truth vs happiness essay

Philosophy Issue: Truth vs. Happiness Essay

The truth can simply be described as a statement of fact. The quest for knowledge and the need to satisfy curiosity makes people crave for the truth. However, the truth is sometimes ugly or bitter and may be dissatisfying rather than satisfying. This paper presents a philosophical position that postulates that the truth is greater than happiness. The truth is sometimes ugly and may cause a person to become unhappy. However it is always better to find out the truth even if knowing the truth about something will cause someone unhappiness.

People seek the truth to gain knowledge and it is possible that their happiness will depend on their access to this knowledge. The truth presents knowledge to a person through a statement of fact. While the truth may make someone unhappy, the inherent satisfaction of gaining knowledge and becoming aware of the actual facts about a phenomenon, entity, person, or self, is achieved and any possible unhappiness will likely fade after sometime. However knowledge is not gained when the truth is withheld, and unhappiness becomes evident. Individuals are usually eager to satisfy their curiosity, and embrace the option of knowing the truth over the option of being apparently happy without the truth. The absence of truth brings only apparent happiness because people will continue to seek the truth no matter how content they appear.

People generally believe that all problems may be resolved. Therefore, people will rather be exposed to the truth and live with the perceptual ‘unhappiness’ than live in apparent ‘happiness’ without knowledge of the truth. In a nutshell, once people’s curiosities are not satisfied, they will be unhappy. Concealing the truth from them, no matter how ugly it is, will certainly lead to unhappiness since their curiosity will not be satisfied. The only way the truth will be concealed and still lead to happiness is when the truth is substituted with a lie (or a ‘fake truth’).

No matter how bitter or sweet the truth is, it is much healthier than happiness. Anybody may be happy, if they become aware that happiness is not precisely dependent on their external environment, their strength, their ability, their style, their beauty, etc. When the truth is hurting, it is possible for a person to identify what is wrong, and make possible efforts to improve the situation, character, behavior, company, or whatever the subject is. What is more important is not how one feels but how one becomes. If an ugly truth is substituted for a lie, then a person may only achieve an escape route, instead of true happiness. The reality remains before the person and it will eventually emerge and overcome the person except they face it.

It is obvious that people value happiness over the truth. The truth may contain much sadness or happiness. When the truth is concealed, the potential happiness that is concealed remains an illusion. However, false happiness supersedes no happiness, particularly when the false happiness does not contain positive hope. If a person takes the bitter truth seriously, then the person does not experience any form of happiness. A lie may console a person if the lie is about something positive. Nevertheless people eventually lose their joy when they discover that they believed in a lie.

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IvyPanda. (2020, May 14). Philosophy Issue: Truth vs. Happiness. https://ivypanda.com/essays/philosophy-issue-truth-vs-happiness/

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IvyPanda . 2020. "Philosophy Issue: Truth vs. Happiness." May 14, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/philosophy-issue-truth-vs-happiness/.

1. IvyPanda . "Philosophy Issue: Truth vs. Happiness." May 14, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/philosophy-issue-truth-vs-happiness/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Philosophy Issue: Truth vs. Happiness." May 14, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/philosophy-issue-truth-vs-happiness/.

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Truth is one of the central subjects in philosophy. It is also one of the largest. Truth has been a topic of discussion in its own right for thousands of years. Moreover, a huge variety of issues in philosophy relate to truth, either by relying on theses about truth, or implying theses about truth.

It would be impossible to survey all there is to say about truth in any coherent way. Instead, this essay will concentrate on the main themes in the study of truth in the contemporary philosophical literature. It will attempt to survey the key problems and theories of current interest, and show how they relate to one-another. A number of other entries investigate many of these topics in greater depth. Generally, discussion of the principal arguments is left to them. The goal of this essay is only to provide an overview of the current Theories. Many of the papers mentioned in this essay can be found in the anthologies edited by Blackburn and Simmons (1999) and Lynch (2001b). There are a number of book-length surveys of the topics discussed here, including Burgess and Burgess (2011), Kirkham (1992), and Künne (2003). Also, a number of the topics discussed here, and many further ones, are surveyed at more length in papers in Glanzberg (2018).

The problem of truth is in a way easy to state: what truths are, and what (if anything) makes them true. But this simple statement masks a great deal of controversy. Whether there is a metaphysical problem of truth at all, and if there is, what kind of theory might address it, are all standing issues in the theory of truth. We will see a number of distinct ways of answering these questions.

1.1 The correspondence theory

1.1.1 the origins of the correspondence theory, 1.1.2 the neo-classical correspondence theory, 1.2 the coherence theory, 1.3 pragmatist theories, 2.1 sentences as truth-bearers, 2.2 convention t, 2.3 recursive definition of truth, 2.4 reference and satisfaction, 3.1 correspondence without facts, 3.2 representation and correspondence, 3.3 facts again, 3.4 truthmakers, 4.1 realism and truth, 4.2 anti-realism and truth, 4.3 anti-realism and pragmatism, 4.4 truth pluralism, 5.1 the redundancy theory, 5.2 minimalist theories, 5.3 other aspects of deflationism, 6.1 truth-bearers, 6.2 truth and truth conditions, 6.3 truth conditions and deflationism, 6.4 truth and the theory of meaning, 6.5 the coherence theory and meaning, 6.6 truth and assertion, other internet resources, related entries, 1. the neo-classical theories of truth.

Much of the contemporary literature on truth takes as its starting point some ideas which were prominent in the early part of the 20th century. There were a number of views of truth under discussion at that time, the most significant for the contemporary literature being the correspondence, coherence, and pragmatist theories of truth.

These theories all attempt to directly answer the nature question : what is the nature of truth? They take this question at face value: there are truths, and the question to be answered concerns their nature. In answering this question, each theory makes the notion of truth part of a more thoroughgoing metaphysics or epistemology. Explaining the nature of truth becomes an application of some metaphysical system, and truth inherits significant metaphysical presuppositions along the way.

The goal of this section is to characterize the ideas of the correspondence, coherence and pragmatist theories which animate the contemporary debate. In some cases, the received forms of these theories depart from the views that were actually defended in the early 20th century. We thus dub them the ‘neo-classical theories’. Where appropriate, we pause to indicate how the neo-classical theories emerge from their ‘classical’ roots in the early 20th century.

Perhaps the most important of the neo-classical theories for the contemporary literature is the correspondence theory. Ideas that sound strikingly like a correspondence theory are no doubt very old. They might well be found in Aristotle or Aquinas. When we turn to the late 19th and early 20th centuries where we pick up the story of the neo-classical theories of truth, it is clear that ideas about correspondence were central to the discussions of the time. In spite of their importance, however, it is strikingly difficult to find an accurate citation in the early 20th century for the received neo-classical view. Furthermore, the way the correspondence theory actually emerged will provide some valuable reference points for the contemporary debate. For these reasons, we dwell on the origins of the correspondence theory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries at greater length than those of the other neo-classical views, before turning to its contemporary neo-classical form. For an overview of the correspondence theory, see David (2018).

The basic idea of the correspondence theory is that what we believe or say is true if it corresponds to the way things actually are – to the facts. This idea can be seen in various forms throughout the history of philosophy. Its modern history starts with the beginnings of analytic philosophy at the turn of the 20th century, particularly in the work of G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell.

Let us pick up the thread of this story in the years between 1898 and about 1910. These years are marked by Moore and Russell’s rejection of idealism. Yet at this point, they do not hold a correspondence theory of truth. Indeed Moore (1899) sees the correspondence theory as a source of idealism, and rejects it. Russell follows Moore in this regard. (For discussion of Moore’s early critique of idealism, where he rejects the correspondence theory of truth, see Baldwin (1991). Hylton (1990) provides an extensive discussion of Russell in the context of British idealism. An overview of these issues is given by Baldwin (2018).)

In this period, Moore and Russell hold a version of the identity theory of truth . They say comparatively little about it, but it is stated briefly in Moore (1899; 1902) and Russell (1904). According to the identity theory, a true proposition is identical to a fact. Specifically, in Moore and Russell’s hands, the theory begins with propositions, understood as the objects of beliefs and other propositional attitudes. Propositions are what are believed, and give the contents of beliefs. They are also, according to this theory, the primary bearers of truth. When a proposition is true, it is identical to a fact, and a belief in that proposition is correct. (Related ideas about the identity theory and idealism are discussed by McDowell (1994) and further developed by Hornsby (2001).)

The identity theory Moore and Russell espoused takes truth to be a property of propositions. Furthermore, taking up an idea familiar to readers of Moore, the property of truth is a simple unanalyzable property. Facts are understood as simply those propositions which are true. There are true propositions and false ones, and facts just are true propositions. There is thus no “difference between truth and the reality to which it is supposed to correspond” (Moore, 1902, p. 21). (For further discussion of the identity theory of truth, see Baldwin (1991), Candlish (1999), Candlish and Damnjanovic (2018), Cartwright (1987), Dodd (2000), and the entry on the identity theory of truth .)

Moore and Russell came to reject the identity theory of truth in favor of a correspondence theory, sometime around 1910 (as we see in Moore, 1953, which reports lectures he gave in 1910–1911, and Russell, 1910b). They do so because they came to reject the existence of propositions. Why? Among reasons, they came to doubt that there could be any such things as false propositions, and then concluded that there are no such things as propositions at all.

Why did Moore and Russell find false propositions problematic? A full answer to this question is a point of scholarship that would take us too far afield. (Moore himself lamented that he could not “put the objection in a clear and convincing way” (1953, p. 263), but see Cartwright (1987) and David (2001) for careful and clear exploration of the arguments.) But very roughly, the identification of facts with true propositions left them unable to see what a false proposition could be other than something which is just like a fact, though false. If such things existed, we would have fact-like things in the world, which Moore and Russell now see as enough to make false propositions count as true. Hence, they cannot exist, and so there are no false propositions. As Russell (1956, p. 223) later says, propositions seem to be at best “curious shadowy things” in addition to facts.

As Cartwright (1987) reminds us, it is useful to think of this argument in the context of Russell’s slightly earlier views about propositions. As we see clearly in Russell (1903), for instance, he takes propositions to have constituents. But they are not mere collections of constituents, but a ‘unity’ which brings the constituents together. (We thus confront the ‘problem of the unity of the proposition’.) But what, we might ask, would be the ‘unity’ of a proposition that Samuel Ramey sings – with constituents Ramey and singing – except Ramey bearing the property of singing? If that is what the unity consists in, then we seem to have nothing other than the fact that Ramey sings. But then we could not have genuine false propositions without having false facts.

As Cartwright also reminds us, there is some reason to doubt the cogency of this sort of argument. But let us put the assessment of the arguments aside, and continue the story. From the rejection of propositions a correspondence theory emerges. The primary bearers of truth are no longer propositions, but beliefs themselves. In a slogan:

A belief is true if and only if it corresponds to a fact .

Views like this are held by Moore (1953) and Russell (1910b; 1912). Of course, to understand such a theory, we need to understand the crucial relation of correspondence, as well as the notion of a fact to which a belief corresponds. We now turn to these questions. In doing so, we will leave the history, and present a somewhat more modern reconstruction of a correspondence theory. (For more on facts and proposition in this period, see Sullivan and Johnston (2018).)

The correspondence theory of truth is at its core an ontological thesis: a belief is true if there exists an appropriate entity – a fact – to which it corresponds. If there is no such entity, the belief is false.

