CHAPTER SIX: TRUTH P H I L O S O P H Y A Text with Readings ELEVENTH EDITION M A N U E L V E L A S Q U E Z

CHAPTER SIX: TRUTH P H I L O S O P H Y Knowledge is at least warranted, true belief, but Gettier examples show that something more is required for genuine knowledge.

CHAPTER SIX: TRUTH P H I L O S O P H Y Warrantability is another name for "justification" or "evidence".

CHAPTER SIX: TRUTH P H I L O S O P H Y Warrantability depends on whether the statement to be analyzed is logical, semantic, or empirical.

CHAPTER SIX: TRUTH P H I L O S O P H Y The three traditional theories of truth are the correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic theories.

CHAPTER SIX: TRUTH P H I L O S O P H Y The correspondence theory of truth claims that the truth of a statement depends on its relation to the world of facts. A statement is true if and only if it corresponds to the facts. Objection: If we know only our sensory experiences, how can we ever get outside them to verify what reality actually is? What does correspondence mean? Precisely what is a fact?

CHAPTER SIX: TRUTH P H I L O S O P H Y The coherence theory of truth claims that the truth of a statement depends on its relation to other statements. A statement is true if and only if it coheres or fits in with that system of statements that we already accept. Objection: Coherence is no guarantee of truth. If the first statements are false, they can produce a coherent system of consistent error. There is much disagreement even among idealists over first judgments.

CHAPTER SIX: TRUTH P H I L O S O P H Y The pragmatic theory claims that truth depends on what works. A statement is true if and only if it effectively solves a practical problem and thereby experientially satisfies us. The pragmatist sees the human as needing to use the practical consequences of beliefs to determine their truth and validity. Objection: There's no necessary connection between truth and workability. Truth is rendered a psychological, not an epistemological, concern, and it can become relative.

CHAPTER SIX: TRUTH P H I L O S O P H Y There are three views of truth in science: the instrumentalist, realist, and conceptual relativist views. The instrumentalist view is similar to the pragmatic theory, the realist view to the correspondence theory, and the conceptual relativist view to the coherence theory.

CHAPTER SIX: TRUTH P H I L O S O P H Y Truth is important for hermeneutics, which studies the interpretation of people's words and actions. For Aquinas, scripture has many true symbolic interpretations. For Schleiermacher and Dilthey, the only true interpretation is the one intended by the historical author. Wittgenstein abandoned his early ideal of a clear language of facts and proposed that the meaning of words depends on how they are used, so words can have many true interpretations. For Gadamer, an interpretation emerges from uniting our cultural "prejudices" with what the text was trying to say in its own culture, so there are many true interpretations of a text.