximates this goal better than others. For example,heliocentrism is a model of theSolar System that is correct in certain aspects, like that planets orbit around the sun, and wrong in others, like claiming that the orbits are perfect circles. As a result, heliocentrism is not true in a strict sense but truthlike. Truthlikeness comes in degrees. For instance, heliocentrism is more truthlike thangeocentrism, which places theEarth at the center of the universe.[d] Different philosophical approaches to truthlikeness have been proposed. Some look atlogical consequences, arguing that a theory's degree of truthlikeness depends on the number of its true and false consequences. Others focus onresemblance, comparing how similar the theory's description is to the actual world.[22] According to some suggestions,truth itself also comes in degrees, an idea found infuzzy logics. However, the traditional view is that truth isbivalent: an assertion is either true or false with nothing in between.[23]
Truth is closely related tojustification andevidence with some key differences. A belief is justified if it meets certain epistemic norms, for example, by resting on good reasons or strong evidence. Evidence for a proposition is something that supports its truth, such asobservation or reliabletestimony. Justification and evidence separate warranted beliefs fromsuperstition and lucky guesses but do not guarantee truth: even well-founded beliefs can be false in unfavorable circumstances. If a justified belief is true, it may amount toknowledge, which, unlike justification on its own, has truth as a core component.[24]Epistemologists discuss various sources of knowledge or how people may arrive at truth, such asperception,introspection,memory,reason, and testimony.[25] Verification andfact-checking are processes that aim to assess the truth value of a proposition.[26] They may rely oncriteria of truth, which are standards by which one can recognize that a claim is true.[27]
Theories of truth aim to identify what all truths have in common. Their goal is not to list true statements but to clarify theconcept of truth, discern itsessential features, and explain truth-related phenomena. There are disagreements about whether such features exist and whether a given feature is an essential component or an external criterion only indicating the presence of truth.[28]
According to the correspondence theory, a statement is true if it corresponds to facts.[29]
The correspondence theory asserts that a belief or statement is true if it corresponds to facts. This view emphasizes the relation between thought or language and reality, arguing that truth matches how things are. It is one of the oldest and most influential theories of truth.[29]
Correspondence theorists distinguish truthbearers from the reality they represent,[e] but the precise relation between the two is disputed. Various suggestions have been made regarding the nature of truthbearers, like seeing them as propositions, sentences, or beliefs. The classical view analyzes their relation to reality in terms of objects andproperties. It assumes that truthbearers have a subject-predicate structure, in which thesubject refers to an entity and thepredicate denotes a property. According to this view, a statement corresponds to reality if it refers to an entity that carries the denoted property. Fact-based theories, by contrast, hold that a statement expresses a fact, and it is true if the fact obtains.[31] One version asserts a one-to-one correlation between truths and facts, while another understands correspondence more broadly as a structural similarity that does not require a perfect one-to-one mirroring.[32]
Truthmaker theory is closely related to correspondence theory and is often treated as a modern version of it.[33] Truthmaker theory stresses that truth depends on reality and analyzes the relation between truths and their truthmakers. Its most comprehensive form is truthmaker maximalism, which asserts that every truth has a truthmaker. Atomic truthmaker theory, by contrast, limits this view to simple statements and analyzes the truth of complex statements in terms of simpler ones.[34]
A key motivation for the correspondence theory is its intuitive appeal and its ability to ground truth in objective reality. A key challenge is to clarify how exactly truths relate to facts. Critics hold that the correspondence theory is uninformative or circular because it fails to explain whatcorrespondence means. They argue that it assumes an implicit understanding of the relation without offering an independent account. Another objection asserts that the correspondence theory is too narrow because it is unable to explain truth in fields like mathematics, logic, and morality, where it is more difficult to identify independent facts corresponding to statements.[35]
The coherence theory understands truth as logical consistency and mutual support among beliefs.[36]