Facts, for the neo-classical correspondence theory, are entities in their own right. Facts are generally taken to be composed of particulars and properties and relations or universals, at least. The neo-classical correspondence theory thus only makes sense within the setting of a metaphysics that includes such facts. Hence, it is no accident that as Moore and Russell turn away from the identity theory of truth, the metaphysics of facts takes on a much more significant role in their views. This perhaps becomes most vivid in the later Russell (1956, p. 182), where the existence of facts is the “first truism.” (The influence of Wittgenstein’s ideas to appear in the Tractatus (1922) on Russell in this period was strong, and indeed, the Tractatus remains one of the important sources for the neo-classical correspondence theory. For more recent extensive discussions of facts, see Armstrong (1997) and Neale (2001).)

Consider, for example, the belief that Ramey sings. Let us grant that this belief is true. In what does its truth consist, according to the correspondence theory? It consists in there being a fact in the world, built from the individual Ramey, and the property of singing. Let us denote this \(\langle\) Ramey , Singing \(\rangle\). This fact exists. In contrast, the world (we presume) contains no fact \(\langle\) Ramey , Dancing \(\rangle\). The belief that Ramey sings stands in the relation of correspondence to the fact \(\langle\) Ramey , Singing \(\rangle\), and so the belief is true.

What is the relation of correspondence? One of the standing objections to the classical correspondence theory is that a fully adequate explanation of correspondence proves elusive. But for a simple belief, like that Ramey sings, we can observe that the structure of the fact \(\langle\) Ramey , Singing \(\rangle\) matches the subject-predicate form of the that -clause which reports the belief, and may well match the structure of the belief itself.

So far, we have very much the kind of view that Moore and Russell would have found congenial. But the modern form of the correspondence theory seeks to round out the explanation of correspondence by appeal to propositions . Indeed, it is common to base a correspondence theory of truth upon the notion of a structured proposition . Propositions are again cast as the contents of beliefs and assertions, and propositions have structure which at least roughly corresponds to the structure of sentences. At least, for simple beliefs like that Ramey sings, the proposition has the same subject predicate structure as the sentence. (Proponents of structured propositions, such as Kaplan (1989), often look to Russell (1903) for inspiration, and find unconvincing Russell’s reasons for rejecting them.)

With facts and structured propositions in hand, an attempt may be made to explain the relation of correspondence. Correspondence holds between a proposition and a fact when the proposition and fact have the same structure, and the same constituents at each structural position. When they correspond, the proposition and fact thus mirror each-other. In our simple example, we might have:

Propositions, though structured like facts, can be true or false. In a false case, like the proposition that Ramey dances, we would find no fact at the bottom of the corresponding diagram. Beliefs are true or false depending on whether the propositions which are believed are.

We have sketched this view for simple propositions like the proposition that Ramey sings. How to extend it to more complex cases, like general propositions or negative propositions, is an issue we will not delve into here. It requires deciding whether there are complex facts, such as general facts or negative facts, or whether there is a more complex relation of correspondence between complex propositions and simple facts. (The issue of whether there are such complex facts marks a break between Russell (1956) and Wittgenstein (1922) and the earlier views which Moore (1953) and Russell (1912) sketch.)

According to the correspondence theory as sketched here, what is key to truth is a relation between propositions and the world, which obtains when the world contains a fact that is structurally similar to the proposition. Though this is not the theory Moore and Russell held, it weaves together ideas of theirs with a more modern take on (structured) propositions. We will thus dub it the neo-classical correspondence theory. This theory offers us a paradigm example of a correspondence theory of truth.

The leading idea of the correspondence theory is familiar. It is a form of the older idea that true beliefs show the right kind of resemblance to what is believed. In contrast to earlier empiricist theories, the thesis is not that one’s ideas per se resemble what they are about. Rather, the propositions which give the contents of one’s true beliefs mirror reality, in virtue of entering into correspondence relations to the right pieces of it.

In this theory, it is the way the world provides us with appropriately structured entities that explains truth. Our metaphysics thus explains the nature of truth, by providing the entities needed to enter into correspondence relations.

For more on the correspondence theory, see David (1994, 2018) and the entry on the correspondance theory of truth .

Though initially the correspondence theory was seen by its developers as a competitor to the identity theory of truth, it was also understood as opposed to the coherence theory of truth.

We will be much briefer with the historical origins of the coherence theory than we were with the correspondence theory. Like the correspondence theory, versions of the coherence theory can be seen throughout the history of philosophy. (See, for instance, Walker (1989) for a discussion of its early modern lineage.) Like the correspondence theory, it was important in the early 20th century British origins of analytic philosophy. Particularly, the coherence theory of truth is associated with the British idealists to whom Moore and Russell were reacting.

Many idealists at that time did indeed hold coherence theories. Let us take as an example Joachim (1906). (This is the theory that Russell (1910a) attacks.) Joachim says that:

Truth in its essential nature is that systematic coherence which is the character of a significant whole (p. 76).

We will not attempt a full exposition of Joachim’s view, which would take us well beyond the discussion of truth into the details of British idealism. But a few remarks about his theory will help to give substance to the quoted passage.

Perhaps most importantly, Joachim talks of ‘truth’ in the singular. This is not merely a turn of phrase, but a reflection of his monistic idealism. Joachim insists that what is true is the “whole complete truth” (p. 90). Individual judgments or beliefs are certainly not the whole complete truth. Such judgments are, according to Joachim, only true to a degree. One aspect of this doctrine is a kind of holism about content, which holds that any individual belief or judgment gets its content only in virtue of being part of a system of judgments. But even these systems are only true to a degree, measuring the extent to which they express the content of the single ‘whole complete truth’. Any real judgment we might make will only be partially true.

To flesh out Joachim’s theory, we would have to explain what a significant whole is. We will not attempt that, as it leads us to some of the more formidable aspects of his view, e.g., that it is a “process of self-fulfillment” (p. 77). But it is clear that Joachim takes ‘systematic coherence’ to be stronger than consistency. In keeping with his holism about content, he rejects the idea that coherence is a relation between independently identified contents, and so finds it necessary to appeal to ‘significant wholes’.

As with the correspondence theory, it will be useful to recast the coherence theory in a more modern form, which will abstract away from some of the difficult features of British idealism. As with the correspondence theory, it can be put in a slogan:

A belief is true if and only if it is part of a coherent system of beliefs.

To further the contrast with the neo-classical correspondence theory, we may add that a proposition is true if it is the content of a belief in the system, or entailed by a belief in the system. We may assume, with Joachim, that the condition of coherence will be stronger than consistency. With the idealists generally, we might suppose that features of the believing subject will come into play.

This theory is offered as an analysis of the nature of truth, and not simply a test or criterion for truth. Put as such, it is clearly not Joachim’s theory (it lacks his monism, and he rejects propositions), but it is a standard take on coherence in the contemporary literature. (It is the way the coherence theory is given in Walker (1989), for instance. See also Young (2001) for a recent defense of a coherence theory.) Let us take this as our neo-classical version of the coherence theory. The contrast with the correspondence theory of truth is clear. Far from being a matter of whether the world provides a suitable object to mirror a proposition, truth is a matter of how beliefs are related to each-other.

The coherence theory of truth enjoys two sorts of motivations. One is primarily epistemological. Most coherence theorists also hold a coherence theory of knowledge; more specifically, a coherence theory of justification. According to this theory, to be justified is to be part of a coherent system of beliefs. An argument for this is often based on the claim that only another belief could stand in a justification relation to a belief, allowing nothing but properties of systems of belief, including coherence, to be conditions for justification. Combining this with the thesis that a fully justified belief is true forms an argument for the coherence theory of truth. (An argument along these lines is found in Blanshard (1939), who holds a form of the coherence theory closely related to Joachim’s.)

The steps in this argument may be questioned by a number of contemporary epistemological views. But the coherence theory also goes hand-in-hand with its own metaphysics as well. The coherence theory is typically associated with idealism. As we have already discussed, forms of it were held by British idealists such as Joachim, and later by Blanshard (in America). An idealist should see the last step in the justification argument as quite natural. More generally, an idealist will see little (if any) room between a system of beliefs and the world it is about, leaving the coherence theory of truth as an extremely natural option.

It is possible to be an idealist without adopting a coherence theory. (For instance, many scholars read Bradley as holding a version of the identity theory of truth. See Baldwin (1991) for some discussion.) However, it is hard to see much of a way to hold the coherence theory of truth without maintaining some form of idealism. If there is nothing to truth beyond what is to be found in an appropriate system of beliefs, then it would seem one’s beliefs constitute the world in a way that amounts to idealism. (Walker (1989) argues that every coherence theorist must be an idealist, but not vice-versa.)

The neo-classical correspondence theory seeks to capture the intuition that truth is a content-to-world relation. It captures this in the most straightforward way, by asking for an object in the world to pair up with a true proposition. The neo-classical coherence theory, in contrast, insists that truth is not a content-to-world relation at all; rather, it is a content-to-content, or belief-to-belief, relation. The coherence theory requires some metaphysics which can make the world somehow reflect this, and idealism appears to be it. (A distant descendant of the neo-classical coherence theory that does not require idealism will be discussed in section 6.5 below.)

For more on the coherence theory, see Walker (2018) and the entry on the coherence theory of truth .

A different perspective on truth was offered by the American pragmatists. As with the neo-classical correspondence and coherence theories, the pragmatist theories go with some typical slogans. For example, Peirce is usually understood as holding the view that:

Truth is the end of inquiry.

(See, for instance Hartshorne et al., 1931–58, §3.432.) Both Peirce and James are associated with the slogan that:

Truth is satisfactory to believe.

James (e.g., 1907) understands this principle as telling us what practical value truth has. True beliefs are guaranteed not to conflict with subsequent experience. Likewise, Peirce’s slogan tells us that true beliefs will remain settled at the end of prolonged inquiry. Peirce’s slogan is perhaps most typically associated with pragmatist views of truth, so we might take it to be our canonical neo-classical theory. However, the contemporary literature does not seem to have firmly settled upon a received ‘neo-classical’ pragmatist theory.

In her reconstruction (upon which we have relied heavily), Haack (1976) notes that the pragmatists’ views on truth also make room for the idea that truth involves a kind of correspondence, insofar as the scientific method of inquiry is answerable to some independent world. Peirce, for instance, does not reject a correspondence theory outright; rather, he complains that it provides merely a ‘nominal’ or ‘transcendental’ definition of truth (e.g Hartshorne et al., 1931–58, §5.553, §5.572), which is cut off from practical matters of experience, belief, and doubt (§5.416). (See Misak (2004) for an extended discussion.)

This marks an important difference between the pragmatist theories and the coherence theory we just considered. Even so, pragmatist theories also have an affinity with coherence theories, insofar as we expect the end of inquiry to be a coherent system of beliefs. As Haack also notes, James maintains an important verificationist idea: truth is what is verifiable. We will see this idea re-appear in section 4.

For more on pragmatist theories of truth, see Misak (2018). James’ views are discussed further in the entry on William James . Peirce’s views are discussed further in the entry on Charles Sanders Peirce .

2. Tarski’s theory of truth

Modern forms of the classical theories survive. Many of these modern theories, notably correspondence theories, draw on ideas developed by Tarski.

