Journal 3

Truth

Truth according to the dictionary means the state of being true. But thats very vague. How

do you define what is true? This topic has been a debate for thousands of years among great

philosophers and they came up with several theories on what truth really is. The first theory is

the coherence theory of truth. The main idea of this theory is that a belief is true when it is

consistent and coheres with another persons belief. This theory mainly revolves around the

concept of beliefs. For example when I can only believe what is being taught in the class is

true because I believe that my lecturer is exceptional in that field. The second theory is the

corresponding theory of truth. This theory is more widely-held because it completely

disregards the concept of belief but instead much more grounded to the observable reality.

The correspondence theorys concept of truth is based on the way the world actually is.

Propositions of some events that happened are the basis of truth and truth is not affected by

whatever belief one might hold. The third theory is postmodernism thought. Postmodernists

describe truth as the product of belief. We see the world as how we want to see it

subconsciously biased towards what we believe. Since we can never actually experience

reality in a third person view without any bias, we can never actually describe knowledge or

truth truly in a sense. Truth based on the postmodernist theory is essentially what we perceive

and believe. Postmodernism thought also highly values perspective in regards to truth. People

from all over the spectrum have different perspectives, thus according to this thought there

will never be an absolute truth and objective view of reality. Overall, as we learn more, we

will develop our own belief on what truth really is and thats what matters most.

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