The coherence theory understands truth[f] as a relation between beliefs rather than between a belief and a fact. It asserts that a belief is true if it is part of a coherent web of beliefs. Coherence theorists typically stress that beliefs do not occur in isolation but are part of a broader perspective on reality since they depend on conceptual frameworks and background assumptions not explicitly represented in the content of each belief. For example, the belief thatphotons lack mass rests on a network of ideas fromparticle physics that ground its meaning and ramifications. Accordingly, coherence theory is associated with a form ofholism that privileges comprehensive perspectives over individual beliefs.[36][g]
Different suggestions for the nature of coherence have been proposed. A minimal requirement is usually that the beliefs arelogically consistent: they do not contradict each other. Another often-discussed condition is that the beliefs support each other, meaning that a collection of unrelated but consistent beliefs is not sufficient for coherence.[39] In the strongest form, coherentism requires that all beliefs cohere. Less demanding versions assert that only the majority of beliefs need to cohere or that coherence is required within specific domains, such as scientific or moral beliefs, but not across domains.[40]
One criticism acknowledges that coherence is relevant for testing or verifying what is true but contends that coherence theory confuses criteria of verification with truth itself. Another objection argues that there can be competing coherent sets of beliefs where one set contradicts the other, meaning that coherence alone cannot determine which set is correct. For example, a fictional story does not become true just because it is coherent.[36]
The pragmatic orpragmatist theory is a family of views that understand truth in terms of practical consequences and epistemic practices. They characterize truth by the role it plays in human affairs, seeing it as embedded in communal practices, epistemic commitments, or norms of discourse. One version asserts that a belief is true if it is practically useful because holding it and acting in accordance with it has beneficial consequences. This view argues that truth is what works, emphasizing real-life outcomes over speculative abstractions. Pragmatists discuss whether this outlook should focus on individual beliefs or comprehensive belief systems assessed over long periods.[41]
A central difficulty for utility-based theories is that practical consequences and usefulness depend on situations and desires. This can lead tosubjectivism orrelativism since what is useful in one case may not be in another. Another challenge is that although practical consequences often align with truth, this is not always the case: a false belief may have good consequences in certain situations.[42]
A different version of pragmatism defines truth from the perspective of scientific research. It holds that truth is the ideal limit of inquiry or what researchers would believe after unlimited investigation. Other pragmatist approaches define truth as beliefs that have withstood thorough examination or as statements that fulfill discourse norms and can be asserted with warrant.[43]
The semantic theory characterizes truth in terms oftruth conditions. It distinguishes between an object language, which contains true sentences that are being analyzed, and ameta-language to express their truth conditions using so-called T-sentences. T-sentences have the form: '"" is true in if and only if' where is the object language, is a sentence of the object language, and is a sentence of the meta-language describing truth conditions. For example, '"La nieve es blanca." is true in Spanish if and only if snow is white' is a T-sentence with Spanish as the object language and English as the meta-language. The semantic theory was originally formulated byAlfred Tarski, who limited it to the analysis offormal languages. Subsequent philosophers, such asDonald Davidson, have also applied it tonatural languages. The semantic theory is often combined with the idea that truth conditions can be analyzed bystudying the components of sentences, such as names and predicates, which are then interpreted to refer to certain entities or situations described in the truth conditions.[45]
A key motivation for the semantic theory is its ability to characterize truth in a precise manner without introducing metaphysical assumptions concerning the existence and nature of facts, correspondence, or coherence. By talking about truth in the object language through a metalanguage, it also avoids paradoxes that arise if a language contains its own truth-predicate, such as the liar paradox. However, it is controversial to what extent the semantic theory offers substantial insights into the nature of truth rather than only providing a formal device for analyzing truth.[46]
Deflationary theories argue that truth has no significant or interesting intrinsic nature. They hold that attempts by substantive or robust theories, such as correspondence theory and coherence theory, misconstrue truth by assuming a deep metaphysical structure, engaging in pseudoproblems where trivial answers would suffice. Deflationists typically analyze how truth-related expressions are used in language, holding that understanding their linguistic roles exhausts the concept of truth.[48]