In this regard, it is important to bear in mind that his seminal work on truth (1935) is very much of a piece with other works in mathematical logic, such as his (1931), and as much as anything this work lays the ground-work for the modern subject of model theory – a branch of mathematical logic, not the metaphysics of truth. In this respect, Tarski’s work provides a set of highly useful tools that may be employed in a wide range of philosophical projects. (See Patterson (2012) for more on Tarski’s work in its historical context.)

Tarski’s work has a number of components, which we will consider in turn.

In the classical debate on truth at the beginning of the 20th century we considered in section 1, the issue of truth-bearers was of great significance. For instance, Moore and Russell’s turn to the correspondence theory was driven by their views on whether there are propositions to be the bearers of truth. Many theories we reviewed took beliefs to be the bearers of truth.

In contrast, Tarski and much of the subsequent work on truth takes sentences to be the primary bearers of truth. This is not an entirely novel development: Russell (1956) also takes truth to apply to sentence (which he calls ‘propositions’ in that text). But whereas much of the classical debate takes the issue of the primary bearers of truth to be a substantial and important metaphysical one, Tarski is quite casual about it. His primary reason for taking sentences as truth-bearers is convenience, and he explicitly distances himself from any commitment about the philosophically contentious issues surrounding other candidate truth-bearers (e.g., Tarski, 1944). (Russell (1956) makes a similar suggestion that sentences are the appropriate truth-bearers “for the purposes of logic” (p. 184), though he still takes the classical metaphysical issues to be important.)

We will return to the issue of the primary bearers of truth in section 6.1. For the moment, it will be useful to simply follow Tarski’s lead. But it should be stressed that for this discussion, sentences are fully interpreted sentences, having meanings. We will also assume that the sentences in question do not change their content across occasions of use, i.e., that they display no context-dependence. We are taking sentences to be what Quine (1960) calls ‘eternal sentences’.

In some places (e.g., Tarski, 1944), Tarski refers to his view as the ‘semantic conception of truth’. It is not entirely clear just what Tarski had in mind by this, but it is clear enough that Tarski’s theory defines truth for sentences in terms of concepts like reference and satisfaction, which are intimately related to the basic semantic functions of names and predicates (according to many approaches to semantics). For more discussion, see Woleński (2001).

Let us suppose we have a fixed language \(\mathbf{L}\) whose sentences are fully interpreted. The basic question Tarski poses is what an adequate theory of truth for \(\mathbf{L}\) would be. Tarski’s answer is embodied in what he calls Convention T :

An adequate theory of truth for \(\mathbf{L}\) must imply, for each sentence \(\phi\) of \(\mathbf{L}\)

\(\ulcorner \phi \urcorner\) is true if and only if \(\phi\).

(We have simplified Tarski’s presentation somewhat.) This is an adequacy condition for theories, not a theory itself. Given the assumption that \(\mathbf{L}\) is fully interpreted, we may assume that each sentence \(\phi\) in fact has a truth value. In light of this, Convention T guarantees that the truth predicate given by the theory will be extensionally correct , i.e., have as its extension all and only the true sentences of \(\mathbf{L}\).

Convention T draws our attention to the biconditionals of the form

\(\ulcorner \ulcorner \phi \urcorner\) is true if and only if \(\phi \urcorner\),

which are usually called the Tarski biconditionals for a language \(\mathbf{L}\).

Tarski does not merely propose a condition of adequacy for theories of truth, he also shows how to meet it. One of his insights is that if the language \(\mathbf{L}\) displays the right structure, then truth for \(\mathbf{L}\) can be defined recursively. For instance, let us suppose that \(\mathbf{L}\) is a simple formal language, containing two atomic sentences ‘snow is white’ and ‘grass is green’, and the sentential connectives \(\vee\) and \(\neg\).

In spite of its simplicity, \(\mathbf{L}\) contains infinitely many distinct sentences. But truth can be defined for all of them by recursion.

• ‘Snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white.
• ‘Grass is green’ is true if and only if grass is green.
• \(\ulcorner \phi \vee \psi \urcorner\) is true if and only if \(\ulcorner \phi \urcorner\) is true or \(\ulcorner \psi \urcorner\) is true.
• \(\ulcorner \neg \phi \urcorner\) is true if and only if it is not the case that \(\ulcorner \phi \urcorner\) is true.

This theory satisfies Convention T.

This may look trivial, but in defining an extensionally correct truth predicate for an infinite language with four clauses, we have made a modest application of a very powerful technique.

Tarski’s techniques go further, however. They do not stop with atomic sentences. Tarski notes that truth for each atomic sentence can be defined in terms of two closely related notions: reference and satisfaction . Let us consider a language \(\mathbf{L}'\), just like \(\mathbf{L}\) except that instead of simply having two atomic sentences, \(\mathbf{L}'\) breaks atomic sentences into terms and predicates. \(\mathbf{L}'\) contains terms ‘snow’ and ‘grass’ (let us engage in the idealization that these are simply singular terms), and predicates ‘is white’ and ‘is green’. So \(\mathbf{L}'\) is like \(\mathbf{L}\), but also contains the sentences ‘Snow is green’ and ‘Grass is white’.)

We can define truth for atomic sentences of \(\mathbf{L}'\) in the following way.

• ‘Snow’ refers to snow.
• ‘Grass’ refers to grass.
• \(a\) satisfies ‘is white’ if and only if \(a\) is white.
• \(a\) satisfies ‘is green’ if and only if \(a\) is green.
• For any atomic sentence \(\ulcorner t\) is \(P \urcorner\): \(\ulcorner t\) is \(P \urcorner\) is true if and only if the referent of \(\ulcorner t \urcorner\) satisfies \(\ulcorner P\urcorner\).

One of Tarski’s key insights is that the apparatus of satisfaction allows for a recursive definition of truth for sentences with quantifiers , though we will not examine that here. We could repeat the recursion clauses for \(\mathbf{L}\) to produce a full theory of truth for \(\mathbf{L}'\).

Let us say that a Tarskian theory of truth is a recursive theory, built up in ways similar to the theory of truth for \(\mathbf{L}'\). Tarski goes on to demonstrate some key applications of such a theory of truth. A Tarskian theory of truth for a language \(\mathbf{L}\) can be used to show that theories in \(\mathbf{L}\) are consistent. This was especially important to Tarski, who was concerned the Liar paradox would make theories in languages containing a truth predicate inconsistent.

For more, see Ray (2018) and the entries on axiomatic theories of truth , the Liar paradox , and Tarski’s truth definitions .

3. Correspondence revisited

The correspondence theory of truth expresses the very natural idea that truth is a content-to-world or word-to-world relation: what we say or think is true or false in virtue of the way the world turns out to be. We suggested that, against a background like the metaphysics of facts, it does so in a straightforward way. But the idea of correspondence is certainly not specific to this framework. Indeed, it is controversial whether a correspondence theory should rely on any particular metaphysics at all. The basic idea of correspondence, as Tarski (1944) and others have suggested, is captured in the slogan from Aristotle’s Metaphysics Γ 7.27, “to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true” (Ross, 1928). ‘What is’, it is natural enough to say, is a fact, but this natural turn of phrase may well not require a full-blown metaphysics of facts. (For a discussion of Aristotle’s views in a historical context, see Szaif (2018).)

Yet without the metaphysics of facts, the notion of correspondence as discussed in section 1.1 loses substance. This has led to two distinct strands in contemporary thinking about the correspondence theory. One strand seeks to recast the correspondence theory in a way that does not rely on any particular ontology. Another seeks to find an appropriate ontology for correspondence, either in terms of facts or other entities. We will consider each in turn.

Tarski himself sometimes suggested that his theory was a kind of correspondence theory of truth. Whether his own theory is a correspondence theory, and even whether it provides any substantial philosophical account of truth at all, is a matter of controversy. (One rather drastic negative assessment from Putnam (1985–86, p. 333) is that “As a philosophical account of truth, Tarski’s theory fails as badly as it is possible for an account to fail.”) But a number of philosophers (e.g., Davidson, 1969; Field, 1972) have seen Tarski’s theory as providing at least the core of a correspondence theory of truth which dispenses with the metaphysics of facts.

Tarski’s theory shows how truth for a sentence is determined by certain properties of its constituents; in particular, by properties of reference and satisfaction (as well as by the logical constants). As it is normally understood, reference is the preeminent word-to-world relation. Satisfaction is naturally understood as a word-to-world relation as well, which relates a predicate to the things in the world that bear it. The Tarskian recursive definition shows how truth is determined by reference and satisfaction, and so is in effect determined by the things in the world we refer to and the properties they bear. This, one might propose, is all the correspondence we need. It is not correspondence of sentences or propositions to facts; rather, it is correspondence of our expressions to objects and the properties they bear, and then ways of working out the truth of claims in terms of this.

This is certainly not the neo-classical idea of correspondence. In not positing facts, it does not posit any single object to which a true proposition or sentence might correspond. Rather, it shows how truth might be worked out from basic word-to-world relations. However, a number of authors have noted that Tarski’s theory cannot by itself provide us with such an account of truth. As we will discuss more fully in section 4.2, Tarski’s apparatus is in fact compatible with theories of truth that are certainly not correspondence theories.

Field (1972), in an influential discussion and diagnosis of what is lacking in Tarski’s account, in effect points out that whether we really have something worthy of the name ‘correspondence’ depends on our having notions of reference and satisfaction which genuinely establish word-to-world relations. (Field does not use the term ‘correspondence’, but does talk about e.g., the “connection between words and things” (p. 373).) By itself, Field notes, Tarski’s theory does not offer an account of reference and satisfaction at all. Rather, it offers a number of disquotation clauses , such as:

These clauses have an air of triviality (though whether they are to be understood as trivial principles or statements of non-trivial semantic facts has been a matter of some debate). With Field, we might propose to supplement clauses like these with an account of reference and satisfaction. Such a theory should tell us what makes it the case that the word ‘snow’ refer to snow. (In 1972, Field was envisaging a physicalist account, along the lines of the causal theory of reference.) This should inter alia guarantee that truth is really determined by word-to-world relations, so in conjunction with the Tarskian recursive definition, it could provide a correspondence theory of truth.

Such a theory clearly does not rely on a metaphysics of facts. Indeed, it is in many ways metaphysically neutral, as it does not take a stand on the nature of particulars, or of the properties or universals that underwrite facts about satisfaction. However, it may not be entirely devoid of metaphysical implications, as we will discuss further in section 4.1.

Much of the subsequent discussion of Field-style approaches to correspondence has focused on the role of representation in these views. Field’s own (1972) discussion relies on a causal relation between terms and their referents, and a similar relation for satisfaction. These are instances of representation relations. According to representational views, meaningful items, like perhaps thoughts or sentences or their constituents, have their contents in virtue of standing in the right relation to the things they represent. On many views, including Field’s, a name stands in such a relation to its bearer, and the relation is a causal one.

The project of developing a naturalist account of the representation relation has been an important one in the philosophy of mind and language. (See the entry on mental representation .) But, it has implications for the theory of truth. Representational views of content lead naturally to correspondence theories of truth. To make this vivid, suppose you hold that sentences or beliefs stand in a representation relation to some objects. It is natural to suppose that for true beliefs or sentences, those objects would be facts. We then have a correspondence theory, with the correspondence relation explicated as a representation relation: a truth bearer is true if it represents a fact.

