Langit Siregar – langit.siregar@postgrad.manchester.ac.

uk

How Coherentism and Pragmatism Navigate

Problems of Correspondence Theory of Truth

Everyone wants to know the truth. Either about the world, other people, and even themselves. The

topic of truth has been the focus of philosophical discourse since the ancient Greek period.

Philosophers in ancient Greece explored the nature of reality and the relationship between

appearances and underlying truths. Plato (2008), in his famous Allegory of the Cave, discussed

the difference between the perceived world and the ultimate reality of forms. It continued to the

Middle Age period where truth was often discussed in the context of religious and theological

inquiries. As time progressed, Renaissance philosophers continued to explore the nature of truth

in the context of epistemology. The discourse on truth became more focused on reason,

empiricism, and the scientific method. Then, in the 19th century, idealist Georg Wilhelm

Friedrich Hegel developed theories about truth as a dynamic process within history and society.

Followed by Søren Kierkegaard who emphasized the subjective nature of truth and the

individual's relationship with it. When Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey

brought the pragmatic approach in the late 19th and early 20th century, the truth was mainly

determined by practical consequences and the usefulness of beliefs in guiding action and inquiry.

This has led to discussions about the multiplicity of truths.

This paper aims to explore different theories of truth and examine how coherentism and

pragmatism patched up some issues that arise in the correspondence theory of truth by

showcasing how coherentism helps address the regress issue and circular justification and how

pragmatism helps navigate the context dependence issue by shifting the standpoint from objective

to subjective.

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Theories of Truth

Some people believe that there are multiple truths, as truth can be subjective. Others believe that

there is only one universal truth. Some believe that the truth lies in front of our eyes; things we

can perceive sensory and ponder cognitively. Others believe that the truth is something

otherworldly or transcendent. Before we dive into the issues of the correspondence theory of

truth, I am going to present how different theories of truth relate to each other and how they differ

from each other.

The correspondence theory of truth is an approach to truth where a proposition is true if it

corresponds with or accurately represents the facts of reality. The basis of the correspondence

theory of truth, from now on will be referred to as the CTT, was formed in analytic philosophy.

Although the early formation of the CTT was expressed by Kant (1800) in the form of this

premise:

The proposition that p is true if and only if p corresponds with the facts.

In this case, the term truth can be used to refer to the concept that “picks out” the property which

carries truth value, which then is expressed by the adjective “true” (Marian, 2022). It can also be

used to refer to some sets of true truth-bearers, such as “the truth will be revealed” or “the truth

will remain unknown”.

The view that considers truth relies on its correspondence with facts is what started the debate

about the possibility of propositions inside our mind and language as the tool to express those

propositions can be regarded as able to precisely represent our reality. Bertrand Russell, who then

be followed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, suggested that proposition and fact "correspond" when their

structure is isomorphic or similar. From the perspective of the CTT, for a proposition to be true,

there needs to exist some facts to which it corresponds. The proposition p must correspond with
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the fact that p (Kirkham, 1992). According to the CTT, it is best to rewrite “The proposition that p

is true if and only if it is a fact that p” to “p is true when it is a fact that p”. Here is an example of

proving the truth of a proposition according to this theory.

Proposition :

"Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius"

Relevant Fact :

The fact that boiling point of water is a well-established physical property, and it is known to

be 100 degrees Celsius at standard atmospheric pressure.

Evaluation :

To assess the truth of the proposition, we compare it with the relevant fact. If we heat a

sample of water under normal atmospheric pressure, and we observe that it indeed starts to

boil at around 100 degrees Celsius, then the proposition corresponds with this observed fact.

As a result, the proposition "Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius" is considered true according

to the CTT.

This theory deals with objective truth, meaning that it involves verification (confirming a

proposition's truth) and falsification (demonstrating a proposition's falsehood) through empirical

evidence, observation, and experimentation. But what we experience happens in our minds. We

perceive reality as our minds reflect it to be in our minds.

To bind what is inside our minds to the external world, we need to have a tangible grip on the

physical world. F.H. Bradley (1909) expressed that the truth is a question of relative contribution

to my known world order. So, in this sense, truth can be subjective. This type of view towards

truth is called coherentism. The coherence theory of truth is an approach to truth where a

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proposition is true if it coheres or fits well with a system of other beliefs or propositions. In this

sense, truth is determined by the logical consistency and interconnectedness of a set of beliefs.

Hence, the truth needs epistemic justification. For example, all your life you have known from the

repeated experience of touching fire or freshly burned objects so you can infer that the statement

“fire is hot” is true.

