Over the history of humanity, we have struggled with the idea of truth. The main question for this blog is: What does truth represent? This is worth time, energy, and effort, so I will try to answer this question.
First of all, we must come to the realization that we all admire truth. If you do not believe me, notice the initial reaction when someone you love lies to you. When you expect something to occur (especially when someone told you that thing was going to occur), and whatever you expected does not occur, (the person "lied" to you) there is always the notion that you were wronged. Why is this?
So, it is pertinent that truth represents something. In any attempt to define truth, it just turns out to be examples of what truth is and what truth is not. So, we have to ask the nature of truth. The question now becomes, "what does truth represent?" Bertrand Russell, the greatest linguistic philosopher says, "truth represents the way things actually are." This means that truth is only truth if it corresponds with reality. For example, if I was to look out of my window and stare at a tree, and I then said that the tree were a car, that is obviously not true. Anyone who would argue with that is someone I do not want to associate with. So, truth always corresponds with reality, or, as Bertrand Russell says, "the way things actually are."
Let's take, for example, a blue car, the car is obviously blue. Now, someone walks up and happens to be colorblind. The colorblind individual claims that the car is grey. They start discussing the color of the car, and it becomes obvious that they disagree. What do they do? Should they just agree that the car is two completely different colors? Absolutely not! There is never more than one actualized reality. Now, it could be that in reality the car is grey and the person who sees blue has the defect, but nonetheless we must understand that one of them has a defect. This does not mean that either of them are lying, but it means that something is prohibiting them from seeing reality in its fullness.
First of all, we must come to the realization that we all admire truth. If you do not believe me, notice the initial reaction when someone you love lies to you. When you expect something to occur (especially when someone told you that thing was going to occur), and whatever you expected does not occur, (the person "lied" to you) there is always the notion that you were wronged. Why is this?
So, it is pertinent that truth represents something. In any attempt to define truth, it just turns out to be examples of what truth is and what truth is not. So, we have to ask the nature of truth. The question now becomes, "what does truth represent?" Bertrand Russell, the greatest linguistic philosopher says, "truth represents the way things actually are." This means that truth is only truth if it corresponds with reality. For example, if I was to look out of my window and stare at a tree, and I then said that the tree were a car, that is obviously not true. Anyone who would argue with that is someone I do not want to associate with. So, truth always corresponds with reality, or, as Bertrand Russell says, "the way things actually are."
Let's take, for example, a blue car, the car is obviously blue. Now, someone walks up and happens to be colorblind. The colorblind individual claims that the car is grey. They start discussing the color of the car, and it becomes obvious that they disagree. What do they do? Should they just agree that the car is two completely different colors? Absolutely not! There is never more than one actualized reality. Now, it could be that in reality the car is grey and the person who sees blue has the defect, but nonetheless we must understand that one of them has a defect. This does not mean that either of them are lying, but it means that something is prohibiting them from seeing reality in its fullness.
