The Correspondence Theory: The Concept Of Truth?

In order to succeed one needs truth. Everyone is capable of making decisions, however, truth is a key accessory to making such decisions better. One must be aware that what one believes, imagines, and desires to be true, are all different (Blackburn, 2009). Defining truth is difficult for some claim truth is concrete and can be proved in a structural manner. Others simply avoid the definition saying it is too abstract to be narrowed down into a single statement the world can agree on. For example, students have different ways of learning, thus to each student, a particular learning style is the best way to learn, and that is the student’s truth. Many have tried to tackle the definition of truth and from it came about the Correspondence Theory,

It is traced back to Plato and Aristotle, in fact, Plato was one of the first philosophers to develop the idea of the correspondence theory. Plato proposed, “to conceive things as they are is to possess the truth”(Jowett, 2017, 413B). As well, he addresses the problem with poets, presenting them as imitators that are “[…] a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image” (Jowett, 2017, 598C). Poets are portrayed as influencers of narratives, appealing to emotions rather than facts. This further proves Plato conceived truth as the nature of material things. In regards to this Aristotle developed a classic explanation stating, “To say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true.” Simply put this quote is suggesting truth is how a proposition corresponds to what the world offers, “what is” or “what is not” (Blackburn, 2009). Let proposition be p, p is true if and only if p corresponds to a

This theory holds a relationship between a proposition and a fact only making it true if the fact agrees with it, adhering to reality. For example, it is true that exercise will help improve one’s health if one has the right plan and proper nutrition, hence making this statement true as long as it follows this criterion. If, however, one were to claim that exercise does not improve ones’ health no matter what one was to do, then it would be false in any context it is used in. As a result, the correspondence theory must also include the idea of “means that” in order to work. A famous example is the statement “Snow is white.” One can verify that this statement is true according to the correspondence theory because it makes a general claim. the sentence “Snow is white.” means that snow is white and one can confirm snow is actually white, hence making this statement true. In conclusion, the correspondence theory relies on a fact to make its statement true, ones’ belief does not matter, resulting in a right or