Different deflationary theories propose distinct accounts of the linguistic function of truth-related terms.[h] Theredundancy theory asserts that the predicate "is true" is superfluous and does not contribute to meaning. According to this view, the sentences 'Snow is white.' and '"Snow is white" is true.' have the same meaning. Disquotationalism holds that the predicate "is true" acts as a linguistic device to remove quotation marks and make generalizations. The performative theory treats truth as a performative expression that speakers can use to endorse statements, like when saying "That's true."Prosententialism treats truth not as a regular predicate but as an operator. This operator can be applied to expressions that refer to other statements, as in "What Smith said is true." Minimalism understands truth as a logical property whose role is expressed in T-sentences.[50]
Various criticisms of deflationism target specific versions of it, such as criticisms of the redundancy theory or minimalism. However, there are also broader objections that seek to undermine deflationism in general. One argument holds that deflationism fails to explain key aspects of truth, like that truth serves as the aim of beliefs or that theoretical truth can lead to practical success.[51]
Pluralists hold that there is no unified concept of truth that covers all cases. Instead, they argue that truth is a heterogeneous notion and that different theories apply to different domains. For example, a pluralist may accept the correspondence theory for empirical truths but adopt the coherence theory for mathematical truths.[52]
Absolutism asserts that truth is the same for everyone, meaning that what is true does not depend on individual standpoints, opinions, or contexts. It contrasts withrelativism, which maintains that the same statement can be true in one perspective orcontext and false in another.[53] Local relativism limits this dependency to particular domains, such as moral truth. Global relativism, by contrast, extends this view to all truths. Critics argue that global relativism is self-defeating theory that undermines its own authority: applied to itself, it holds that it is only true in some perspectives that all truths are relative.[54]Nihilism or skepticism about truth[i] presents a more radical view that rejects the existence of truth.[56]
One common categorization divides theories of truth intorealism andanti-realism. Realists see truth as an objective feature that is determined by what the world is like and exists independently of thoughts and descriptions. Anti-realists argue that truth depends in part or entirely on the epistemic situation or how beliefs relate to justification, verification, inquiry, or one another.[57] Realism is typically associated with absolutism, while anti-realism is more closely linked to relativism.[58]
Verificationism argues that a statement is true if it is verifiable. It maintains that the procedures for confirming or disconfirming claims are not external tests of truth but constitutive norms. Verificationists typically assert that there are different verification procedures for different claims, for example, that scientific claims about empirical phenomena require observation and experimentation, whereas mathematical claims are established through deductive proof.[59] What is verifiable or falsifiable depends on the situation and the abilities of investigators, meaning that verificationist truth is not purely objective. Additionally, some statements may be neither verifiable nor falsifiable, raising the question of whether verificationism requires a third truth value or truth-value gaps.[60] Verificationism is sometimes grouped with coherentism as anepistemic theory. Epistemic theories define truth in terms of epistemic concepts, including coherence, verifiability,justification, andrationality.[61]
The liar paradox involves a proposition with an inconsistent truth assignment: if the proposition is true, it follows that it is false, and if it is false, it follows that it is true.[62]
The identity theory holds that something is true if it is identical to reality. This view rejects the distinction between truthbearers and truthmakers, arguing that truths are facts rather than representations.[63] Axiomatic theories are deductive theories based on a small number offundamental principles. Instead of providing explicit definitions, they treat truth as a primitive or undefined concept and formulate general rules of how it behaves.[64] According to theconsensus theory, proposed byJürgen Habermas, truth is what people would agree upon under ideal circumstances.[65] The termfolk theory of truth refers to widely held beliefs of ordinary people about truth, like the idea that a proposition is true if its negation is false.[66]
Theories of truth are challenged by variousparadoxes in which basic intuitions or principles yieldcontradictory conclusions. Theliar paradox involves a statement with an inconsistent truth assignment, like the claims "I am lying" or "This statement is false": if the statement is true, it follows that it is false, and if it is false, it follows that it is true. Other paradoxes include theCurry paradox, theRussell-Myhill paradox, and Grelling's paradox.[67] Some paradoxes arise if a language contains its owntruth predicate.[j] Tarski sought to avoid this problem by analyzing formal languages that do not have truth predicates.Saul Kripke proposed a different approach that limits how truth predicates can be used within a language without excluding them.[69]
