Question

The vast majority of philosophers today subscribe to the correspondence theory of the truth, that the truth is correspondence to the reality. Two other theories of the truth are the coherence theory of the truth (A true statement is one which is coherent with other statements we accept as true.) and the pragmatist theory of the truth (Truth is that which is useful.).

In our high-school philosophy classes we were taught that the biggest problem with the correspondence theory of the truth is that, if it were true, counter-factual hypotheticals could never be true. For example, the statement If Honore de Balzac had not lived from his writings, he wouldn't have written 20'000 pages of text. corresponds to nothing in reality, so, according to the correspondence theory of the truth, it cannot possibly be true. Yet the vast majority of people would agree that statement is probably true.

I haven't heard any philosopher responding to that objection. So, how do the proponents of the correspondence theory of the truth respond to it?

Answer 1

The proponents of the correspondence theory of truth respond by emphasizing the importance of logical consistency and coherence in addition to correspondence to reality.

Step-by-step explanation:

The proponents of the correspondence theory of truth respond to the objection about counter-factual hypotheticals by arguing that truth is not solely determined by correspondence to reality, but also considers the logical consistency and coherence of statements. While the correspondence theory focuses on the factual accuracy of statements, it does not exclude the possibility of true counter-factuals. In the example given, the statement 'If Honore de Balzac had not lived from his writings, he wouldn't have written 20,000 pages of text' can be considered true because it is logically coherent and consistent with our knowledge of Balzac's life and writings.