Since a belief is true if it coheres with a body of other statements that we take to be true, the

statement or proposition must fit within one’s web of beliefs. A set of beliefs of someone who

grew up religious might be completely different from those who did not. Just like some people

would argue that magic is true based on their experiences, knowledge, and web of belief too.

Coherentism can relate to the constructivist or relativistic theories of truth where the concept of

truth is constructed or determined by human interpretation, cultural context, or individual

perspectives. Hence, the truth can be relative to individuals or societies. This view can also lead to

the consensus theory of truth where the truth is determined by agreement or consensus among a

group of people. This means that the truth lies in the statements that are agreed upon by the

majority of individuals within a community. An example of finding the truth through this theory

goes like this.

 Proposition :

"All mammals lay eggs."

 System of Belief :

A person's biological knowledge about mammals and their reproductive behaviours. This

shows that not all mammals lay eggs, there are only a handful of species that do.

 Evaluation :

In the context of a well-established biological understanding, the statement "All mammals

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lay eggs" does not cohere with the broader system of beliefs. This statement contradicts

the fact that many mammals give birth to their offspring. As a result, the statement lacks

coherence within the existing system of biological knowledge.

But what about people with biases or delusions? What about people with mental disorders who

believe in fantasy? Does that mean that the fact that they believe that, say, we can marry dragons,

then the statement that we can marry dragons is true? This brings us to the emergence of the

pragmatic approach towards truth. Pragmatists started the discourse on why we want to figure out

the truth. Of course, we seek the truth because we want to make use of it, right? So, it all comes

down to the practicality of it. William James (1975) considers truth as propositions that we can

assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. To assimilate in this case concerns its usefulness to

believe.

C.S. Peirce is considered the first person to propose the pragmatic theory of truth (Capps, 2019).

He argued that what makes a belief “true” is its ability to withstand future inquiry (a process that

takes us from doubt to a state of stable belief). True belief must stay true even with the presence

of newer knowledge or experiences. To reach the ultimate truth (a true belief that brings us full

satisfaction), we should keep pushing an inquiry into its indefeasible issue (Creighton, 1908).

Peirce (1906) is sceptical about the role the CTT has over the concept of truth. According to him,

the problem with the CTT is that it is only nominally correct and is useless in terms of describing

the practical value of truth. I agree that the CTT does not regard anything related to what makes

true beliefs valuable, the role of truth in the answers of inquiry, or finding the best way to

discover and defend true beliefs.

For Peirce (1901), the importance of truth does not lie in the transcendental connection between

beliefs and reality, instead, it lies in the practical connection between beliefs and reality. He

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argued that to reach true belief, there must not be any aspect that blurs our knowledge. For him,

true belief is the point where the answer to an inquiry does not bring us any disappointment. Is

this even possible? Say, we reach the point of true belief in the pragmatists’ terms; I do not think

we would be able to recognize it as a true belief because we would not know whether we can

question it further or not. Pierce’s standpoint about truth is reiterated by Misak (2000:101): “If we

were to reach a stage where we could no longer improve upon a belief, there is no point in

withholding the title “true” from it”. New pragmatists such as Misak (2000) and Price (1998)

argue that truth plays a role entirely distinct from justification or warranted assertibility. This

means that without the concept of truth and the norm it represents, assertoric discourses would

dwindle into mere “comparing notes” (Capps, 2019). An example of this would go like this.

 Proposition :

"Regular exercise improves overall health."

 Evaluation :

According to the pragmatic view, the truth of this statement can be evaluated based on its

practical consequences. If accepting this statement as true leads individuals to engage in

regular exercise, which in turn improves their physical well-being, then the statement is

considered true from a pragmatic standpoint. The belief in this statement guides positive

behavior and results in practical benefits.

This view does not necessarily address whether a statement corresponds to objective reality or fits

within a coherent system of beliefs. Instead, it highlights the importance of the practical outcomes

and benefits that arise from holding a particular belief as true. John Dewey in his work "Logic:

The Theory of Inquiry" (1938) considered truth to be a process rather than a fixed state. He

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believed that beliefs become true insofar as they contribute to successful outcomes and solutions

in human experience and inquiry. The truth of a belief is determined by its usefulness in solving

problems and achieving goals. From a pragmatic perspective, truth is tentative or not absolute,

measured by its practicality, and requires re-evaluation.

Even though pragmatists generally do not reject the CTT outright, they do have some criticisms

of it and offer a different perspective on truth. Stemming from their perspective on truth, the CTT

is seen as too narrow and limited, as it only focuses on the relationship between language and

reality without considering the practical consequences of beliefs. The CTT is also considered too

simplistic, hence it does not capture the complexities of reality because pragmatists would argue

that the process of determining truth involves more than just matching language to reality.

