The Correspondence Theory of Truth

Wittgenstein's picture answer. In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus a proposition is a picture of a possible state of affairs, in the way a diagram of a road accident is a picture of the accident: not a resemblance in colour or size, but a mapping of parts onto parts. A true proposition is a picture that fits.

Neither answer has satisfied everybody, and Wittgenstein himself abandoned his later on. That is not a small point: it means the theory that is easiest to believe is the hardest to make precise.

The criticisms

What is a fact? The theory needs facts to be items in the world, and it is not obvious that they are. The desk is a thing you can point to. The fact that the desk is brown is not a further thing standing beside it. A theory whose central term is this obscure has explained truth by something less clear than truth.

Negative propositions. "There is no cheque in the file" is true. What fact does it correspond to? There is no such item as an absence sitting in the file. Either the theory needs negative facts, which most philosophers find intolerable, or it needs some other account of these propositions, and either way the simple formula does not hold.

General propositions. "All contracts require consideration" is true, and there is no single fact for it to correspond to, because it is about every contract that ever was and ever will be.

We cannot step outside our beliefs to check. To see whether a proposition corresponds to a fact we would have to compare the proposition with the world directly. But every comparison we actually make is between a proposition and other propositions, our observations included. This is the objection that motivates the coherence theory in the next chapter.

A worked example

A suit is filed alleging that a partnership was dissolved on 30 June 2023. The defendant denies it.

On the correspondence theory, the plaintiff's assertion is true if the partnership was in fact dissolved on that date, and false otherwise. Whether the plaintiff can prove it, whether it fits comfortably with the rest of the story, and whether it would be convenient for anybody, are all irrelevant to whether it is true. They are relevant to whether it will be found true, which is a different matter.

That gap between being true and being found true is what the whole law of evidence is about. A fact may be true and unprovable, in which case the party asserting it loses. Section 2(1)(j) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023 is careful about this: it defines when a fact is "proved", not when it is true, and it does so by a standard of probability that a prudent person would act on. A statute cannot make something so; it can only say when a court shall proceed as though it were.

The lesson for a student. A judgment that a fact is proved is a finding, and it can be wrong. If truth were defined as what the court finds, no judgment could ever be mistaken and there would be no reason to have appeals, reviews or the power to set aside a decree obtained by fraud. The existence of those remedies is the legal system stating, in its own way, that it holds the correspondence theory.

Distinctions that carry marks

What this does not mean

Correspondence is not resemblance. Words do not look like the things they are about, and no theory has ever claimed they do. What is claimed is a mapping of structure.

The theory is not about how we find out. It says what truth is, not how truth is discovered. Discovery is the business of evidence, observation and inquiry, and the theory is silent on it.

"True" is not "certain". A proposition is true or false whether or not anyone can establish which, and the whole apparatus of standards of proof exists because certainty is unavailable.

Quick revision

Statement: p is true if and only if p corresponds to a fact.

Origin: Plato and Aristotle; the classical formulation is to say of what is that it is.

Realist: truth depends on the world, not on belief, usefulness or agreement.

Accounts of correspondence: Russell's shared structure; Wittgenstein's picture theory in the Tractatus.

Four criticisms: what is a fact; negative propositions; general propositions; and the impossibility of comparing a proposition with the world except through other propositions.

Legal significance: it is the theory the law of evidence assumes. "Proved" under section 2(1)(j) BSA 2023 is a different notion from "true", and appeal and review exist because the two can come apart.

Test yourself

1. State the correspondence theory of truth and explain each element of the statement.

A proposition is true if and only if it corresponds to a fact. "Proposition" is used because only propositions bear truth values, not sentences or beliefs. "Fact" means a part of the world, the way things are arranged, and not another proposition. "Corresponds" names a relation, not a resemblance: the words need not look like what they describe, and what is claimed is that the structure of the proposition maps onto the structure of the fact.

2. Why is the correspondence theory called realist?

Because it makes the truth of a proposition depend entirely on how the world is, independently of what anyone believes, agrees or finds useful. On this theory everybody may believe a proposition and it may still be false, and nobody may believe it and it may still be true. Theories that make truth depend on beliefs, coherence among beliefs or usefulness are not realist in this sense.

3. State two criticisms of the theory.

First, the notion of a fact is obscure: a fact is not an object one can point to, so the theory explains truth by something less clear than what it is explaining. Second, negative and general propositions fit badly: "there is no receipt in the file" is true but corresponds to no positive item in the world, and "all contracts require consideration" is true but there is no single fact for it to correspond to.

4. What accounts have been given of the correspondence relation?

Russell proposed that a true proposition shares a structure with the fact that makes it true, its constituents standing in the same arrangement as the constituents of the fact. Wittgenstein, in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, proposed that a proposition pictures a state of affairs, mapping part onto part as a diagram maps a scene. Neither account has been generally accepted, and Wittgenstein later abandoned his.

5. Distinguish being true from being proved, with the statutory definition.

A proposition is true when the world is as it says, which does not depend on any tribunal. A fact is proved, under section 2(1)(j) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam 2023, when the Court believes it to exist or considers its existence so probable that a prudent person ought in the circumstances to act upon the supposition that it exists. The one is a relation to the world, the other a relation to a tribunal's assessment, and they can come apart in either direction.

6. What does the existence of appeals show about the theory of truth the law assumes?

That the law assumes the correspondence theory. An appeal, a review, or the setting aside of a decree obtained by fraud all presuppose that a court's finding can be wrong, that is, that the finding and the truth are two different things. If truth were simply what the court found, no finding could be mistaken and none of those remedies would have anything to correct.