Philosophy Now Forum

The following answers to this question each win a signed copy of How To Be An Agnostic by Mark Vernon. Sorry if you’re not here; there were lots of entries.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/86/What_Is_Truth

Truth is a concept tossed about between humans; it is something one uses, like lies, to support one or another's actions and beliefs. Truth is totally synthetic: we make something a truth by either retelling the past or asserting our own views to others; making truth necessarily subjective as humans are subjective and cannot be otherwise. Whatever someone deems a truth another will disagree or disprove with time and with science; it is the nature of human-beings.
Even mathematical truths are idealistic, man-made and mind dependant. Before there was humans there was no maths, there was only nature and so nothing had a number or a sequence; only that nature has its own maths, which is not maths, but a natural logic. This is complex to comprehend for as humans we have created these analytical truths which is neigh impossible to separate ourselves from.
However, truth as an expression of what we believe is reality, has its use in society as it creates belief, strength and trust – all of which are important to human life, which for the most-part is reliant on communication and social connection.

Truth is anything that works.

Correctness the equivalence between any expectation or possibility and its perceived unfolding.

A better question is what is the difference between right and true. Before one can understand true one must understand right. Before one understands right one must understand extrinsic subject.

Extrinsic Subject - subject given to a relation
Intrinsic Subject - subject contained in a relation
Right - if a subject is within an extrinsic subject
Wrong - if a subject is not within an extrinsic subject
True - if a subject is within an extrinsic subject and the extrinsic subject is beyond the scope of language
Possession - if an intrinsic subject is within a subject

Therefore, right is a subjective form of true. For example, in a baseball game an umpire can call a pitch a strike even though the pitch was out of the strike zone. The pitch being a strike is right even though it wasn't true.