Moreover, language is not always straightforwardly representational. This leads to the problem of

inadequacy.

The most noticeable competitor of the CTT is deflationism. The deflationary theory of truth seeks

to "deflate" or simplify the concept of truth. It suggests that the concept of truth is not a deep or

complex notion in itself but rather serves to clarify or emphasize propositions, without adding any

substantive content. According to this view, statements about truth, such as "It's true that the sky

is blue," don't add any substantial information beyond the original proposition "The sky is blue."

In other words, the concept of truth is reducible to the content of the proposition itself. I think it is

safe to say that this approach towards truth relies on the concept of common sense. Deflationists,

such as Horwich (1990), argued that the CTT needs to be deflated into a simplified state. They

argue that this simplified form is much more manageable and poses less risk of misconception.

The CTT complicates things and maybe we do not need “superfluous embellishments” (Quine,

1987: 213) after all. Disquotationalists emphasize the importance of precise and clear language

that accurately reflects the world. They believe that meaning can be captured by indicating the

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truth conditions of a statement, and that language should be used to describe reality as accurately

and objectively as possible. Disquotationalists’ theory of truth has endless possibilities of

propositions arrangements to substitute for p in p is T iff p (Horwich, 1990:31). That entails the

requirement for reality and language to always correspond in order to be true. Horwich stated that

this creates the problem of circularity because it leads to a circular loop without providing a

satisfactory foundation for truth.

The CTT also has to deal with the problem of subjectivity or context-dependence which correlates

to how the CTT cannot account for propositions about unobservable entities or abstract concepts

because it might not be possible to directly observe or verify the correspondence between these

statements and reality.

Problems of the CTT: How Coherentism and Pragmatism Help

The CTT brings the problem of tying back the concepts in our minds to the world (outside our

minds). To tackle this disconnectedness from the external world, coherentism and pragmatism

help connect the internal world and the external world by relying on subjectivity, specifically

perspective and belief. The more rational or useful a statement is, the truer or more likely that

statement is to be deemed true. Following this view towards truth are truth theories that assert the

negativity of truth. Deflationism insists that we do not need truth. I can simply say “There is a

chair in my bedroom” instead of saying “It is true that there is a chair in my bedroom” because I

know that there is a chair in my bedroom. It does not need proof. On the more extreme side,

epistemic nihilism is an approach towards truth that insists that there is no truth anyway. This

approach states that our understanding of the world is so limited or flawed that at the end of the

day, any claims to truth or knowledge are inherently unreliable or baseless. Let us look into the

problems of the CTT.

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 Inadequacy

The CTT has been criticized as too simplistic or inadequate to capture the complexities of

truth and reality as it does not clearly account for how we determine what is true or false. It

also does not address the issue of how we can know that our beliefs correspond to reality,

or whether there is a reliable way of determining the truth of a statement. The theory

assumes a clear distinction between language and reality, which some philosophers argue

is problematic because language is not always straightforwardly representational. Hence,

one of the CTT’s issue is figuring out how words, premises, and statements can precisely

correspond to reality and whether is that even possible. Firstly, the CTT is too narrow and

limited. By nature, the CTT reduces truth to a mere correspondence between language and

reality, which means that it may not capture the full complexity of what we mean when we

talk about truth. There will always be a possibility of some aspects of truth that cannot be

captured by a simple correspondence between language and reality, such as the truth of a

moral claim or the truth value of interpretations of a work of art. Next, it is so simplistic to

the point of insufficiently explanatory. While the CTT provides a basic definition of truth,

it is not sufficient to explain why some statements are true and others are not.

The CTT has a gap between language and reality that is not bridged. It assumes that there

is an immediate relationship between language and reality. This assumption has been

subject to critique, as some argue that language is not a direct reflection of reality, but

rather a construct that is shaped by our cultural and social practices. Some, like pragmatists

for example, even argue that there is no objective reality that we can correspond to, as

reality is always mediated by our perceptions and interpretations. It then leads to the next

and last flawed quality which is how it ignores subjectivity.

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Also, an objective view towards truth might struggle to account for truths that are complex

or abstract, such as mathematical or metaphysical truths where they might not have

straightforward correspondence in the empirical world. Scientific theories often involve

models, abstractions, and theoretical entities that can be difficult to be considered true in

this light. Additionally, the CTT is vulnerable to certain semantic paradoxes, such as the

liar paradox ("This statement is false").

 Regress and Circularity

The CTT can lead to circular reasoning or an infinite regress. To establish the truth of a

proposition, one might need to appeal to other propositions, which in turn need their own

correspondences to be established. This can create a problematic loop that doesn't provide

a clear resolution.

If the truth of a statement is determined by whether it corresponds to reality, then we must

know what reality is in order to determine the truth of a statement. However, our

knowledge of reality often comes from our beliefs and statements, which means that we

cannot use correspondence alone to determine the truth without assuming some truth to

begin with. Horwich (1990) argues that the minimalist view of truth is preferable to the

CTT because it avoids many of the problems and paradoxes associated with the CTT.

According to Horwich’s deflationary theory, the concept of truth is simply a tool that we

use in everyday life to assess the accuracy and reliability of our beliefs and statements.

Truth is something “primitive” that stops us from inquiring further. In this sense, to

capture the essence of truth, it is best not to rely on the CTT because the CTT requires making

metaphysical or ontological assumptions.

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Coherentism helps address the problems of regress and circularity often associated with

the CTT. Instead of trying to establish the truth of a proposition by appealing to external

facts, coherentism evaluates a belief's truth based on its fit within a web of interconnected

beliefs. This can avoid the need for an external "foundation" of truth and provide a more

holistic approach.

Coherentism can better handle complex truths that might not have straightforward

correspondences in the empirical world. Because instead of relying solely on a

correspondence relation, coherentism focuses on how a belief contributes to the overall

consistency and coherence of a system of beliefs. This enables truth to present in abstract

propositions.

 Indeterminacy and Context-dependence

Some situations involve multiple possible correspondents. For example, the proposition

"John is happy" might correspond to John's emotional state or his outward appearance.

This raises questions about which correspondence is the correct one and how to determine

it. The CTT assumes an objective reality that propositions correspond to. However, what

we perceive as reality might be influenced by our individual perspectives and cultural

contexts.

For instance, if I say "the cat is on the mat," there could be multiple cats on multiple mats,

which means that it is not always clear which correspondence is the right one. Since this

problem makes the CTT rather unstable, it has to deal with its stance against subjectivity.

The CTT assumes that truth is an objective matter of fact that exists independently of our

beliefs or perceptions. However, some argue that truth is inherently subjective and that it

depends on our perspectives and experiences. For example, the color red may appear
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differently to different people depending on their perception, which means that truth cannot

always be determined by correspondence with objective reality. Finally, the CTT fails to

account for the practical implications of accepting a belief as true. According to the

pragmatic theory of truth, the truth of a statement depends on its practical consequences

and its usefulness in achieving our goals. This means that a statement may be considered

true if it works for us, even if it does not correspond to reality.

Pragmatism acknowledges the role of subjectivity and interpretation in determining truth.

Rather than assuming a single objective reality, it recognizes that truth can be influenced

by individual perspectives, cultural contexts, and practical situations. Allowing the

validity of multiple truths.

Pragmatism's focus on practical consequences addresses the issue of how to determine

which correspondences are meaningful and relevant. Instead of purely objective

correspondence, pragmatism considers the effects of beliefs on our actions and decision-

making, helping to clarify which truths are most relevant to our goals.

This would also help with how the CTT can apply to statements that aren't about objective

facts, such as ethical or aesthetic statements. These kinds of statements might not have

direct factual correspondence but can still carry meaning and significance.

Pragmatism can better account for non-factual statements, such as ethical or aesthetic

propositions. Instead of attempting to fit these statements into a correspondence model,

pragmatism evaluates their truth based on their impact on decision-making and the values

they promote.

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Conclusion

To summarize, coherentism and pragmatism emerge as vital responses to the shortcomings of the

correspondence theory. Coherentism offers an alternative approach, contending that truth is not

solely contingent on correspondence but is rooted in the logical consistency and

interconnectedness of beliefs within a system. By avoiding the pitfalls of regress and circularity,

coherentism provides a more holistic framework for understanding truth. Moreover, its

recognition of context and subjectivity offers a robust response to the context-dependence

problem, accommodating complex and abstract truths. Pragmatism carries a paradigm shift in the

conception of truth. Pragmatism's emphasis on usefulness and its role in guiding action and

inquiry addresses the indeterminacy problem of the CTT. It also acknowledges the complexities

of truth determination in areas such as ethics, aesthetics, and other non-factual domains.

While coherentism and pragmatism both offer substantial insights, they do not entirely negate the

correspondence theory. Rather, they enrich the discourse by introducing new dimensions to the

understanding of truth. These theories recognize that truth is a multifaceted concept,

encompassing not only the objective relationship between language and reality but also the

coherence within beliefs and the practical implications of those beliefs. In a world characterized

by diverse perspectives, subjective experiences, and ever-evolving contexts, coherentism and

pragmatism provide avenues to navigate the intricacies of truth. They acknowledge that truth is

not an isolated entity but a dynamic interaction between human cognition, interpretation, and the

external world.

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