Mathematical truths, like thePythagorean theorem, are traditionally categorized asa priori truths.[70]
Various types of truth are distinguished in the academic discourse by domain, content, and epistemic access. For some types, it is controversial whether they exist in a strict sense. The difference betweena posteriori anda priori truths rests on the source of knowledge.A posteriori truths require sensory experience, such as observing that water boils at 100°C.A priori truths can be known through pure reasoning, such as a proof of a mathematical theorem.[71] A related distinction is betweensynthetic and analytic truths, based on the source of the truth. A sentence is synthetic if its truth depends on what the world is like, such as "Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth". A sentence is analytic if its truth depends only on the meanings of its terms, as in "all bachelors are unmarried".[72][k]Logical truths ortautologies are a special class of analytic truths. Their truth is determined by thelogical form of statements, regardless of concrete contents, as in statements of the form "if, then".[74] Thenegation of a logical truth is a logical falsity orcontradiction. Contradictions can take the form of affirming and denying the same idea within a single statement, as in "the light is on and the light is not on". Most logicians consider all contradictions to be false to avoid absurdity. One exception is the school ofdialetheism, which holds that some contradictions are true, arguing that reality itself can be contradictory.[75]
A truth is necessary if it could not have been otherwise, meaning that it is true under all conceivable circumstances. A sentence is actually true if it correctly describes the actual world. A sentence is possibly true if there are conceivable circumstances where it is true, regardless of whether these circumstances obtain in the actual world.[76]
Evaluative truths are about what is good or bad in some sense. They includeethical truths, which assess themoral status of principles, actions, and persons, such as the claim "murder is wrong".Aesthetic truths are about the appeal of entities, including judgments about what isbeautiful and about themeanings of artworks. Axiological nihilists anderror theorists challenge the existence of evaluative truths, arguing that no values exist or that all value statements are false.[77]Subjectivism, another view, holds that they aresubjective truths. A subjective truth depends on individual attitudes or personal preferences, meaning that a statement may be true from the perspective of one person and false from another. They contrast with objective truths, which are verifiable and hold regardless of individual attitudes or perspectives.[78]
The concept of religious truth encompasses core teachings and doctrines within religious traditions, addressing not only how things are but also how people relate to the world. They typically concern themeaning of life, the nature ofultimate reality andthe divine, and the values and practices that should guide human conduct. Some traditions distinguish between absolute and relative truth, with absolute truth pointing to atranscendent, divine reality while relative truth refers to conventional or context-dependent teachings for everyday life. Religious truths are often grounded infaith, drawing rationalist and scientific criticisms for lacking substantialempirical evidence.[79]
Various forms of truth are distinguished by the field of inquiry they belong to. Scientific truths are well-established theories in the scientific community, validated through rigorous application of thescientific method.[80] In studying the empirical world, scientists often employ mathematical truths, which are abstract theorems or principles demonstrated throughdeductive reasoning frombasic principles.Philosophers of mathematics discuss whether mathematical truths should be interpreted as insights intomind-independent abstract objects or as humanconstructions arising from formal frameworks and symbolic manipulation.[81]Historical truth refers to the accurate presentation of past events, but it is controversial to what extent historians can achieve this ideal. Difficulties arise from the subjective nature of interpretation and the influence of personal values and biases when integrating evidence from diverse sources to arrive at a coherent narrative.[82] Personal historical truth plays a role inpsychoanalysis as a factor shaping anindividual's identity, such as the lasting effects oftraumatic childhood experiences. The remembered events may diverge from objective reality due to distortions introduced byrepression andconfabulation.[83]
