Is truth a human invention?
George Bichard
In this essay I will be arguing for the pragmatic theory of truth, that truth is a human invention insofar as it is constructed for the practical application of furthering of human goals (i.e. P is true iff P is useful to believe). I will firstly set out the three main theories of truth: a) correspondence, b) coherence and c) pragmatic. I will explain the flaws of the truth-objectivist correspondence theory and then argue for the compatibility of coherence and pragmatic truth. I will address the challenges posed by analytic truths and finally the challenge of useless truths.
Correspondence
The correspondence theory of truth 1 is as follows:
P is true iff P corresponds to some fact; P is false iff P does not correspond to some fact.
For instance, ‘there is a table in front of me’ is true if and only if there is a table in front of me. The correspondence theory uses ‘fact’ to ensure the agreement of our belief with reality . It is the most commonly held conception of truth.
However, a common critique of all externalist theories of truth is that the bar for knowledge is too high. We can never justify our beliefs in the external world and hold them to be true due to their correspondence with how the world really is, due to our inability to separate ourselves from our subjective experiences. Furthermore, the correspondence theory seems incompatible with the most commonly held theory of perception, the indirect realist theory of perception, where perception occurs through the medium of what Bertrand Russell referre d to as ‘sense - data’ . 2 If we hold to this view of perception, we encounter the problem of sceptical doubt, for we cannot verify that our sense-data ‘represent’ any objective reality. This makes the correspondence theory also susceptible to radical doubt, since it relies upon the agreement of our perceptions with reality which, according to the indirect realist, we simply cannot know, without two further arguments. These are: 1) our sense-data are coherent with reality in a rational way (therefore a mind-independent reality exists); 2) doubting the existence of a mind-independent reality makes no sense pragmatically because such a doubt makes no practical difference to the way we live our lives.
These two solutions directly resemble the coherence and pragmatic theories as follows:
1 Marian 2020. 2 Russell 2013: 9.
208
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs