Conclusion
Majority decision. The practice of allowing the majority of the members of a social group to make decisions is an important feature of a democratic way of life. By “majority”
we mean the greater part or more than half, even if the difference between the two parts is a matter of one point.
The majority’s decision is used in determining many issues, e.g., what form of government a society should have, who should manage the state, the province and other political units, what laws to pass, which regions and which agencies will get this much support from the government, etc.?
Past experiences will tell us that in many instances the majority opinion, as well as the unanimous decision, was wrong. For instance, governments encounter serious budgetary deficits because of a majority decision on wrong revenue collection estimates.
A majority decision, therefore, is not a good test of truth.
Authority. The jurisdiction of political authority, the location of sovereignty, the balancing of freedom and authority, and the requirements of political obligations have been core questions for political philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to the present.
Relying on authority in resolving issues is a widespread practice by individuals or groups in every society. For instance, religious persons cite the Bible as the authority of their lives; confronted with a legal problem, they get the services of lawyers; and to solve their medical problems, they depend on doctors.
It is a fact, however, that authorities often contradict each other or one another. Medical doctors are known to have differed in their diagnosis of certain illnesses such as dengue. Sociologists have disagreed on the major motivation for the runaway population growth in Third World countries. Judges confuse people with their different opinions as to whether abortion is a crime or not. Whose word then, should they trust?
Another consideration that weakens authority as tests of truth is the fact that there are persons who masquerade as authorities, and there are writings that later on are discovered to be spurious.
Pragmatism as a way to test for truth is to refer to accounts, definitions and theories that are workable, practical and satisfactory.
As a test of truth, it has deficiencies, the more prominent being the difficulty to determine what is meant by workable, practical and satisfactory. And from whose viewpoint should the results be judged as satisfactorily workable and useful?
Correspondence. The correspondence theory is often traced back to Aristotle’s well-known definition of truth (in Metaphysics): “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”—but virtually identical formulations can be found in correspondence.
It is noteworthy that this definition does not highlight the basic correspondence intuition. It is defined as that which conforms to fact, which agrees with reality and which corresponds to the actual situation (Bertrand Russell). On the basis of this definition the correspondence theory of truth was formulated: an idea or description is true if it agrees with the object described or referred to.
As a definition of truth, correspondence is no doubt beyond question. But as a test of truth, correspondence is, in many instances, not useful. Its user will be faced with the difficulty of comparing ideas with reality since, unlike the former; the latter may not be immediately available to him.
One immediate idea of the object and your idea of it when you experienced it may be compared to a correspondence check. For instance, is the object still the same as when you experienced it? It is wise then to take correspondence for what it is—a definition of truth, but not as a test of truth as other people would insist.
That consistency helps detect falsehood has contradictions. It does not tell us if statements are in themselves true, are related to or connected with each other or one another.
In rigorous consistency, all statements in an argument must necessarily follow one another. Basically, this is the principle underlying the Aristotelian logic as the following classic in syllogism exemplifies: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal.
While the rigorous form of consistency is effective for the static or closed system, it rests on certain assumptions, such as that all men are mortals, which need to be verified. Moreover, consistency could be easily disrupted by the mere introduction of new and unrelated data. On this basis even rigorous consistency is not an adequate test of truth.
Coherence. The coherence of truth originated with G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) and is associated with rationalistic philosophers like Rene Descartes. It is a view that an idea, opinion or belief is true if it has intelligible, systematic and consistent connection with the body of knowledge that we possess.
It is not enough that a statement is consistent; it must have a clear and logical link with all other facts of our experience.
Since coherence takes into account all facts of human experiences and provides us with a more complete view of life, it is more adequate and, therefore, superior to any of the tests that have been examined.
Dr. Patrick A. Azanza, a noted academician, said in his book Human Behavior and Society: “Truth is the reality of the matter, situation or existence. This is also the accepted state of a person, object or environment based on coincidence or agreement of what is said and what is real. Consistency, coherence and preponderance of evidence support the truth of an idea.”
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.