Truth as Correspondence (Earth, evolve, bible, Israel, Isaac)

[Jayhawker Soule]

Narrowly speaking, the correspondence theory of truth is the view that truth is correspondence to a fact -- a view that was advocated by Russell and Moore early in the 20th century. But the label is usually applied much more broadly to any view explicitly embracing the idea that truth consists in a relation to reality, i.e., that truth is a relational property involving a characteristic relation (to be specified) to some portion of reality (to be specified). ...

The best known is the metaphysical version presented by Thomas Aquinas: “Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus” -- truth is the equation of thing and intellect -- which he restates as: “A judgment is said to be true when it conforms to the external reality” (De Veritate Q.1, A.1&3; cf. Summa Theologiae Q.16). Aquinas credits the Neoplatonist Isaac Israeli with this definition. But there is no such definition in Isaac. It originated with the Arabic philosophers Avicenna and Averroes (Tahafut, 103, 302), and was introduced to the scholastics by William of Auxerre (cf. Boehner 1958; Wolenski 1994). The formula “equation of thing and intellect” is intended to leave room for the idea that “true” can be applied not only to thoughts and judgments but also to things (e.g. a true friend). Aquinas explains that a thought is said to be true because it conforms to reality, whereas a thing is said to be true because it conforms to a thought (a friend is true insofar as, and because, he conforms to our, or God's, conception of what a friend ought to be). This notion of thing-truth, which played an important role in ancient and medieval thinking, is disregarded by modern and analytic philosophers but survives to some extent in existentialist and continental philosophy.

- see The Correspondence Theory of Truth

I found both the article and the parent site interesting.

[Francine]

Truth is the correspondence between our ideas and the world at large. If we state idea that the Earth and the Moon revolve once a month around a common barycenter, this idea corresponds with reality so it is true. When the bible says the Earth does not move, this idea does not correspond with reality so it is not true.

[Willamena]

Originally Posted by Francine

Truth is the correspondence between our ideas and the world at large. If we state idea that the Earth and the Moon revolve once a month around a common barycenter, this idea corresponds with reality so it is true. When the bible says the Earth does not move, this idea does not correspond with reality so it is not true.

Is it reality that it corresponds with in your example, or our observation of reality? And if the latter, aren't we just saying that "our ideas of reality are true in as far as they correspond with our ideas of reality"?

[Francine]

Originally Posted by Willamena

Is it reality that it corresponds with in your example, or our observation of reality? And if the latter, aren't we just saying that "our ideas of reality are true in as far as they correspond with our ideas of reality"?

If our Mormon ideas correspond with all other Mormon ideas, then our Mormon ideas are true, even if Mormon ideas don't correspond with archaeological or genetic ideas. I don't believe the KJV bible is true, but I know the KJV well, and I can tell someone when their idea does not correspond to the ideas in the KJV.