As we have discussed, many contemporary views reject facts, but one can hold a representational view of content without them. One interpretation of Field’s theory is just that. The relations of reference and satisfaction are representation relations, and truth for sentences is determined compositionally in terms of those representation relations, and the nature of the objects they represent. If we have such relations, we have the building blocks for a correspondence theory without facts. Field (1972) anticipated a naturalist reduction of the representation via a causal theory, but any view that accepts representation relations for truth bearers or their constituents can provide a similar theory of truth. (See Jackson (2006) and Lynch (2009) for further discussion.)

Representational views of content provide a natural way to approach the correspondence theory of truth, and likewise, anti-representational views provide a natural way to avoid the correspondence theory of truth. This is most clear in the work of Davidson, as we will discuss more in section 6.5.

There have been a number of correspondence theories that do make use of facts. Some are notably different from the neo-classical theory sketched in section 1.1. For instance, Austin (1950) proposes a view in which each statement (understood roughly as an utterance event) corresponds to both a fact or situation, and a type of situation. It is true if the former is of the latter type. This theory, which has been developed by situation theory (e.g., Barwise and Perry, 1986), rejects the idea that correspondence is a kind of mirroring between a fact and a proposition. Rather, correspondence relations to Austin are entirely conventional. (See Vision (2004) for an extended defense of an Austinian correspondence theory.) As an ordinary language philosopher, Austin grounds his notion of fact more in linguistic usage than in an articulated metaphysics, but he defends his use of fact-talk in Austin (1961b).

In a somewhat more Tarskian spirit, formal theories of facts or states of affairs have also been developed. For instance, Taylor (1976) provides a recursive definition of a collection of ‘states of affairs’ for a given language. Taylor’s states of affairs seem to reflect the notion of fact at work in the neo-classical theory, though as an exercise in logic, they are officially \(n\)-tuples of objects and intensions .

There are more metaphysically robust notions of fact in the current literature. For instance, Armstrong (1997) defends a metaphysics in which facts (under the name ‘states of affairs’) are metaphysically fundamental. The view has much in common with the neo-classical one. Like the neo-classical view, Armstrong endorses a version of the correspondence theory. States of affairs are truthmakers for propositions, though Armstrong argues that there may be many such truthmakers for a given proposition, and vice versa. (Armstrong also envisages a naturalistic account of propositions as classes of equivalent belief-tokens.)

Armstrong’s primary argument is what he calls the ‘truthmaker argument’. It begins by advancing a truthmaker principle , which holds that for any given truth, there must be a truthmaker – a “something in the world which makes it the case, that serves as an ontological ground, for this truth” (p. 115). It is then argued that facts are the appropriate truthmakers.

In contrast to the approach to correspondence discussed in section 3.1, which offered correspondence with minimal ontological implications, this view returns to the ontological basis of correspondence that was characteristic of the neo-classical theory.

For more on facts, see the entry on facts .

The truthmaker principle is often put as the schema:

If \(\phi\), then there is an \(x\) such that necessarily, if \(x\) exists, then \(\phi\).

(Fox (1987) proposed putting the principle this way, rather than explicitly in terms of truth.)

The truthmaker principle expresses the ontological aspect of the neo-classical correspondence theory. Not merely must truth obtain in virtue of word-to-world relations, but there must be a thing that makes each truth true. (For one view on this, see Merricks (2007).)

The neo-classical correspondence theory, and Armstrong, cast facts as the appropriate truthmakers. However, it is a non-trivial step from the truthmaker principle to the existence of facts. There are a number of proposals in the literature for how other sorts of objects could be truthmakers; for instance, tropes (called ‘moments’, in Mulligan et al., 1984). Parsons (1999) argues that the truthmaker principle (presented in a somewhat different form) is compatible with there being only concrete particulars.

As we saw in discussing the neo-classical correspondence theory, truthmaker theories, and fact theories in particular, raise a number of issues. One which has been discussed at length, for instance, is whether there are negative facts . Negative facts would be the truthmakers for negated sentences. Russell (1956) notoriously expresses ambivalence about whether there are negative facts. Armstrong (1997) rejects them, while Beall (2000) defends them. (For more discussion of truthmakers, see Cameron (2018) and the papers in Beebee and Dodd (2005).)

4. Realism and anti-realism

The neo-classical theories we surveyed in section 1 made the theory of truth an application of their background metaphysics (and in some cases epistemology). In section 2 and especially in section 3, we returned to the issue of what sorts of ontological commitments might go with the theory of truth. There we saw a range of options, from relatively ontologically non-committal theories, to theories requiring highly specific ontologies.

There is another way in which truth relates to metaphysics. Many ideas about realism and anti-realism are closely related to ideas about truth. Indeed, many approaches to questions about realism and anti-realism simply make them questions about truth.

In discussing the approach to correspondence of section 3.1, we noted that it has few ontological requirements. It relies on there being objects of reference, and something about the world which makes for determinate satisfaction relations; but beyond that, it is ontologically neutral. But as we mentioned there, this is not to say that it has no metaphysical implications. A correspondence theory of truth, of any kind, is often taken to embody a form of realism .

The key features of realism, as we will take it, are that:

• The world exists objectively, independently of the ways we think about it or describe it.
• Our thoughts and claims are about that world.

(Wright (1992) offers a nice statement of this way of thinking about realism.) These theses imply that our claims are objectively true or false, depending on how the world they are about is. The world that we represent in our thoughts or language is an objective world. (Realism may be restricted to some subject-matter, or range of discourse, but for simplicity, we will talk about only its global form.)

It is often argued that these theses require some form of the correspondence theory of truth. (Putnam (1978, p. 18) notes, “Whatever else realists say, they typically say that they believe in a ‘correspondence theory of truth’.”) At least, they are supported by the kind of correspondence theory without facts discussed in section 3.1, such as Field’s proposal. Such a theory will provide an account of objective relations of reference and satisfaction, and show how these determine the truth or falsehood of what we say about the world. Field’s own approach (1972) to this problem seeks a physicalist explanation of reference. But realism is a more general idea than physicalism. Any theory that provides objective relations of reference and satisfaction, and builds up a theory of truth from them, would give a form of realism. (Making the objectivity of reference the key to realism is characteristic of work of Putnam, e.g., 1978.)

Another important mark of realism expressed in terms of truth is the property of bivalence . As Dummett has stressed (e.g., 1959; 1976; 1983; 1991), a realist should see there being a fact of the matter one way or the other about whether any given claim is correct. Hence, one important mark of realism is that it goes together with the principle of bivalence : every truth-bearer (sentence or proposition) is true or false. In much of his work, Dummett has made this the characteristic mark of realism, and often identifies realism about some subject-matter with accepting bivalence for discourse about that subject-matter. At the very least, it captures a great deal of what is more loosely put in the statement of realism above.

Both the approaches to realism, through reference and through bivalence, make truth the primary vehicle for an account of realism. A theory of truth which substantiates bivalence, or builds truth from a determinate reference relation, does most of the work of giving a realistic metaphysics. It might even simply be a realistic metaphysics.

We have thus turned on its head the relation of truth to metaphysics we saw in our discussion of the neo-classical correspondence theory in section 1.1. There, a correspondence theory of truth was built upon a substantial metaphysics. Here, we have seen how articulating a theory that captures the idea of correspondence can be crucial to providing a realist metaphysics. (For another perspective on realism and truth, see Alston (1996). Devitt (1984) offers an opposing view to the kind we have sketched here, which rejects any characterization of realism in terms of truth or other semantic concepts.)

In light of our discussion in section 1.1.1, we should pause to note that the connection between realism and the correspondence theory of truth is not absolute. When Moore and Russell held the identity theory of truth, they were most certainly realists. The right kind of metaphysics of propositions can support a realist view, as can a metaphysics of facts. The modern form of realism we have been discussing here seeks to avoid basing itself on such particular ontological commitments, and so prefers to rely on the kind of correspondence-without-facts approach discussed in section 3.1. This is not to say that realism will be devoid of ontological commitments, but the commitments will flow from whichever specific claims about some subject-matter are taken to be true.

For more on realism and truth, see Fumerton (2002) and the entry on realism .

It should come as no surprise that the relation between truth and metaphysics seen by modern realists can also be exploited by anti-realists. Many modern anti-realists see the theory of truth as the key to formulating and defending their views. With Dummett (e.g., 1959; 1976; 1991), we might expect the characteristic mark of anti-realism to be the rejection of bivalence.

Indeed, many contemporary forms of anti-realism may be formulated as theories of truth, and they do typically deny bivalence. Anti-realism comes in many forms, but let us take as an example a (somewhat crude) form of verificationism. Such a theory holds that a claim is correct just insofar as it is in principle verifiable , i.e., there is a verification procedure we could in principle carry out which would yield the answer that the claim in question was verified.

So understood, verificationism is a theory of truth. The claim is not that verification is the most important epistemic notion, but that truth just is verifiability. As with the kind of realism we considered in section 4.1, this view expresses its metaphysical commitments in its explanation of the nature of truth. Truth is not, to this view, a fully objective matter, independent of us or our thoughts. Instead, truth is constrained by our abilities to verify, and is thus constrained by our epistemic situation. Truth is to a significant degree an epistemic matter, which is typical of many anti-realist positions.

As Dummett says, the verificationist notion of truth does not appear to support bivalence. Any statement that reaches beyond what we can in principle verify or refute (verify its negation) will be a counter-example to bivalence. Take, for instance, the claim that there is some substance, say uranium, present in some region of the universe too distant to be inspected by us within the expected lifespan of the universe. Insofar as this really would be in principle unverifiable, we have no reason to maintain it is true or false according to the verificationist theory of truth.

Verificationism of this sort is one of a family of anti-realist views. Another example is the view that identifies truth with warranted assertibility. Assertibility, as well as verifiability, has been important in Dummett’s work. (See also works of McDowell, e.g., 1976 and Wright, e.g., 1976; 1982; 1992.)

Anti-realism of the Dummettian sort is not a descendant of the coherence theory of truth per se . But in some ways, as Dummett himself has noted, it might be construed as a descendant – perhaps very distant – of idealism. If idealism is the most drastic form of rejection of the independence of mind and world, Dummettian anti-realism is a more modest form, which sees epistemology imprinted in the world, rather than the wholesale embedding of world into mind. At the same time, the idea of truth as warranted assertibility or verifiability reiterates a theme from the pragmatist views of truth we surveyed in section 1.3.

Anti-realist theories of truth, like the realist ones we discussed in section 4.1, can generally make use of the Tarskian apparatus. Convention T, in particular, does not discriminate between realist and anti-realist notions of truth. Likewise, the base clauses of a Tarskian recursive theory are given as disquotation principles, which are neutral between realist and anti-realist understandings of notions like reference. As we saw with the correspondence theory, giving a full account of the nature of truth will generally require more than the Tarskian apparatus itself. How an anti-realist is to explain the basic concepts that go into a Tarskian theory is a delicate matter. As Dummett and Wright have investigated in great detail, it appears that the background logic in which the theory is developed will have to be non-classical.

For more on anti-realism and truth, see Shieh (2018) and the papers in Greenough and Lynch (2006) and the entry on realism .

Many commentators see a close connection between Dummett’s anti-realism and the pragmatists’ views of truth, in that both put great weight on ideas of verifiability or assertibility. Dummett himself stressed parallels between anti-realism and intuitionism in the philosophy of mathematics.

