What is the Truth, Anyway?

You would think that there is an answer to the question - what is the truth? Unfortunately, this is not the case. Like witnesses reporting the 'facts' of a traffic accident, different observers have very different perspectives.

There is a correspondence theory of truth that says a thing is true if it corresponds to the real world. This sounds pretty good but begins to fall apart when we ask what we mean by "corresponds to the real world". Since we organize our knowledge into categories and structures that certainly don't exist in the real world, this gets a little dicey.

Another view, called the coherence view, suggests that those categories and structures must provide a consistent and coherent view of the world and use coherency as the criterion for truth. That is, it needs to make sense considering other things we know.

While both of these provide useful ways of looking at the truth, they both address truth about the natural world. If we are seeking truth about the social world such as, how do we interpret and explain the human experience, or if we are looking for truths about the moral sphere such as, how should we behave as moral agents, then there is no place to look in the natural world for answers. Hints maybe, but answers - no.

This is to say that despite our reverence for science and despite the great reputation it has for bringing us closer to the truth about the natural world, science does not bring us one iota closer to truth about the social world or the moral sphere. What does bring us closer to truth about interpreting our experience as humans and how we should behave as moral agents? The answer, which I will get around to eventually, is - stories.