Inlogic andsemantics, truthsimpliciter is sometimes distinguished from truth relative to a certain context, such as truth in apossible world or in amodel. A possible world is a way of how things could have been. For example, the dinosaurs went extinct in the actual world, but there are possible worlds where they survived. Accordingly, the sentence "the dinosaurs were wiped out" is true in the actual world but false in some possible worlds. Similarly, model theory uses models—abstract mathematical structures—to represent the meanings of logical terms and expressions. In this context, the truth value of a formula can depend on the model: it may be true in one model and false in another.[84] A related problem in thephilosophy of literature concerns truth infiction, referring to statements that accurately describe events or characters in the imagined universe of a work of fiction, such as the claim thatHarry Potter wears glasses.[85]
Truth is central to many disciplines. It is often considered a goal of inquiry that guides scientific research and intellectual life.[86] Empirical scientists formulate testablehypotheses to explain phenomena. They rely onobservation andexperimentation to collect objective data, comparing results with initial hypotheses to confirm or disconfirm theories.[80] Thenatural sciences engage inquantitative research, employing precise numerical measurements, often to arrive at exact general laws that can predict future outcomes.Qualitative research is more common in thesocial sciences, where researchers examine cultural phenomena, social processes, and subjective experiences that may resist purely numerical interpretation.[87]
Theformal sciences demonstrate the truth of theories through more abstract methods, usually based ondeductive reasoning.[88] For example, mathematicians employseveral proof methods to establish theorems, such asdirect proof,proof by contradiction, andmathematical induction.[89]Formal logic studies the nature of deductive reasoning and therules of inference it follows. A key principle in this field is that deductive inferences preserve truth: if all premises are true, then the conclusion cannot be false. Logicians developformal systems—abstract frameworks that precisely encode forms of deductive reasoning—and examine which truths can and cannot be proven within a given formal system.[90][l]Truth tables, another tool in logic, express how the truth values of compound propositions depend on those of their constituent propositions.[92]
Many issues concerning the relation between truth and inquiry are addressed byepistemology, which studies the nature, origins, and limits of knowledge. This field treats truth as a central aspect ofknowledge[m] and examines the ways of attaining it, including the approaches of the empirical and formal sciences.[94] Thephilosophy of language andsemantics regard truth as an aspect of the meaning of sentences. They are interested in the relation between words, ideas, and the world and analyze phenomena that complicate this relation, such asambiguity,vagueness, andcontext dependence. They also address the problem of truth-value gaps: the question of whether some statements are neither true nor false.[95][n]
Ethics is concerned with right behavior, including truth-related behavior. For example,Immanuel Kant argued that people have a duty to tell the truth and are prohibited from lying. Inmetaethics, philosophers discuss whether moral statements and principles can be true, ascognitivists claim, or not, asnon-cognitivists contend.[97]
Truth plays a central rolein many religions. TheAbrahamic traditions stress the importance of truthfulness and closely link truth to the divine, as reflected in theJewish description of God asEl Emet (God of truth),Jesus's statement "I am the way, the truth, and the life" inChristianity, and theIslamic termAl-Haqq (the Truth) as one ofAllah's names.[99] Philosophers in these traditions have debated the relationship between the religious truths offaith and the philosophical truths ofreason. They typically argue that apparent tensions are resolvable through right interpretation. An alternative approach relies on the doctrine ofdouble truth, according to which divergent truths can coexist in different domains.[100]
InHinduism, truth orsatya is a key virtue to be practiced in thought, speech, and action, and is considered a source of individual and societalwell-being. For example, it is one of thefive moral restraints inPatanjali's Yoga.[101] InBuddhism, the concept of truth is closely related toBuddha's teachings, such as the doctrine of theFour Noble Truths about the causes ofsuffering and the path toliberation.[102] Buddhists also hold thetheory of two truths, according to which conventional truth, associated with the phenomenal world and everyday experience, differs from ultimate truth, which concerns the fundamental nature of reality and is required for attaining liberation.[103] A related contrast inJainism distinguishes between relative truth, which is limited to a particular time, place, andperspective, and absolute truth, which transcends individual viewpoints but cannot be fully expressed in language.[104] A form of perspectivism is also found inTaoism, which argues that knowledge is shaped by a person's interests and engagement with the world, with each perspective providing only a partial view of reality.[105]
