Three Kinds of Truth

             The classical definition of knowledge we’ve been discussing in class is a justified true belief. On Wednesday we looked at Gettier’s argument and discussed the implications of his points and how they applied to the “justified” part of the definition. However, we have yet to look at what constitutes being “true”. If you ask someone a question, how can you know that their answer is truthful?  If you come up with an idea, especially an abstract one, how can it be determined real rather than wishful thinking? Ironically, the answer is neither clear nor simple. Does truth come from reality, understanding, or experience? These concepts each have a consequent traditional school of thought concerning how it is possible to obtain truth: correspondence, coherence, and pragmatism. These ideas have floated down since ancient times in many different forms, and continue to be accepted by some as the answer to one of the hardest question to determine.

The coherence theory says that there is an absolute truth, and the only way for people to comprehend reality is through perception. However, it also says that perceiving the absolute truth is impossible because our human senses are all capable of error, and thus believes that we can merely accept opinions based on what we think is true, but can never be absolutely certain of anything. Therefore, there is nothing “absolutely right” by an intrinsic quality of the belief itself, only ideas that have not been “discarded” for other ideas. For example, the idea that Earth is the only planet with intelligent life is true for human purposes because it fits with all observations and evidence in our knowledge, and will only remain so unless something contradicts it. Truths are not independent thoughts, but wholly based and decided by other truths. An assumption of the coherence theory is that there is only one possible set of truths for a set of facts, when sometimes there are multiple explanations that match describing factors, like light. Scientists have long been able to determine that the qualities of light correspond both with that of a particle and that of a wave. If someone looked at the work of Newton, they would conclude that light is a particle, and if another looked at the double-slit experiment of Thomas Young, they would conclude that it is a wave. As both experiments would provide evidence to the scientists, they could, under the philosophy of coherence, deduce that light is one or the other, and never realize its dual nature.

The next is that truth is not an “intrinsic property” of a belief, but a determined property. No matter how hard someone believes something, it will not become true solely because of willpower. Instead, the property of truth is dependent of the relation of the opinion to the things it concerns. Correspondence goes beyond coherence for a more complete definition of truth. It says that deciding whether if something is true or false does not come from its relation to one object, because if there is such an object, the belief would be true. For example, in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Kurtz’s wife believes that her husband’s last words are her name, proving his love for her. However, as Marlow and the reader know, her husband did not love her. According to correspondence, as there is no such object as ‘Kurtz’s love for his wife’, her belief is wrong. This definition causes the property of truth to depend on the outside world, not just the perception of one person.

The complete opposite of correspondence theory is pragmatism, which say that true is just a relative term that is dependent on perception. Pragmatists believe that truth cannot be separated from the consequences it has on an individual. Truth to them is not a property of an idea, but a process; “truth happens to an idea”, and the reason to gain truth is for practicality. Pragmatism is similar coherence, except coherence warns that absolute truth cannot be known and that perceptions can only be made to mirror reality as best as possible. In contrast, pragmatism denies the concept of universal truth, and insists that reality is relative.