Truth

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Truth is an epistemological unit: the recognition of a fact. Non-conceptualists tend to consider truth to be an abstraction which is independent of the mind, but in Objectivism the mind plays a central role in defining truth -- what is true, or false, is a judgment (expressed as a proposition).

Whether a proposition is true or not depends on two things: whether the definitions of relevant concepts are true -- connected to reality -- and whether the situation described by the proposition is similarly connected to reality. Thus Objectivism holds to a version of the correspondence theory of truth, where the correspondence is between metaphysical facts and consciousness, specifically conceptual products (propositions).

It follows from this that randomly computer-generated strings of letters which accidentally spell out a seemly factual sentence do not constitute "truth", because they do not constitute a correspondence between a consciousness and facts.


See Also

The Arbitrary

Epistemology Topics
Senses | Consciousness | Volition | Concepts: Unit, Concept-Formation
Objectivity | Knowledge: Context, Hierarchy | Reason: Certainty, Truth, the Arbitrary | Emotions