Truth can also be expressed in the field ofart by manifesting ideas or understanding through aesthetic phenomena. The meanings of artworks are not always directly accessible and may requireinterpretation to uncover. For example, a novel exploring the feelings and choices of fictional characters may reveal deeper truths about human nature andmoral dilemmas. Artworks may also evoke experiences that a person has not felt before, showing them new perspectives, familiarizing them with alternative ways of life, or preparing them for possible future challenges. Aesthetic philosophers discuss whether or how the truths expressed in an artwork shape aesthetic experience and contribute to its overall value.[106]
Truth plays a central role inlaw as a guiding norm to which legal processes and decisions should align. Because of difficulties in reconstructing what happened, this field relies on variousstandards of proof andevidentiary rules to ascertain pertinent facts. Consequently, truth by itself can be insufficient if it cannot be proven incourt, contrasting factual truth with legal truth.[107]
Probability theory deals with uncertain information. It uses numbers between 0 and 1 to represent theprobability that a statement is true and provides rules for calculating how the probabilities of different statements influence each other.[111]
Discussions of the role and nature of truth arose inantiquity. Inancient India, theRigveda, composed in the 2nd millennium BCE, stressed the spiritual importance of truthfulness, exploring the relation betweenthe cosmic truth, which concerns the laws of the universe, andindividual truth, which concerns each individual's duty.[112]Jainism flourished in the 6th century BCE and distinguished relative truth that differs according to perspective from absolute truth that transcendsindividual viewpoints.[114]Buddhism, originating roughly in the 6th century BCE,[115] closely associated truth withBuddha's teachings and formulated thetwo truths doctrine, according to which conventional truth of everyday life differs from ultimate truth about the fundamental nature of reality.[116] The school ofNyaya, which arose around 200 CE,[117] understood truth as a property of accurate cognitions, analyzing their internal structure in terms of objects, properties, and relations.[118] The topic of truth received less attention in ancient Chinese thought, where the focus was more on right conduct and practical consequences than on abstract semantic properties of statements.[119]
Inearly modern philosophy,René Descartes (1596–1650) examined truth from an epistemological perspective, arguing for the existence of clear and distinct ideas that are true and cannot be doubted.[132]Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) asserted that human ideas are adequate or inadequate but not true in a strict sense since only ideas in God's mind are true.[133]John Locke (1632–1704) maintained that thoughts or mental propositions are the primary truthbearers, understanding them as combinations of signs or ideas. He held that sentences or verbal propositions are true in a derivative sense if they express true mental propositions.[134]
Immanuel Kant understoodjudgments as the main truthbearers, arguing that a judgment is true if it agrees with its object. In histranscendental idealism, objects are not entirely independent of observers since the mind actively structures experience following inbuilt forms andcategories. This raises the question of the extent to which truth is objective or subjective.[135]Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848) criticized this aspect of Kant's philosophy and proposed a clear distinction between subjective acts of representation and the objective contents of those acts, which can be true or false.[136]Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) regarded truth as an agreement of a thing with its concept rather than a property of statements. According to his holistic vision, all finite things are strictly speaking false, and only the whole is true.[137] Inspired by Hegel,F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) agreed that truth ultimately resides in the whole orthe absolute. He held that truth comes in degrees based on the extent to which an entity aligns with the whole. His views are often interpreted as a form of coherence theory or identity theory.[138]
Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) emphasized subjective truth or how a person's inward commitments shape their existence, expressed in the slogan "truth is subjectivity".[139]Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) understood truth as a moral phenomenon that serves the preservation and enhancement of life. He saw it as an expression of thewill to power, rejecting correspondence theory in favor of aperspectivism that acknowledges multiple viewpoints without an overarching objective truth.[140] In thepragmatist tradition,William James (1842–1910) characterized truth in terms of practical consequences and utility, whileC. S. Peirce (1839–1914) argued that truth is what would result after endless scientific inquiry.[141]
Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) examined the role of truth in logic, such as his ideas that sentences refer to truth values and thatlogical operators andpredicates are functions that yield truth values. His outlook inspired deflationism, but not all of his views are compatible with this theory.[142] In their early philosophies,G. E. Moore (1873–1958) andBertrand Russell (1872–1970) defended a kind of primitivism according to which truth is an indefinable property. They later proposed a fact-based correspondence theory, often treated as the classical formulation of this view, stating that a belief is true if it corresponds to a fact.[131] Responding to Russell,Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) defined truth as a form of correspondence in which a propositionpictures a fact.[143]
Alfred Tarski (1901–1983) developed thesemantic theory of truth, which uses a meta-language to analyze the truth conditions of sentences in an object language. He limited this view to truth informal languages.Donald Davidson (1917–2003) extended Tarski's approach to the study of truth innatural languages.[45]David Malet Armstrong (1926–2014) developedtruthmaker theory as a modern version of correspondence theory. He stressed the dependence of truth on being and explored truthmaker theory as an approach to metaphysical inquiry.[10]
Various deflationary theories in the 20th century aimed to show that truth is a trivial linguistic device without a deeper metaphysical significance, proposed by philosophers such asP. F. Strawson (1919–2006),Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000), andPaul Horwich (born 1947).[144]Michael Dummett (1925–2011) criticized deflationism and developed a form of verificationism according to which a statement is true if it is verifiable.[145][o] Responding to the difficulties of providing a unified concept of truth,Hilary Putnam (1926–2016) andRichard Rorty (1931–2007) formulated pluralist theories of truth, according to which the nature of truth is not uniform but depends on the analyzed domain.[147]
Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) analyzed truth from aphenomenological perspective as an ideal correlate of intentional acts, emphasizing the role of evident experience.[148] His studentMartin Heidegger (1889–1976) understood truth as unconcealment in his attempt to recover the ancient Greek concept ofaletheia, which he regarded as more fundamental than the modern concept of correspondence.[149] In hisexistentialist philosophy,Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) characterized truth as "subjectivity externalized", understanding it as the way the mind-independent world is illuminated and becomes meaningful to human consciousness.[150]Postmodern philosophers challenged the idea that truth is objective and universal, analyzing how power relations and social contexts shape what is accepted as true. For example,Michel Foucault explored the role of truth in discursive practices and social institutions, such as the idea that institutions determine what counts as truth and use it to wield power.[151]
^There are several versions of the view that sentences are truthbearers. Some theorists focus on general sentence types, while others prefer individual sentencetokens, which are particular instances occurring in specific contexts. A common restriction limits the discussion to statements or declarative sentences, excluding sentences that do not have truth values, such as questions and commands.[7]
^Truth-conditional semantics define sentence meaning through truth conditions: to understand a sentence is to grasp the circumstances in which it is true, with truth conditions as the necessary and sufficient conditions of its truth.[14]
^In a slightly different sense,truthful is also used as a synonym oftrue oraccurate.[16]
^Truthlikeness can also be used to compare true assertions. For instance, the assertion "spiders have more than two legs" is less truthlike than the assertion "spiders have eight legs" because it is less precise.[21]
^This separates them from identity theorists, who argue that truths are identical to facts.[30]
^The coherence theory of truth is similar to the coherence theory ofknowledge but not identical.[37]
^One categorization groups deflationary theories into moderate deflationism, which accepts the idea that truth is a predicate in a logical sense, and radical deflationism, which rejects this view.[49]
^This view differs fromskepticism about knowledge, an often-discussed view inepistemology that asks whether knowledge is possible.[55]
^A truth predicate is a linguistic device that ascribes truth to a sentence, like the expression "... is true".[68]
^A priori truths are typically associated with analytic truths anda posteriori truths are typically associated with synthetic truths, but the precise characterization of their relation is disputed.[73]
^Some formal systems introduce atruth predicate as a formal device to talk about the truth of sentences within the system.[91]
^Epistemology differs in this respect fromanthropology andsociology, which tend to characterize knowledge as ideas and practices that are shared and reproduced in societies, irrespective of their truth values.[93]
^Truth-value gaps are sometimes contrasted with contradictions in which a statement is both affirmed and denied, implying that it is both true and false.[96]
^The idea of verificationism was already discussed earlier by thelogical positivists. However, it is controversial whether they understood it only as a theory of meaning or also as a theory of truth.[146]
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