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Philosophy vocabulary · Epistemology

Truth

Meaning in philosophy, with examples

/truːθ/nounCore term

In philosophy, truth means: The property a statement or belief has when it matches how things are; philosophers disagree about what this matching really consists in.

In Turkish: doğruluk, hakikat, gerçek

How it is used

The main theories are the correspondence, coherence, pragmatic and deflationary theories of truth. Logicians speak of truth values (true and false) and truth tables. The plural truths means particular true statements (mathematical truths).

Example sentences

  1. On the correspondence theory, truth is a relation between a statement and a fact.

  2. Fill in the truth table to check whether the formula is a tautology.

Common collocations

  • theory of truth
  • truth value
  • truth table
  • necessary truth
  • the pursuit of truth
  • knowledgeKnowing that something is the case; traditionally defined as a belief that is true and properly justified, although this definition is disputed.
  • beliefA mental state of taking something to be true, whether or not it really is true and whether or not you have good reasons for it.
  • tautologyIn logic, a statement that is true in every possible case because of its form alone, such as 'Either it is raining or it is not raining'.
  • pragmatismAn American philosophical movement holding that the meaning and truth of ideas depend on their practical consequences and on how well they work in experience.

More terms: Epistemology

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