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Correspondence: --------------------------
The most famous version of this theory was given by Aristotle in 335 BC in his Metaphysics, Book IV, Chapter 7 [26]
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.
Randall, J. & Buchler, J.; Philosophy: An Introduction. p133
According to this theory (correspondence), truth consists in the agreement of our thought with reality. This view ... seems to conform rather closely to our ordinary common sense usage when we speak of truth. The flaws in the definition arise when we ask what is meant by "agreement" or "correspondence" of ideas and objects, beliefs and facts, thought and reality. In order to test the truth of an idea or belief we must presumably compare it with the reality in some sense.
1- In order to make the comparison, we must know what it is that we are comparing, namely, the belief on the one hand and the reality on the other. But if we already know the reality, why do we need to make a comparison? And if we don't know the reality, how can we make a comparison?
2- The making of the comparison is itself a fact about which we have a belief. We have to believe that the belief about the comparison is true. How do we know that our belief in this agreement is "true"? This leads to an infinite regress, leaving us with no assurance of true belief.
Brightman, E. S.; Philosophy of Religion, Ch4.
Correspondence fails because it can never be applied to a situation. A present proposition is impossible to compare with a past, future or an eternal object; such a comparison would require the past, the future or eternity to be now present for comparison, which is a plain impossibility.
Even propositions about the present are incapable of being tested by correspondence; for the process of comparison would take time and before it had occurred, the present object would have become past.
Correspondence fails because it is not a criterion of truth.
Correspondence fails because it is not a source of truth.
Rescher, N.; The Coherence Theory of Truth, p8.
(Correspondence is) ... not workable for genuinely universal propositions: how can one possibly check ... the 'correspondence with the facts' of a universal proposition with potential infinity of instances? e.g. All lions are carnivorous.
Beck, L.W. & Holmes, R.L.; Philosophic Inquiry, p130.
Although it seems ... obvious to say, "Truth is correspondence of thought (belief, proposition) to what is actually the case", such an assertion nevertheless involves a metaphysical assumption - that there is a fact, object, or state of affairs, independent of our knowledge to which our knowledge corresponds.
"How, on your principles, could you know you have a true proposition?" ... or ... "How can you use your definition of truth, it being the correspondence between a judgment and its object, as a criterion of truth? How can you know when such correspondence actually holds?"
I cannot step outside my mind to compare a thought in it with something outside it.
Hospers, J.; An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, p116.
Does a true proposition correspond to a fact in the way that the color sample on the color chart corresponds to the color of the paint on the wall? No, there is certainly no resemblance between a proposition and a state-of-affairs. .
Priest, Graham; Truth & Contradiction, Philos. Qtly, v50;n200;p317;2000
. . . it is not clear that we meet any facts in experience. We meet people, stars, chairs, and other objects, but not facts or states of affairs. And if this is so, and the objection is cogent, it tells against all correspondence theories of truth.
Ewing, A.C.; The Fundamental Questions of Philosophy, pp54-55.
The word 'correspondence' suggests that, when we make a true judgment, we have a sort of picture of the real in our minds and that our judgment is true because this picture is like the reality it represents. But our judgments are not like the physical things to which they refer. The images we use in judging may indeed in certain respects copy or resemble physical things, but we can make a judgment without using any imagery except words, and words are not in the least similar to the things which they represent. We must not understand 'correspondence' as meaning copying or even resemblance.
p57- ... the correspondence theory . . . does not give us much information unless we can succeed in defining correspondence, and unfortunately nobody has been able yet to give a satisfactory definition.
Brennan, J. G.; The Meaning of Philosophy, p78.
A less ambiguous formulation of the correspondence theory is: "A sentence is true if there are such facts as it designates." There cannot be an exact correspondence between a sentence and a situation in the empirical world, for there are no sentences in Nature. - The correspondence theory tries to explain what is the case when a sentence is true. It says nothing about how we discover or how we prove that a sentence corresponds to the facts.
Vision, Gerald; Veritas, px
... the correspondence theory doesn't tell us directly what, if anything, is true: that is, it doesn't carry immediate implications for the extension of the property of truth. It doesn't even, as some of its competitors do, give us something to go by, a criterion, for detecting particular truths.
Aquinas, Thomas; Truth, Vol. II, Qs. 10, Article 4.
All cognition takes place through assimilation. But there is no assimilation possible between the mind and material things, because likeness depends on sameness of quality. However, the qualities of material things are bodily accidents which cannot exist in the mind. Therefore, the mind cannot know material things.
Morton, A. & Stich, S., eds.; Benacerraf and his Critics, p61
... what is missing [with correspondence] is precisely... an account of the link between our cognitive faculties and the objects known.
Frege, G.; The Thought: A Logical Inquiry, In Strawson, P.F., ed. Philosophical Logic, p19
Truth cannot tolerate a more or less. Can it not be laid down that truth exists when there is a correspondence in a certain respect? But in which? For what would we then have to do to decide whether something were true? We should have to inquire whether it were true that an idea and a reality, perhaps, corresponded in the laid-down respect. And then we should be confronted by a question of the same kind and the game could begin again. So the attempt to explain truth as correspondence collapses... Consequently, it is probable that the content of the word 'true' is unique and indefinable.
Kaufmann, F.; Basic Issues in Logical Positivism, in Philosophic Thought in France & the US., p568
... we cannot compare propositions with reality, but only with other propositions. This amounts to the rejection of correspondence theories of truth...
nice.
Ewing, A.C.
p57- ... the correspondence theory . . . does not give us much information unless we can succeed in defining correspondence, and unfortunately nobody has been able yet to give a satisfactory definition.
Just because many people agree on a prop. does not guarantee its validity.
i agree saiima that the definitions are bound to be incomplete. Which is kind of unsatisfying. That disatisfaction, how important it is to us and for how long we experience it moves us on in one way or another.
Which is to say that i believe your statement is true in the sense i agree with you. Namely i trust we share many thoughts and feelings on the subject.... but we can also agree that something is a clock also, for all practical purposes (of that time). Another time (another narrative) and we can agree that it isn't a clock.