Another view on truth which returns to pragmatist themes is the ‘internal realism’ of Putnam (1981). There Putnam glosses truth as what would be justified under ideal epistemic conditions. With the pragmatists, Putnam sees the ideal conditions as something which can be approximated, echoing the idea of truth as the end of inquiry.

Putnam is cautious about calling his view anti-realism, preferring the label ‘internal realism’. But he is clear that he sees his view as opposed to realism (‘metaphysical realism’, as he calls it).

Davidson’s views on truth have also been associated with pragmatism, notably by Rorty (1986). Davidson has distanced himself from this interpretation (e.g., 1990), but he does highlight connections between truth and belief and meaning. Insofar as these are human attitudes or relate to human actions, Davidson grants there is some affinity between his views and those of some pragmatists (especially, he says, Dewey).

Another view that has grown out of the literature on realism and anti-realism, and has become increasingly important in the current literature, is that of pluralism about truth. This view, developed in work of Lynch (e.g. 2001b; 2009) and Wright (e.g. 1992; 1999), proposes that there are multiple ways for truth bearers to be true. Wright, in particular, suggests that in certain domains of discourse what we say is true in virtue of a correspondence-like relation, while in others it is its true in virtue of a kind of assertibility relation that is closer in spirit to the anti-realist views we have just discussed.

Such a proposal might suggest there are multiple concepts of truth, or that the term ‘true’ is itself ambiguous. However, whether or not a pluralist view is committed to such claims has been disputed. In particular, Lynch (2001b; 2009) develops a version of pluralism which takes truth to be a functional role concept. The functional role of truth is characterized by a range of principles that articulate such features of truth as its objectivity, its role in inquiry, and related ideas we have encountered in considering various theories of truth. (A related point about platitudes governing the concept of truth is made by Wright (1992).) But according to Lynch, these display the functional role of truth. Furthermore, Lynch claims that on analogy with analytic functionalism, these principles can be seen as deriving from our pre-theoretic or ‘folk’ ideas about truth.

Like all functional role concepts, truth must be realized, and according to Lynch it may be realized in different ways in different settings. Such multiple realizability has been one of the hallmarks of functional role concepts discussed in the philosophy of mind. For instance, Lynch suggests that for ordinary claims about material objects, truth might be realized by a correspondence property (which he links to representational views), while for moral claims truth might be manifest by an assertibility property along more anti-realist lines.

For more on pluralism about truth, see Pedersen and Lynch (2018) and the entry on pluralist theories of truth .

5. Deflationism

We began in section 1 with the neo-classical theories, which explained the nature of truth within wider metaphysical systems. We then considered some alternatives in sections 2 and 3, some of which had more modest ontological implications. But we still saw in section 4 that substantial theories of truth tend to imply metaphysical theses, or even embody metaphysical positions.

One long-standing trend in the discussion of truth is to insist that truth really does not carry metaphysical significance at all. It does not, as it has no significance on its own. A number of different ideas have been advanced along these lines, under the general heading of deflationism .

Deflationist ideas appear quite early on, including a well-known argument against correspondence in Frege (1918–19). However, many deflationists take their cue from an idea of Ramsey (1927), often called the equivalence thesis :

\(\ulcorner \ulcorner \phi \urcorner\) is true \(\urcorner\) has the same meaning as \(\phi\).

(Ramsey himself takes truth-bearers to be propositions rather than sentences. Glanzberg (2003b) questions whether Ramsey’s account of propositions really makes him a deflationist.)

This can be taken as the core of a theory of truth, often called the redundancy theory . The redundancy theory holds that there is no property of truth at all, and appearances of the expression ‘true’ in our sentences are redundant, having no effect on what we express.

The equivalence thesis can also be understood in terms of speech acts rather than meaning:

To assert that \(\ulcorner \phi \urcorner\) is true is just to assert that \(\phi\).

This view was advanced by Strawson (1949; 1950), though Strawson also argues that there are other important aspects of speech acts involving ‘true’ beyond what is asserted. For instance, they may be acts of confirming or granting what someone else said. (Strawson would also object to my making sentences the bearers of truth.)

In either its speech act or meaning form, the redundancy theory argues there is no property of truth. It is commonly noted that the equivalence thesis itself is not enough to sustain the redundancy theory. It merely holds that when truth occurs in the outermost position in a sentence, and the full sentence to which truth is predicated is quoted, then truth is eliminable. What happens in other environments is left to be seen. Modern developments of the redundancy theory include Grover et al. (1975).

The equivalence principle looks familiar: it has something like the form of the Tarski biconditionals discussed in section 2.2. However, it is a stronger principle, which identifies the two sides of the biconditional – either their meanings or the speech acts performed with them. The Tarski biconditionals themselves are simply material biconditionals.

A number of deflationary theories look to the Tarski biconditionals rather than the full equivalence principle. Their key idea is that even if we do not insist on redundancy, we may still hold the following theses:

• For a given language \(\mathbf{L}\) and every \(\phi\) in \(\mathbf{L}\), the biconditionals \(\ulcorner \ulcorner \phi \urcorner\) is true if and only if \(\phi \urcorner\) hold by definition (or analytically, or trivially, or by stipulation …).
• This is all there is to say about the concept of truth.

We will refer to views which adopt these as minimalist . Officially, this is the name of the view of Horwich (1990), but we will apply it somewhat more widely. (Horwich’s view differs in some specific respects from what is presented here, such as predicating truth of propositions, but we believe it is close enough to what is sketched here to justify the name.)

The second thesis, that the Tarski biconditionals are all there is to say about truth, captures something similar to the redundancy theory’s view. It comes near to saying that truth is not a property at all; to the extent that truth is a property, there is no more to it than the disquotational pattern of the Tarski biconditionals. As Horwich puts it, there is no substantial underlying metaphysics to truth. And as Soames (1984) stresses, certainly nothing that could ground as far-reaching a view as realism or anti-realism.

If there is no property of truth, or no substantial property of truth, what role does our term ‘true’ play? Deflationists typically note that the truth predicate provides us with a convenient device of disquotation . Such a device allows us to make some useful claims which we could not formulate otherwise, such as the blind ascription ‘The next thing that Bill says will be true’. (For more on blind ascriptions and their relation to deflationism, see Azzouni, 2001.) A predicate obeying the Tarski biconditionals can also be used to express what would otherwise be (potentially) infinite conjunctions or disjunctions, such as the notorious statement of Papal infallibility put ‘Everything the Pope says is true’. (Suggestions like this are found in Leeds, 1978 and Quine, 1970.)

Recognizing these uses for a truth predicate, we might simply think of it as introduced into a language by stipulation . The Tarski biconditionals themselves might be stipulated, as the minimalists envisage. One could also construe the clauses of a recursive Tarskian theory as stipulated. (There are some significant logical differences between these two options. See Halbach (1999) and Ketland (1999) for discussion.) Other deflationists, such as Beall (2005) or Field (1994), might prefer to focus here on rules of inference or rules of use, rather than the Tarski biconditionals themselves.

There are also important connections between deflationist ideas about truth and certain ideas about meaning. These are fundamental to the deflationism of Field (1986; 1994), which will be discussed in section 6.3. For an insightful critique of deflationism, see Gupta (1993).

For more on deflationism, see Azzouni (2018) and the entry on the deflationary theory of truth .

6. Truth and language

One of the important themes in the literature on truth is its connection to meaning, or more generally, to language. This has proved an important application of ideas about truth, and an important issue in the study of truth itself. This section will consider a number of issues relating truth and language.

There have been many debates in the literature over what the primary bearers of truth are. Candidates typically include beliefs, propositions, sentences, and utterances. We have already seen in section 1 that the classical debates on truth took this issue very seriously, and what sort of theory of truth was viable was often seen to depend on what the bearers of truth are.

In spite of the number of options under discussion, and the significance that has sometimes been placed on the choice, there is an important similarity between candidate truth-bearers. Consider the role of truth-bearers in the correspondence theory, for instance. We have seen versions of it which take beliefs, propositions, or interpreted sentences to be the primary bearers of truth. But all of them rely upon the idea that their truth-bearers are meaningful , and are thereby able to say something about what the world is like. (We might say that they are able to represent the world, but that is to use ‘represent’ in a wider sense than we saw in section 3.2. No assumptions about just what stands in relations to what objects are required to see truth-bearers as meaningful.) It is in virtue of being meaningful that truth-bearers are able to enter into correspondence relations. Truth-bearers are things which meaningfully make claims about what the world is like, and are true or false depending on whether the facts in the world are as described.

Exactly the same point can be made for the anti-realist theories of truth we saw in section 4.2, though with different accounts of how truth-bearers are meaningful, and what the world contributes. Though it is somewhat more delicate, something similar can be said for coherence theories, which usually take beliefs, or whole systems of beliefs, as the primary truth-bearers. Though a coherence theory will hardly talk of beliefs representing the facts, it is crucial to the coherence theory that beliefs are contentful beliefs of agents, and that they can enter into coherence relations. Noting the complications in interpreting the genuine classical coherence theories, it appears fair to note that this requires truth-bearers to be meaningful, however the background metaphysics (presumably idealism) understands meaning.

Though Tarski works with sentences, the same can be said of his theory. The sentences to which Tarski’s theory applies are fully interpreted, and so also are meaningful. They characterize the world as being some way or another, and this in turn determines whether they are true or false. Indeed, Tarski needs there to be a fact of the matter about whether each sentence is true or false (abstracting away from context dependence), to ensure that the Tarski biconditionals do their job of fixing the extension of ‘is true’. (But note that just what this fact of the matter consists in is left open by the Tarskian apparatus.)

We thus find the usual candidate truth-bearers linked in a tight circle: interpreted sentences, the propositions they express, the belief speakers might hold towards them, and the acts of assertion they might perform with them are all connected by providing something meaningful. This makes them reasonable bearers of truth. For this reason, it seems, contemporary debates on truth have been much less concerned with the issue of truth-bearers than were the classical ones. Some issues remain, of course. Different metaphysical assumptions may place primary weight on some particular node in the circle, and some metaphysical views still challenge the existence of some of the nodes. Perhaps more importantly, different views on the nature of meaning itself might cast doubt on the coherence of some of the nodes. Notoriously for instance, Quineans (e.g., Quine, 1960) deny the existence of intensional entities, including propositions. Even so, it increasingly appears doubtful that attention to truth per se will bias us towards one particular primary bearer of truth.

For more on these issues, see King (2018).

There is a related, but somewhat different point, which is important to understanding the theories we have canvassed.

The neo-classical theories of truth start with truth-bearers which are already understood to be meaningful, and explain how they get their truth values. But along the way, they often do something more. Take the neo-classical correspondence theory, for instance. This theory, in effect, starts with a view of how propositions are meaningful. They are so in virtue of having constituents in the world, which are brought together in the right way. There are many complications about the nature of meaning, but at a minimum, this tells us what the truth conditions associated with a proposition are. The theory then explains how such truth conditions can lead to the truth value true , by the right fact existing .

