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Truth

Truth or verity is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.[1] In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, propositions, and declarative sentences.[2]

"The truth" redirects here. For other uses of "The truth", see The Truth (disambiguation). For other uses of "Truth", see Truth (disambiguation).

Truth is usually held to be the opposite of false statement. The concept of truth is discussed and debated in various contexts, including philosophy, art, theology, law, and science. Most human activities depend upon the concept, where its nature as a concept is assumed rather than being a subject of discussion, including journalism and everyday life. Some philosophers view the concept of truth as basic, and unable to be explained in any terms that are more easily understood than the concept of truth itself.[2] Most commonly, truth is viewed as the correspondence of language or thought to a mind-independent world. This is called the correspondence theory of truth.


Various theories and views of truth continue to be debated among scholars, philosophers, and theologians.[2][3] There are many different questions about the nature of truth which are still the subject of contemporary debates. These include the question of defining truth; whether it is even possible to give an informative definition of truth; identifying things as truth-bearers capable of being true or false; if truth and falsehood are bivalent, or if there are other truth values; identifying the criteria of truth that allow us to identify it and to distinguish it from falsehood; the role that truth plays in constituting knowledge; and, if truth is always absolute or if it can be relative to one's perspective.

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.[36]

[8]

Beginning 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".

Defining truth just for the sentences in that subset.

Extending 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".

Defining 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.

Capture (T-in): If P, then P is true

Release (T-out): If P is true, then P

: A statement can not be both true and false

Noncontradiction

Normativity: It is usually good to believe what is true

False beliefs: The notion that believing a statement does not necessarily make it true

The truth predicate "P is true" has great practical value in human language, allowing efficient endorsement or impeaching of claims made by others, to emphasize the truth or falsity of a statement, or to enable various indirect (Gricean) conversational implications.[66] Individuals or societies will sometime punish "false" statements to deter falsehoods;[67] the oldest surviving law text, the Code of Ur-Nammu, lists penalties for false accusations of sorcery or adultery, as well as for committing perjury in court. Even four-year-old children can pass simple "false belief" tests and successfully assess that another individual's belief diverges from reality in a specific way;[68] by adulthood there are strong implicit intuitions about "truth" that form a "folk theory" of truth. These intuitions include:[69]


Like many folk theories, the folk theory of truth is useful in everyday life but, upon deep analysis, turns out to be technically self-contradictory; in particular, any formal system that fully obeys "capture and release" semantics for truth (also known as the T-schema), and that also respects classical logic, is provably inconsistent and succumbs to the liar paradox or to a similar contradiction.[70]

by Paul Newall, aimed at beginners.

An Introduction to Truth

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

"Truth"

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Truth

Heidegger on Truth (Aletheia) as Unconcealment

History of Truth: The Greek "Aletheia"

History of Truth: The Latin "Veritas"