Truth is conformity to reality or fact. It contrasts with falsity or misrepresentation that fails to align with the world. Truth is typically treated as a property of entities such as sentences, propositions, or beliefs that describe things as they are. It is closely related to truthfulness, a virtue associated with honesty, and to truthlikeness, a characteristic of theories that approximate the truth.
Various theories of the nature of truth have been proposed, but its precise definition remains contested. The correspondence theory holds that a statement is true if it corresponds to facts. According to the coherence theory, a belief is true if it is consistent with other beliefs and supported by them. Pragmatists understand truth based on practical consequences and inquiry, claiming that truth is what works or what would withstand the test of unlimited inquiry. The semantic theory analyzes truth in terms of the conditions under which a sentence would be true. Deflationary theories argue that truth has no significant intrinsic nature, holding that to understand the concept of truth is merely to understand the linguistic role of the word true and similar expressions. Pluralists assert that the definition of truth varies with the domain of analysis, while relativists maintain that the same statement can be true in one perspective and false in another. Theories of truth are challenged by logical paradoxes, such as the liar paradox. There are also discussions about the existence of additional truth values besides true and false and about the possibility of truth value gapsstatements that have no truth value.
Philosophers distinguish types of truth by domain, content, and epistemic access, including a priori, necessary, moral, aesthetic, religious, and scientific truths. Truth plays a central role in the sciences as a goal of inquiry. The empirical sciences seek truth through observation and experimentation, whereas the formal sciences rely on deductive reasoning from fundamental principles. Many religious traditions regard truth as a virtue and ground it in a divine source. Truth also acts as a guiding norm in the fields of ethics, law, and journalism.
Discussions of truth arose in antiquity in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, and Greek thought. In the medieval period, Christian and Islamic philosophers explored the relation between truth and God. Discussions in the modern and contemporary periods have addressed diverse topics, such as the nature of truth and its relation to thought, language, and reality.
Definition Truth is conformity to facts or accordance with reality. It is often understood as a property of statements or beliefs that present the world as it is, or as a relation between language or thought and how things actually are. However, its precise definition is disputed, with different theories focusing on elements such as correspondence, coherence, or practical usefulness. In a slightly different sense, the term can also refer to genuineness, as in "a true friend" or "true gold", spiritual teachings, like "the truth of the scriptures", or facts themselves, such as "in truth, the product was defective." Truth contrasts with falsehood or falsity, which encompasses misrepresentations that do not meet this standard and fail to align with reality. The negation of a true statement is a falsehood.
Truth plays a central role in many human endeavors. It acts as a goal of inquiry when deciding what to believe and as a standard to which right conduct should conform by being responsive to how things actually are. People refer to truth to indicate reliable information, mark scientific findings well supported by evidence, distinguish accurate legal testimony from misrepresentation, and emphasize honesty and sincerity in personal life. Truth is typically regarded as a positive value, either because of its beneficial consequences or as an intrinsic good pursued for its own sake.
The word truth comes from the Old English , meaning . It entered Modern English via the Middle English term .
Basic concepts Truthbearers
Truth is commonly treated as a feature of truthbearersentities that can be true or false. Philosophers discuss which entities serve as truthbearers, including sentences, propositions, and beliefs. Sentences are concrete linguistic entities composed of strings of words, like "It's raining in Nairobi." Their public nature and clear structure can aid philosophical analysis of truth-related phenomena. However, it is not always possible to establish a straightforward relation between a sentence and its truth value since its meaning can be context-dependent and may also be influenced by ambiguous terms. As a result, a sentence may be true under one interpretation and false under another. Another difficulty is that sentences belong to specific languages, with the danger of limiting philosophical analysis to language-specific features rather than articulating universal principles.
Propositions are typically understood as abstract entities that serve as the meanings of declarative sentences, mitigating the difficulties of context dependence, ambiguity, and language specificity. However, their abstract nature can make philosophical discussions less tangible, and there is disagreement about the existence of abstract objects. Beliefs and related mental states are concrete psychological entities, taking the form of subjective attitudes about what is the case. They establish a direct link between truth and cognition but are difficult to study because of their private nature.
