What is truth? (part 2) Correspondence theory

It’s pretty…

This theory says that the truth is a symbolic expression. When we say something, we use words or pictures or something of that sort. For something we to be true, we expect it to correspond to something in the real world. If I say it’s raining outside, I am using the words “rain” and “outside” to describe something in the real world. The word “rain” isn’t actual rain itself. It’s a symbol that I use to represent real rain. If you look at the real world, you expect to see that the real things correspond to the symbols I use. In this case, you may go out into the real “outside” and feel the real “rain.” If reality corresponds to what I said, if there is real rain in the real outside, then you can say that what I said is true. If you look at the real world and there is no rain, or it’s not raining in what we agree is “outside” when we first said it but perhaps in some other place, then what I said was not true.

This is probably the most common way of using the word truth, and it seems obvious. But one often hears people say something like this: “Everyone is entitled to believe what they want. This is what I think is true but others might think something differently.”  But because someone believes something, does that make it true? Not if you accept correspondence theory. I may believe that the moon is made of green cheese and, when I die, I will go there in a silver space ship and live out eternity. But if this doesn’t correspond to anything in reality, then it’s not true. Hindus believe there are many Gods. Muslims believe there is only one. Can both these views correspond to something in the real world? If not, then one of these religious ideas, perhaps both, is not true. If they are both true, then you have to be able to explain how two contradictory statements (“There is only one God” and “There are many Gods”) can exist in the real world in which we all live. And then you have to take it a step further and explain how you can live in a world in which seemingly contradictory things can exist.

This isn’t impossible to do, but it is difficult. When you are most inclined to say something like “everyone is entitled to believe what they want,” you are least inclined to go down the tricky and arduous path of explaining this. What you most often mean when you say something like “everyone is entitled to believe what they want,” is “I don’t want to talk about it,” or, worse still, “I don’t care enough of what other people believe to explore whether or not it’s true.”  You are essentially saying something meaningless or perhaps even dismissive. But you are certainly not saying something you are willing to apply to the rest of your life.