Theories of Truth (SACE Stage 2 Philosophy)

What this dot point is asking

You need to explain the three main theories of truth, identify what each gets right, and evaluate the objections to each.

The correspondence theory

The correspondence theory is the most intuitive: a proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to a fact. The statement snow is white is true because, in reality, snow is white. Truth is a relation between language or thought and the world. This theory underlies most everyday and scientific thinking, since it makes truth depend on how things actually are, independently of what anyone believes.

The difficulty is explaining the correspondence relation itself. What exactly is a fact, and what is the matching relation between a sentence and a fact? Negative truths (there is no elephant in the room) and general truths seem to have no neat fact to correspond to. Critics argue the theory either explains correspondence trivially, in which case it adds nothing, or substantively, in which case it cannot say clearly what the relation is.

The coherence theory

The coherence theory holds that a belief is true if it coheres, fits consistently and mutually supportively, with a system of other beliefs. It was favoured by idealists such as Bradley and appeals to the way we actually test claims, by checking how they hang together with what else we accept. It also handles abstract domains like mathematics, where there are no physical facts to correspond to.

The standard objection is that more than one coherent system is possible. A well-constructed fiction or conspiracy theory can be internally coherent yet false. Coherence seems necessary for justification but not sufficient for truth, since coherence with beliefs is not the same as agreement with reality. A pure coherence theory also risks cutting truth off from the world entirely.

The pragmatic theory

The pragmatic theory ties truth to inquiry and practice. C. S. Peirce held that truth is the opinion fated to be agreed upon by all who investigate, the ideal limit of inquiry. William James put it more loosely: an idea is true insofar as believing it is useful, insofar as it works and pays its way in experience. John Dewey spoke of warranted assertibility. The strength is that it connects truth to the actual business of finding things out and to the consequences of belief.

The objection is that usefulness and truth can come apart: a comforting false belief may work better than a painful true one, and useless truths exist about matters no one cares about. James in particular was accused of conflating what is true with what it is good to believe. Peirce's long-run version avoids the crudest objections but at the cost of appealing to an ideal end of inquiry we may never reach.

Evaluation

Each theory tracks something genuine. Correspondence captures the realist intuition that truth answers to the world; coherence captures how we actually justify and test beliefs; pragmatism captures the link between truth and successful inquiry. A common verdict is that correspondence best states what truth is while coherence and pragmatic considerations best describe how we recognise or pursue it, so the theories may be answering subtly different questions. Some philosophers respond with deflationism, holding that there is no substantive nature of truth to theorise, only the equivalence between asserting that p is true and asserting p. A strong answer compares the theories on the question of what truth consists in and judges whether any single account succeeds or whether each illuminates a different aspect.