Truth

Definition (Vincent E. Barry and Douglas J. Soccio)
Features (John Dewey)
Theories of Truth (Ernest H. Hutten)
Related concept: action (Abraham Kaplan)
Related concept: inquiry (Nicholas Rescher)
Related concept: knowledge (Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld)
Classical Quotations (Francis Bacon)
Classical Quotations (William James)

Definition

[1988, Third Edition] Vincent E. Barry and Douglas J. Soccio, Practical Logic, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York
“When we term a proposition true, we mean that the proposition describes an actual state of affairs."
By ‘state of affairs’ we simply mean some event, condition or circumstance.”
(Chapter 6, p. 122)

Features

[1916] John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic, Dover Publications, New York.
“If a scientific man be asked what truth is, he will reply - if he frames his reply in terms of his practice and not of some convention - that which is accepted upon adequate evidence. And if he is asked for a description of adequacy of evidence, he certainly will refer to matters of observation and experiment.” (p. 63)
“Accuracy of statement and correctness of reasoning would ... be factors in truth, but so also would be verification. Truth would be a triadic relation ... for accuracy and correctness would both be functions of verifiability.” (p. 349)

Theories of Truth

[1962] Ernest H. Hutten, The Origins of Science. An inquiry into the foundations of western thought, Allen & Unwin, London
Coherence Theory. “The theory states that the truth of a statement can be determined only with respect to a whole system of truths. Truth ... consists in the coherence of a large body of statements.”
Correspondence Theory. “While the coherence theory ... provides mainly a criterion for formal truth, the correspondence theory is concerned with factual truth.” [i.e. truth as correspondence between statement and fact]
Pragmatic Theory. "The theory emphasizes correctly, I think, that science is an activity.” But “to identify truth with success in practice is ... too narrow a conception.”
“These three theories, can be brought together ... and this must be done since... each of the theories expresses a part of what we mean when we speak of truth.” (Chapter XIV, pp. 185-191)

Related Concept : Action

[1964] Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry. Methodology for Behavioural Science, Chandler Publishing Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania
“To believe a proposition is not to lay hold of an abstract entity called ‘truth’ with a correspondingly abstract ‘mind’; it is to make a choice among alternatives sets of strategies of action.” (Chapter II, p. 43)

Related Concept : Inquiry

[1979] Nicholas Rescher, Cognitive Systematization, Basil Blackwell, Oxford
“Inquiry is the pursuit of truth.” (p. 18)
“Three things are at issue: the set T of truths must have the features of comprehensiveness (or completeness), consistency, and cohesiveness (unity).” (p. 18)
“We are not to evaluate an inquiry procedure by the truth of its results, but conversely, to assess the truthfulness of the results in terms of rational merits of the procedure (which merits are (1) internal, systematic, and coherentist, and (2) external, applicative, and pragmatist)." (p. 104)

Related Concept : Knowledge

[1938] Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics, Simon and Schuster, New York
“Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. In our endeavour to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious, he may form some picture of the mechanism which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility or the meaning of such a comparison. But he certainly believes that, as his knowledge increases, his picture of reality will become simpler and simpler and will explain a wider and wider range of his sensuous impressions. He may also believe in the existence of the ideal limit of knowledge and that it is approached by the human mind. He may call this ideal limit the objective truth.”
(Chapter I, p. 33)

Classical Quotations

[1620] Francis Bacon, Novum Organum
“There are and can exist but two ways of investigating and discovering truth. The one hurries on rapidly from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from them, as principles and their supposed indisputable truth, derives and discovers the intermediate axioms. This is the way now in use.
The other constructs its axioms from the senses and particulars, by ascending continually and gradually, till it finally arrives at the most general axioms, which is the true but unattempted way.” (Book 1, § 19)

[1990, First Published 1907] William James , Pragmatism, Britannica World Library, Chicago
"True ideas are those we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify.
False ideas are those that we cannot." (Lecture VI)
"The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process; the process namely of its veryfying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-ation." (Lecture VI)

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