Monists argue that there is only a single kind of truthbearer, while pluralists accept different kinds. Some identify one kind as primary, explaining the truth values of secondary truthbearers in terms of the primary one. For example, one proposal reduces the truth of beliefs to sentences since sentences can be used to express beliefs.
Truthmakers and truth conditions
Various theories rely on the concept of truthmakers as the counterpart of truthbearers. A truthmaker is a real entity whose existence makes a truthbearer true, establishing a link between language or thought and the world. For example, an orange carrot could act as a truthmaker of the sentence "the carrot is orange". Truthmakers are often treated as sufficient conditions: the existence of a truthmaker is enough for the sentence to be true, independent of other factors. Philosophers discuss which entities function as truthmakers, with candidates including facts or states of affairs, tropes, and particular objects.
Truthmakers are closely related to truth conditions, which are ways or circumstances under which a statement is true. Truth conditions are requirements of how the world must be for a statement to be true. For instance, one truth condition of the sentence "it is raining" is that raindrops are falling. Truth conditions are often treated as necessary conditions: if a truth condition does not obtain, then the sentence cannot be true, independent of other factors. A key motivation for truthmakers and truth conditions is the idea that truth depends on reality: truth is not a free-floating convention but is anchored in how things are.
Others Truthfulness is a virtue associated with honesty and consistency among one's words, beliefs, and behavior. It is closely related to speaking the truth but differs in some key aspects. For example, if a person sincerely states a belief, they may be truthful even if the belief is false. Conversely, someone may state a truth with the intent to deceive, or a liar may accidentally tell a truth. In both cases, truth alone is insufficient for truthfulness. Truthfulness contrasts with deception and dishonesty. Lying occurs when a speaker intentionally says something they believe to be false. Bullshitting is a related phenomenon in which a speaker is indifferent to truth or falsehood, for instance, because they only care about persuading or manipulating their audience. Truthiness, a similar term, refers to the tendency to prioritize intuition and gut feelings over evidence and rational analysis. Its meaning overlaps with the term post-truth, which denotes situations in which public opinion is shaped by appeal to emotions rather than objective facts. Deception can also take non-verbal forms, such as edited photographs, deepfakes, and AI-generated content intended to mislead or fabricate events.
Truthlikeness or verisimilitude is a concept applied to theories or statements that are close to the truth. It is often used in the context of inquiry to indicate that a theory is not fully true but approximates this goal better than others. For example, heliocentrism is a model of the Solar System that is correct in certain aspects, like that planets orbit around the sun, and wrong in others, like claiming that the orbits are perfect circles. As a result, heliocentrism is not true in a strict sense but truthlike. Truthlikeness comes in degrees. For instance, heliocentrism is more truthlike than geocentrism, which places the Earth at the center of the universe. Different philosophical approaches to truthlikeness have been proposed. Some look at logical consequences, arguing that a theory's degree of truthlikeness depends on the number of its true and false consequences. Others focus on resemblance, comparing how similar the theory's description is to the actual world. According to some suggestions, truth itself also comes in degrees, an idea found in fuzzy logics. However, the traditional view is that truth is bivalent: an assertion is either true or false with nothing in between.
Truth is closely related to justification and evidence with some key differences. A belief is justified if it meets certain epistemic norms, for example, by resting on good reasons or strong evidence. Evidence for a proposition is something that supports its truth, such as observation or reliable testimony. Justification and evidence separate warranted beliefs from superstition and lucky guesses but do not guarantee truth: even well-founded beliefs can be false in unfavorable circumstances. If a justified belief is true, it may amount to knowledge, which, unlike justification on its own, has truth as a core component. Epistemologists discuss various sources of knowledge or how people may arrive at truth, such as perception, introspection, memory, reason, and testimony. Verification and fact-checking are processes that aim to assess the truth value of a proposition. They may rely on criteria of truth, which are standards by which one can recognize that a claim is true.
Theories
Theories of truth aim to identify what all truths have in common. Their goal is not to list true statements but to clarify the concept of truth, discern its essential features, and explain truth-related phenomena. There are disagreements about whether such features exist and whether a given feature is an essential component or an external criterion only indicating the presence of truth.
Correspondence
The correspondence theory asserts that a belief or statement is true if it corresponds to facts. This view emphasizes the relation between thought or language and reality, arguing that truth matches how things are. It is one of the oldest and most influential theories of truth.