Many theories of truth are like the neo-classical correspondence theory in being as much theories of how truth-bearers are meaningful as of how their truth values are fixed. Again, abstracting from some complications about meaning, this makes them theories both of truth conditions and truth values . The Tarskian theory of truth can be construed this way too. This can be seen both in the way the Tarski biconditionals are understood, and how a recursive theory of truth is understood. As we explained Convention T in section 2.2, the primary role of a Tarski biconditional of the form \(\ulcorner \ulcorner \phi \urcorner\) is true if and only if \(\phi \urcorner\) is to fix whether \(\phi\) is in the extension of ‘is true’ or not. But it can also be seen as stating the truth conditions of \(\phi\). Both rely on the fact that the unquoted occurrence of \(\phi\) is an occurrence of an interpreted sentence, which has a truth value, but also provides its truth conditions upon occasions of use.

Likewise, the base clauses of the recursive definition of truth, those for reference and satisfaction, are taken to state the relevant semantic properties of constituents of an interpreted sentence. In discussing Tarski’s theory of truth in section 2, we focused on how these determine the truth value of a sentence. But they also show us the truth conditions of a sentence are determined by these semantic properties. For instance, for a simple sentence like ‘Snow is white’, the theory tells us that the sentence is true if the referent of ‘Snow’ satisfies ‘white’. This can be understood as telling us that the truth conditions of ‘Snow is white’ are those conditions in which the referent of ‘Snow’ satisfies the predicate ‘is white’.

As we saw in sections 3 and 4, the Tarskian apparatus is often seen as needing some kind of supplementation to provide a full theory of truth. A full theory of truth conditions will likewise rest on how the Tarskian apparatus is put to use. In particular, just what kinds of conditions those in which the referent of ‘snow’ satisfies the predicate ‘is white’ are will depend on whether we opt for realist or anti-realist theories. The realist option will simply look for the conditions under which the stuff snow bears the property of whiteness; the anti-realist option will look to the conditions under which it can be verified, or asserted with warrant, that snow is white.

There is a broad family of theories of truth which are theories of truth conditions as well as truth values. This family includes the correspondence theory in all its forms – classical and modern. Yet this family is much wider than the correspondence theory, and wider than realist theories of truth more generally. Indeed, virtually all the theories of truth that make contributions to the realism/anti-realism debate are theories of truth conditions. In a slogan, for many approaches to truth, a theory of truth is a theory of truth conditions.

Any theory that provides a substantial account of truth conditions can offer a simple account of truth values: a truth-bearer provides truth conditions, and it is true if and only if the actual way things are is among them. Because of this, any such theory will imply a strong, but very particular, biconditional, close in form to the Tarski biconditionals. It can be made most vivid if we think of propositions as sets of truth conditions. Let \(p\) be a proposition, i.e., a set of truth conditions, and let \(a\) be the ‘actual world’, the condition that actually obtains. Then we can almost trivially see:

\(p\) is true if and only if \(a \in p\).

This is presumably necessary. But it is important to observe that it is in one respect crucially different from the genuine Tarski biconditionals. It makes no use of a non-quoted sentence, or in fact any sentence at all. It does not have the disquotational character of the Tarski biconditionals.

Though this may look like a principle that deflationists should applaud, it is not. Rather, it shows that deflationists cannot really hold a truth-conditional view of content at all. If they do, then they inter alia have a non-deflationary theory of truth, simply by linking truth value to truth conditions through the above biconditional. It is typical of thoroughgoing deflationist theories to present a non-truth-conditional theory of the contents of sentences: a non-truth-conditional account of what makes truth-bearers meaningful. We take it this is what is offered, for instance, by the use theory of propositions in Horwich (1990). It is certainly one of the leading ideas of Field (1986; 1994), which explore how a conceptual role account of content would ground a deflationist view of truth. Once one has a non-truth-conditional account of content, it is then possible to add a deflationist truth predicate, and use this to give purely deflationist statements of truth conditions. But the starting point must be a non-truth-conditional view of what makes truth-bearers meaningful.

Both deflationists and anti-realists start with something other than correspondence truth conditions. But whereas an anti-realist will propose a different theory of truth conditions, a deflationists will start with an account of content which is not a theory of truth conditions at all. The deflationist will then propose that the truth predicate, given by the Tarski biconditionals, is an additional device, not for understanding content, but for disquotation. It is a useful device, as we discussed in section 5.3, but it has nothing to do with content. To a deflationist, the meaningfulness of truth-bearers has nothing to do with truth.

It has been an influential idea, since the seminal work of Davidson (e.g., 1967), to see a Tarskian theory of truth as a theory of meaning. At least, as we have seen, a Tarskian theory can be seen as showing how the truth conditions of a sentence are determined by the semantic properties of its parts. More generally, as we see in much of the work of Davidson and of Dummett (e.g., 1959; 1976; 1983; 1991), giving a theory of truth conditions can be understood as a crucial part of giving a theory of meaning. Thus, any theory of truth that falls into the broad category of those which are theories of truth conditions can be seen as part of a theory of meaning. (For more discussion of these issues, see Higginbotham (1986; 1989) and the exchange between Higginbotham (1992) and Soames (1992).)

A number of commentators on Tarski (e.g., Etchemendy, 1988; Soames, 1984) have observed that the Tarskian apparatus needs to be understood in a particular way to make it suitable for giving a theory of meaning. Tarski’s work is often taken to show how to define a truth predicate. If it is so used, then whether or not a sentence is true becomes, in essence, a truth of mathematics. Presumably what truth conditions sentences of a natural language have is a contingent matter, so a truth predicate defined in this way cannot be used to give a theory of meaning for them. But the Tarskian apparatus need not be used just to explicitly define truth. The recursive characterization of truth can be used to state the semantic properties of sentences and their constituents, as a theory of meaning should. In such an application, truth is not taken to be explicitly defined, but rather the truth conditions of sentences are taken to be described. (See Heck, 1997 for more discussion.)

Inspired by Quine (e.g., 1960), Davidson himself is well known for taking a different approach to using a theory of truth as a theory of meaning than is implicit in Field (1972). Whereas a Field-inspired representational approach is based on a causal account of reference, Davidson (e.g., 1973) proposes a process of radical interpretation in which an interpreter builds a Tarskian theory to interpret a speaker as holding beliefs which are consistent, coherent, and largely true.

This led Davidson (e.g. 1986) to argue that most of our beliefs are true – a conclusion that squares well with the coherence theory of truth. This is a weaker claim than the neo-classical coherence theory would make. It does not insist that all the members of any coherent set of beliefs are true, or that truth simply consists in being a member of such a coherent set. But all the same, the conclusion that most of our beliefs are true, because their contents are to be understood through a process of radical interpretation which will make them a coherent and rational system, has a clear affinity with the neo-classical coherence theory.

In Davidson (1986), he thought his view of truth had enough affinity with the neo-classical coherence theory to warrant being called a coherence theory of truth, while at the same time he saw the role of Tarskian apparatus as warranting the claim that his view was also compatible with a kind of correspondence theory of truth.

In later work, however, Davidson reconsidered this position. In fact, already in Davidson (1977) he had expressed doubt about any understanding of the role of Tarski’s theory in radical interpretation that involves the kind of representational apparatus relied on by Field (1972), as we discussed in sections 3.1 and 3.2. In the “Afterthoughts” to Davidson (1986), he also concluded that his view departs too far from the neo-classical coherence theory to be named one. What is important is rather the role of radical interpretation in the theory of content, and its leading to the idea that belief is veridical. These are indeed points connected to coherence, but not to the coherence theory of truth per se. They also comprise a strong form of anti-representationalism. Thus, though he does not advance a coherence theory of truth, he does advance a theory that stands in opposition to the representational variants of the correspondence theory we discussed in section 3.2.

For more on Davidson, see Glanzberg (2013) and the entry on Donald Davidson .

The relation between truth and meaning is not the only place where truth and language relate closely. Another is the idea, also much-stressed in the writings of Dummett (e.g., 1959), of the relation between truth and assertion. Again, it fits into a platitude:

Truth is the aim of assertion.

A person making an assertion, the platitude holds, aims to say something true.

It is easy to cast this platitude in a way that appears false. Surely, many speakers do not aim to say something true. Any speaker who lies does not. Any speaker whose aim is to flatter, or to deceive, aims at something other than truth.

The motivation for the truth-assertion platitude is rather different. It looks at assertion as a practice, in which certain rules are constitutive . As is often noted, the natural parallel here is with games, like chess or baseball, which are defined by certain rules. The platitude holds that it is constitutive of the practice of making assertions that assertions aim at truth. An assertion by its nature presents what it is saying as true, and any assertion which fails to be true is ipso facto liable to criticism, whether or not the person making the assertion themself wished to have said something true or to have lied.

Dummett’s original discussion of this idea was partially a criticism of deflationism (in particular, of views of Strawson, 1950). The idea that we fully explain the concept of truth by way of the Tarski biconditionals is challenged by the claim that the truth-assertion platitude is fundamental to truth. As Dummett there put it, what is left out by the Tarski biconditionals, and captured by the truth-assertion platitude, is the point of the concept of truth, or what the concept is used for. (For further discussion, see Glanzberg, 2003a and Wright, 1992.)

Whether or not assertion has such constitutive rules is, of course, controversial. But among those who accept that it does, the place of truth in the constitutive rules is itself controversial. The leading alternative, defended by Williamson (1996), is that knowledge, not truth, is fundamental to the constitutive rules of assertion. Williamson defends an account of assertion based on the rule that one must assert only what one knows.

For more on truth and assertion, see the papers in Brown and Cappelen (2011) and the entry on assertion .

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Davidson, Donald | facts | James, William | liar paradox | Peirce, Charles Sanders | realism | Tarski, Alfred: truth definitions | truth: axiomatic theories of | truth: coherence theory of | truth: correspondence theory of | truth: deflationism about | truth: identity theory of | truth: pluralist theories of

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Josh Parsons for advice on metaphysics, and to Jc Beall, Justin Khoo, Jason Stanley, Paul Teller, and an anonymous referee for very helpful comments on earlier drafts.

Copyright © 2018 by Michael Glanzberg < michael . glanzberg @ philosophy . rutgers . edu >

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On Happiness as Harmony

Nov 25, 2018

Pedro Blas González

O f the many ways that we can exist as persons, happiness directs our glance inward, toward the essence of our individual being. This is the discovery of personhood as interiority. The ultimate form of happiness—joy—signals our participation in being.

The capacity to experience happiness is a dominant human trait. We can even think of this capacity for self-reflection as being divine in inspiration. No doubt, our ability to be happy plays a major role in our behavior. Few of us reflect on the fact that whether we are happy or not determines a large portion of our daily decision-making. Consider the inestimable sociopolitical cost of unhappiness. Humans who are unhappy often embrace destructive behavior against themselves or others. Most importantly, the worldview of unhappy people is often ruled by forms of self-loathing, which, more often than not, finds expression in the social and political arenas.

Happiness can be experienced as momentous and temporary. It can also inform our lives in a lasting way in the form of joy. This is because joy is a state of being human. This means that we literally encounter ourselves, our being as the persons whom we are, in being happy. Of course, we exist in several ways throughout our lives—as children, adults, and as elderly, among others. Yet fundamental to all human activities is our realization of the self as always being embedded in the world. Thus, joy is a form of being that recognizes the centrality of the self to the reality of the world.

The state of being happy allows us to reflect on what it means to be who we are as individuals. This lightness displays man’s harmony with existence, especially in lieu of being in the world. I often compare the airy lightness that we feel when we are happy with the adagio movement of a symphony. We can think of joy as an existential form of harmony that alerts us to the symmetry of the fullness of being. When reflecting on joy, the adagio from Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez and Bach’s “ Air on a G String ” often come to mind.

