To which version of Truth are you partial?

I have been having difficulty dealing with issues of truth lately.

• What does it mean to say of any particular statement that it is true?
• Is Truth more than just a relationship between words and the world or theories? 
• Does the notion of Truth have a value just by the curiosity it generates?

I thought I would source its illusiveness by appealing to philosophers proper. In short there seem to be three enquiry-based interpretations, with Truth:

• as a Correspondence to facts via the Realist's construction of a proof,
• being the Idealist's Coherence within a consistent system of beliefs,
• as a limiting ideal to which Pragmatists argue we aim but never arrive.

If none of these tickle you, Linguistic philosophy reveals the apparent transparency and redundancy of truth as a predicate word-form. It's hollowness is captured in its redundancy in the following cascade:

1. There is a Glass of water here..
2. It is true that there is a glass of water here..
3. I recall that it is true that it is a fact that there is a glass water here..

All content is captured in "the glass of water being here" and if truth is a useful construct it should add content but it does not. As such you could argue to focus on the use of the word, rather than any metaphysical issues of the word itself.

Below is my partial transcription of the estimable discussion on BBC "In Our Time series". But if you are a Post-Modern Relativist, apparently only you can judge whether it is faithful or even representative. Such pervasive scepticism in our Post-truth contemporary culture affords this multiplicity of views?

The correspondence theory of Realists offer Aristotle's truth platitude as: "To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true". [Don't switch off, that is just a platitude no matter how intractable on first blush].

There are facts out there and our job is to delineate them with our beliefs and sentences. This puts the burden squarely on the structure of facts. But as Neitzche argues there are no facts only interpretation. We use and construct proofs in mathematical enquiry we don't take in facts. The proof is an artefact while facts are given to us. En route to proof we make propositions of fact. The fact (that I write on an iPad) is an independently ostensible fact. The fact confers to our proposition.

There are three types of facts:

1. "assertive"- this is a glass of water
2. "negative" - this is not an empty glass
3. "counter-factual"- this glass would be empty if the water were a superfluid.

Questions that arise out of this view:

I) Are facts more a construction of our mind or are they presented to us from outside?

II) Can we articulate the idea of a fact without presupposing the notion of a truth?

Idealist's, rather argue for coherence, that Propositions if part of something that is true belongs to a coherent system of beliefs. Problematically Bacon came along with a coherent system that contained a falsehood that did not render his system incoherent.

Pragmatism [Purse] advocates truth as that opinion feted as ultimately agreed to by all of whom that have investigated; the object represented in this opinion being the "real". Truth as such is the end of the process of enquiry, that upon which our beliefs converge. Truth is concordant with an abstract statement being the ideal limit towards which endless investigation tends to bring scientific belief. Truth is it. As believers we are disposed to the truth. As an example of the Pragmatic take on basic scientific enquiry consider the Theory of Everything (ToE). We are never to reach that ideal limiting theory. We would not even know we were there even if we had arrived at it as there would be expectation of more beyond. [The notion of the unveiling of a truth is an imaginary focus to motivate the search for better explanations.]

The fundamental "given" is assertability. Formally this takes the form of propositions. True propositions are unimprovable opinions. When you get there [to the Truth] you will never have to change your opinion again. As your assertions remain not overturned they form part of the system of truth.

Linguistics rather asks why bother with the word Truth at all given its redundancy? Semantics as such looks at the way that sentences actually work with it rather than the object notion of truth. The question they ask is given it looks like truth is a predicate, an adjective ascribing a property to thoughts or sentences, perhaps we are merely endorsing, commending a certain view, claiming someone's authority to it. This is akin to rather than asking "what is knowledge?" ask "what do we use "knows" to do?" We use it to express that "x" knows that of "p" so that "x" can be deemed authoritative as far as [notion] p is concerned; that is we can trust their testimony.

Deflationists would look to supplant the word truth with an equivalent list of statements according to the following prescription:

• I relate that the philosophers said that truth is transparent ... And it is
• I relate that the philosophers said that "Wittgenstein cites the example "You cannot move the fact that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris even though you could move its structure?" " And they did
• ..and so on..

Then that list would be equivalent to you the reader saying that everything I said was true without saying the word true. In a more rigorous version all aspects of the use of the word truth can be accounted. There is no need to think of truth as a thing or a property. Pluralists in a nod to deflation argue that the concept truth has a variable level of complexity dependent on its application: be it to ethics, science and mathematics. They are different in judgement, differences in the propositions rather than the notion of truth.

Not everything goes though, even though there are manifold ways of dealing with truth. To put current affairs in sharp relief. In wondering "what historians will make of this?" (at the end of the Second World War), "it will never be said that Belgium invaded Germany".

Here is the In Our Time podcast from which much of this is inferred and transcribed:

BBC "In Our Time series"