Perhaps happiness is more representative of personhood than even intelligence, in its ability to distinguish us from animals. No doubt, human beings possess the capacity to understand the vitality that makes us who we are as individuals. Aside from our biological make-up, human beings are also dominated by a lived-vitality that can be understood as the desire for self-knowledge. Our lived vitality, what we like to refer to as character, is also indicative of our existential fingerprint on creation. Unlike our physical fingerprints, our character is not reducible to mere biology.

S elf-knowledge is a foundational form of our understanding of the world around us. Self-knowledge exists as intuition of the human person—from the inside out. Thus, the highest form of knowledge a human can possess is that of oneself as an ontological entity. We know ourselves existentially. While philosophical materialism reduces our capacity for happiness to something that is physical in nature—that is, as a function of the brain, this still leaves us with the odd realization of having to express emotions whose origin is not physical stimuli. What we encounter when we reflect on the reality of our lives is our lived-essence as individual souls. Circa 2018, we still possess no scientific explanation of what it means to be a differentiated individual. Moreover, we certainly have no idea why we should come into existence in the first place. Existentially speaking, happiness, tragedy, misery, and life itself, only happen to individual persons.

In other words, while it is fruitful to discuss happiness with others, in private conversations or in round-table type arrangements, ultimately what we are discussing in those instances is the intellectualized articulation of a vital state of being. This is so, because when we attempt to communicate our state of happiness through language, we always fall short of the inwardly felt reality of the latter. The last word in happiness belongs to our experiencing it as a lived emotion, not words.

In writing about happiness, I am aware that the best that can be achieved here is a commentary on this basic human reality. I do not pretend to offer a textbook account of joy or happiness. Who can? Worthwhile commentary on the nature of happiness must reflect vital and existential existence. Happiness must be lived, and therefore, felt as a lived experience. This makes abstract and theoretical commentaries on happiness pointless. Commentary on happiness can offer us very little by way of a moral or spiritual return, for talking about happiness does not make people happy.

Writing that is not done in the form of, say, a memoir on the actual experience of happiness merely comes across as an intellectual curiosity. There is a marked difference in writing that explores its subject as a theoretical abstraction, and exploratory, autobiographical essays. Only the latter reflects the lived-world of the author, with all the color, trials, and tribulations that make life a vital and existential reality.

This is one reason why academic writing on happiness will always be theoretically sterile. How many people will benefit from such an enterprise? Reading academic textbooks on philosophy, one quickly realizes that the subjects in question are not people of flesh and blood, but some theoretical cardboard “agents” that do not exist. This is one reason given by José Ortega y Gasset for not reading academic journals. These agents are actually comical fabrications of people who apparently have too much time on their hands. It is hard to imagine Socrates, Boethius, or Thomas More, for example, paying much attention to theoretical agents, and not their own fate, as they prepared to die.

After reading academic philosophy for a long time, one comes to feel embarrassed for its inanity. Apparently, the ridiculous and laughable nature of such analytical inquiry is lost on both academic philosophers and the publishers profiting from such make-work fodder. What is the point of dragging philosophical reflection through a maze of laboratories, where persons who are endowed with free will are turned into deterministic, conditioned rat-specimens? These works may build academic careers, but rarely are they reflections on living and the attendant aspects of vital reality.

I nstead, I propose a kind of adventure of philosophical discovery that attempts to identify the importance of joy and happiness to productive living. Genuine reflection on happiness must come about through what I will refer to as fullness of being , which is encountered in vital symmetry. The fullness of being is manifested in vital-life, especially those forms that are ruled by a self-regulating, virtuous symmetry. It is hard to communicate the value of happiness and joy to other people if we do not experience it as a lived reality. This is why happiness is a truly curious and paradoxical human emotion.

Placing happiness and its importance to human existence under the scope of medical materialism, biologism, physicalism, and so forth, is an aberration that ranks high on the list of human follies. The latter materialist renditions of man are content to view happiness as a mere function or epiphenomenon—an offshoot—of the brain. Yet happiness is not a function of the body. Instead, happiness is a manner of being human, one that embraces the entirety of personhood. Reducing happiness to brain function is a fine example of how science is often at odds with lived existence.

In Man and People , the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset writes about the differences between biological life and biographical existence. While the former is obvious, the latter signifies an existential category that lies outside the realm of science. We do not experience the interior reality of our lives by being convinced by abstractions, but through the essence of personhood. This is one reason why we can say that joy and happiness are interrelated modes of being. Science, we ought not to forget, is the study of matter, not of persons as existential entities. Whenever science tries to offer an account of human reality, it does so by taking inventory of the material realm. The problem is that human existence makes itself known as lived-experience of ourselves. Sentient people intuit the reality of their lives more readily than they do the objective world. Human existence resists being reduced to mere quantifiable phenomena. Why then our current insistence in reducing man to our alleged component parts? Reason may recognize a state of happiness in oneself or another, but it cannot reproduce vital happiness on demand. This is part of what Pascal means by “the heart has its own reasons.”

We must be vigilant in our approach regarding the nature and meaning of happiness. It is one thing to be happy and another to pay it lip service. The former is the stuff of vital reality, while the latter is better suited for public consumption. The former is what some people feel, while the latter fuels a cottage industry. How can our culture isolate happiness and bottle it for popular consumption? This is all too convenient and facile. The matter becomes complicated because, while science has nothing to offer in reflection on joy and happiness, psychobabble serves as a useful reminder of the intellectual and cultural inanity to which idle reasoning can lead.

Gifted essayists and thinkers have written about happiness in a spirited lyricism that complements this human emotion. Yet few who write about happiness are under the impression that happiness can be attained through the stroke of a pen or the clicking of keys. Even so, exploratory essays are more conducive to reflection on this vital aspect of human life than alleged studies or abstract theories.

It is a curiosity that many people who write about happiness today do so to refute the idea that happiness is attainable. This is consistent with our postmodern self-loathing. It should appear obvious to naysayers that, if happiness is unattainable in daily life, it is pointless to explain it away through theory. Happy people can’t be persuaded into believing that happiness is an illusion through the citation of a nauseating array of logical deductions or case studies. Yet as obvious as this truism may appear, Western culture and education have been taken hostage by those who relish the latter abuse of reason.

Human existence is governed by existential categories. One of these categories, which is not encountered as a thing among things in the world, is free will. The rhythm of a thoughtful essay flows, much as life, through unpredictable waters. This is why writers like Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, and Pascal speak to readers across the centuries. People express their joy or happiness in unpredictable ways, precisely because these are not scientific categories that can be isolated and catalogued. It is useful to be reminded of this frequently. This is also why there can be no science or case studies that accurately predict the trajectory of happy lives, or the human capacity for attaining happiness.

W e must also recognize that because human behavior is fickle, formulas that aim to capture the essence of happiness will always be ineffective. Of course, this does not mean that there are no rational, sensible, or reasonable rules that we ought to follow that can lead to happiness. On the contrary, the basic principles that rule over human existence, as we have encountered these for millennia, can be counted on as guides for human felicity with no less regularity than we understand the phases of the moon.

Many miserable lives have been built through caprice. It is not difficult to see how many people actually do battle with life. Ironically, few of these people understand the conditions that make them unhappy. This is a worst-case scenario of the transparency of life. The philosopher Gabriel Marcel has the following to say in The Philosophy of Existentialism about our neglect of the human person as an ontological mystery:

Rather than to begin with abstract definitions and dialectical arguments which may be discouraging at the outset, I should like to start with a sort of global and intuitive characterization of the man in whom the sense of the ontological—the sense of being—is lacking, or, so to speak more correctly, of the man who has lost the awareness of this sense. Generally speaking, modern man is in this condition: if ontological demands worry him at all, it is only dully, as an obscure impulse.

Our differentiated existential condition makes every person responsible for uncovering objective universal principles that inform human existence. Failure to realize that human existence is regulated by time-proven principles often takes a toll on our lives. We can model some aspects of our lives, whether professional, moral, or spiritual, on the good examples set by exemplary people. However, we must be ready to tackle reality on its own terms, in our own existence. This means taking stock of our circumstances.

Every person encounters and responds to life’s demands according to our inherent capacity. In other words, we are equal to our lives. Every person is responsible for cultivating vital symmetry, harmony with life. Ortega y Gasset is correct to argue that we are our circumstances, and if we don’t save them, we cannot save ourselves. Our circumstances, according to Ortega, include the fundamental reality that is our incarnate life. Man’s ontological condition is measured as reality vis-à-vis the individual as a person. We do not encounter our life as one more thing in a universe of inanimate objects. This suggests that human existence, what is experienced as an existential reality, must embrace free will. This is one of the initial demands that a happy life makes of itself.

People who embrace spiritual autonomy exercise free will in order to tackle the demands of daily existence. This enables us to recognize that there are things that remain out of their control. Part of what it means to experience human existence as a differentiated person is the acceptance of mystery in human existence. In other words, the exercise of free will also means knowing when we do not possess knowledge or control over something. This realization keeps us humble and honest, in addition to keeping us from becoming cynical about things that may not be in our power to comprehend. Two aspects of the human condition that will always remain out of our control are luck and irony.

Among other ways, we can understand the human will to be a psycho-physical component of the person. Will is the capacity of autonomous persons to come to terms with the strife they must face in order to live as incarnate souls—and prosper. Again, we must make choices—some trivial, others deadly serious. We cannot evade having to make choices, for even the consideration of evasion is already a choice. Luck can be thought of as a timing mechanism of events that take place in our life. Luck may be fortuitous or otherwise. On a purely material level, where events are said to depend on each other through cause and effect, it is almost impossible to establish the existence of luck. However, what is ordinarily considered cause and effect—contingency—nevertheless affects people of flesh and blood. Human beings often internalize events that science will dismiss as explainable. Because it is out of our control, luck enters our life without warning. On the other hand, timing in life does not necessarily need to convey a sense of good or ill fortune. The timing of events in our life, one way or another, can be dictated by the choices we make. We are often the unsuspecting recipients, for good or ill, of other people’s free will.

Embedded in this multi-layered existential condition is our ability to experience happiness. We cannot will ourselves to be happy. This would be presumptuous on our part. Human happiness, as I have already alluded to, is a diffuse emotion. It cannot be coerced. Happiness is often experienced as a singular joy that we can experience without much ado. Happiness or its antithesis–unhappiness—often come about as the result of our outlook on life, the purpose and meaning of our lives, and our spiritual and emotional stability, in addition to the choices we make.

We must also keep in mind that self-conscious discussion about happiness tends to aggravate our unhappiness. One cannot grasp with the mind what is not felt vitally. The former is an academic exercise, while the latter remains the stuff of vital existence. Much can be said about the harm that psychoanalysis has done to the human psyche in the twentieth century. Self-help gurus and the self-indulgent industry they have created operate on the principle that everyone ought to be happy. The latter is one of many platitudes that our age embraces. Ours is perhaps the only time in recorded history when everyone is promised a happy life, regardless of our attention to the duty we owe ourselves to practice prudence.  

Pedro Blas González is a professor of philosophy at Barry University.

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4 Truth and Happiness

• Published: February 2007
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This chapter focuses on the truth as the goal of human life, that is, on the truth as happiness, according to Thomas Aquinas. It emphasizes the importance of the practice of contemplation if one is to “get the idea of life.” We are living in an atmosphere soaked with interest in survival. We do not ask often enough, “ survival to do what?” We have made magnificent progress in developing the means of observation. We have hitherto unimaginable ability to study nature. And we have the means of communicating very widely such access to things. However, our mentality in these endeavors remains lamentably pragmatic. Although knowledge of new species will reveal new medical possibilities, there is a more important dimension to the situation. Knowledge of natural beings is a perfection of the mind, of the human person. It makes a human being happy. It makes life worth living. It is an introduction to God. It is an anticipation of eternal life.

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Psychology: Understanding Happiness

TED Studies, created in collaboration with Wiley, are curated video collections — supplemented by rich educational materials — for students, educators and self-guided learners. In Understanding Happiness, expert explorers of the mind chart our understanding of how happiness is created and cultivated. Their insights challenge our most basic cultural, political and economic assumptions and are transforming the field of psychology. Relevant areas of interest, study and coursework include: positive psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, evolutionary psychology, clinical psychology, marriage and family counseling, coaching, emotion and consumer behavior.

Learning outcomes

TED's Understanding Happiness will provide learners with a deeper knowledge of:

• The measurement of happiness (and unhappiness)
• When and why people feel at their most happy (physiologically and psychologically)
• The extent to which people are predisposed to be happy
• Effective (and ineffective) methods to increase and sustain happiness
• How our preferences and beliefs determine happiness
• How choice, freedom, and embracing diversity influence collective happiness
• Advances in the theory and applications of positive psychology.

Relevant talks

Nancy Etcoff

Happiness and its surprises.

Martin Seligman

The new era of positive psychology.

Helen Fisher

Why we love, why we cheat.

The origins of pleasure

Dan Gilbert

The surprising science of happiness.

Barry Schwartz

The paradox of choice.

Malcolm Gladwell

Choice, happiness and spaghetti sauce, introductory essay.

Begin Understanding Happiness with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

About the educator

Cary Cooper is the Distinguished Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at the University of Lancaster and co-founder of the consulting firm Robertson-Cooper.

About TED Studies

Each TED Study offers a curated and sequenced set of TED Talks, along with specially commissioned materials for teaching and self-guided learning. Created by world class experts, they cover topics ranging from "Understanding Happiness" to "Covering World News" to "Ecofying Cities." An abbreviated version of TED Studies is offered here; the full curricula — including special modules on each talk with questions, assignments, key terms and recommended reading — are available for licensing to academic institutions, ministries of education, and media companies worldwide.

See all TED Studies

For more information about licensing and language translation rights for TED Studies, please learn more about how to partner with us and fill out our media licensing request form .

A Brave New World Essay: Truth and Happiness

How it works

One of the greatest and most important human virtues is truthfulness. Society uses the truth to live in harmony. There is no justice without truth; no love, faith, or integrity without truth. In Brave New World, a novel by Aldous Huxley, everyone is living in illusion created by the government. Set in a dystopian future, Huxley constructs a manufactured and artificial world greatly influenced by Henry Ford’s mass-production and consumerism of cars. Throughout the book Huxley uses the juxtaposition between the World State and the Savage Reservation to identify shortcomings in our society.

The World State’s views on preconditioning, sex, and drugs demonstrates that the understanding of truth and sense of purpose is more important than immediate happiness.

Citizen’s preconditioning ensures immediate happiness, concealing real understanding of truth and sense of purpose. The Director explains that conditioning is a ‘major instruments of social stability” (I. 5). From using hypnopaedia, citizens believe they are content with their social status but don’t know why. If everyone is happy, then there will be stability in society. On a plane ride Bernard questions his conditioning to Lenina: “if I were free — not enslaved by my conditioning’ (VII. 91) In response Lenina falls back on her conditioning and recites her hypnopaedia. During conditioning members are taught social expectations and to tell higher authorities if someone is breaking of them in case of rebellion, due to this Lenina claims how horrible his thought were and threatens to tell his feelings. On the tour of the Social Predestination Room, the Director explains the purpose of conditioning, ‘And that, that is the secret of happiness and virtue- liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny’ (I. 16). Each caste from alphas, the most intelligent and good looking, to epsilons, clones for the intent of labor, are crucial to society. But citizens do not have a choice in their caste, conditioning takes away their freedoms. Pre-conditioning forces happiness and taints sense of purpose because they have no freedoms.

A fundamental reason World State citizens have a false sense of truth and purpose resides in the instant gratification they receive from sexual relationships. The ideal World State lifestyle is based on sex in attempt to keep people happy to achieve stability. From a young age, children are expected to join in “ordinary erotic play”. In the garden scene, a little boy is ostracized for his reluctance to take part. The Director explains to his students the “outrageous” ways before Ford, “erotic play between children had been regarded as abnormal (there was a roar of laughter); and not only abnormal, actually immoral (no!); and had therefore been rigorously suppressed” (III. 32). This passage emphasizes the students reactions and reveals the extremities the government use to make citizens satisfied for stability. However, sex conditioning is an impediment to achieving happiness. Love is imperative to achieve happiness for human beings, the absence thereof in World State only obscures true happiness. The hypnopaedia message first introduced by Mustapha Mond, “Everyone belongs to every one else” (III. 40), is repeated by characters throughout the book. Having been drilled into all citizens minds while still in the Hatchery, they subconsciously accept the motto as fact. While the motto encourages sexual promiscuity, it also establishes social expectations. If everybody truly belongs to everyone, then so do their bodies.

Therefore, the promiscuous lifestyle is not only expected but intended from every one. In addition to being rewarded by sexual pleasure, people are also accepted into society. As a result of the motto, sense of purpose in society is hindered. Lenina falls victim to her sexual conditioning, preventing her from having a relationship with John. Under the influence of soma, Lenina confronts John about her feelings for him. He admits his love for her, however, she mistakes love for lust: “I wanted you so much. And if you wanted me too, why didn’t you?…” (XIII. 192). Lenina is referring to sex, questioning why John hadn’t made sexual advances on her. World State had brainwashed her into thinking sex is the only way to show affection. Conversely, the Savage Reservation has given John a deep-seated aversion to promiscuity. The people on the reservation are neither condition nor influenced by Word State. For that reason, the reservation encompass morals ineluctable to marriage and family. It is no wonder John rejects Lenina’s sexual advancements; he is accustomed to a society where sex is after marriage. The contrast of ethics between Lenina and John is not just the downfall to their relationship, but stresses Huxley’s message: immediate satisfaction gives a false sense of truth and purpose hinder true happiness. His message applies to real life’s fears within the modern era’s increasing promiscuity and the possible negative outcomes it brings.

People in the World State believe they are happy due to their dependence on soma, allowing them escape dissatisfaction of their roles and the truths in society. Soma obscures reality through hallucinations which keeps users in the present, avoiding past or future worries. Lenina and Henry enter the happy ignorance of the drug: “Swallowing half an hour before closing time, that second dose of soma had raised a quite impenetrable wall between the actual universe and their minds. Bottled, they crossed the street; bottled, they took the lift up to Henry’s room on the twenty-eighth floor. And yet, bottled as she was, and in spite of that second gramme of soma” (V. 77) Huxley uses the bottle as imagery to explain while soma provides a fantasy, it really is holding them prisoner to the government. Soma distracts them from the truth and purpose of their humanity. Lenina and Henry take the soma for leisure in their free time, which is very routine for users to entertain themselves. But soma is also used to avoid worries: while on the Savage Reservation, Bernard consoleds a sobbing Lenina after watching a savage ritual. Lenina expresses her dependence on soma: “‘A gramme is better than a damn’ said Lenina mechanically from behind her hands. ‘I wish I had my soma!’” (VII. 116).

Huxley depicts Lenina in a childlike way, whiny and demanding her soma. She is unable to handle real negative emotions without the drug’s immediate feeling of happiness. However, without soma there is no escaping and Lenina is forced to see the dirty reality. In a discussion about Shakespeare, Mustapha Mond reveals the impossibilities of tragedy in World State, “The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get… And if anything should go wrong, there’s soma.” (XVI. 220). World State prioritizes happiness, disregarding the truth. While soma momentarily brings happiness, it does nothing but disguise World State’s control over them. If citizens knew the truth about society, they would accept the non problematic happiness because of their dependence on soma. Huxley uses soma to criticize society’s use of prescription medication to suppress unwanted feelings.

In Brave New World, one of the most important humans highly value is jeopardized: truth. People disregard the pursuit of truth in exchange for the immediate fulfillment of all desires, letting them enjoy World State’s superficial happiness. Huxley uses World State’s views on preconditioning, sex, and drugs to argue that the understanding of truth and sense of purpose is more important than immediate happiness.

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Truth, Meaning and Realism: Essays in the Philosophy of Thought

A. C. Grayling, Truth, Meaning and Realism: Essays in the Philosophy of Thought , Continuum, 2007, 173pp., $19.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781847061546.

Reviewed by Alexander Miller, University of Birmingham

This volume is a collection of revised versions of ten essays apparently written in the 1980s or thereabouts, mainly as invited contributions to conferences. As Grayling admits in his preface, "All the papers are of their time". British philosophy in the 1970s and 1980s was dominated by an approach to the debate between realism and antirealism that was associated with Oxford and championed by Michael Dummett, and according to which the key issue was whether the theory of meaning should take as its central concept the notion of truth or the notion of assertibility , with realism favouring the former and antirealism favouring the latter. Much of the book concerns the realism debate conceived in these terms, and although there are also extended discussions of Putnam's twin-earth examples these are mainly in the context of an exchange with David Wiggins. Grayling's essays are thus also very much "of their place" (Oxford) as well as of their time (1980s).

Although in his early works Dummett had defended the idea that assertibility, and not truth, should be the central concept of the theory of meaning, in later work he -- and Crispin Wright -- suggested that antirealism could after all take the notion of truth to be the central notion of the theory of meaning so long as it was an epistemically constrained notion. Given this way of formulating antirealism there is no need to argue that the notion of assertion can be explained in terms that don't presuppose the notion of truth: even the antirealist can admit that it is a platitude that "to assert is to present as true".

In Essay 1, Grayling puts forward a view of assertion that contrasts with the approach of Wright and the later Dummett. Whereas the Wright-later Dummett view sees the aim of assertion as "the presentation of or laying claim to truth" (p.10), Grayling sees it as "the realisation of certain cognitive and practical goals" (ibid.).

Essay 2 proposes a recasting of the debate between realism and antirealism. Grayling suggests that (a) properly understood realism is not a metaphysical but an epistemological thesis: "that the domains or entities to which ontological commitment is made exist independently of knowledge of them" (p.26); and that (b) it is in fact a second-order debate about whether the realistic commitments of ordinary, first-order discourse are literally true or not, and as such has no implications for "logic, linguistic practice, or mundane metaphysics" (p.30). Grayling returns to these issues in Essays 8 and 9.

An alternative to deflationary and indefinabilist conceptions of truth is offered in Essay 3: "The predicate 'is true' is a lazy predicate. It holds a place for more precise predicates, denoting evaluatory properties appropriate to the discourse in which possession of those properties is valued" (p.32). On this view "there are, literally, different kinds of truth, individuated by subject-matter" (p.36). Grayling backs this up in Essay 4 (which, like Essay 3, is a reworked chapter from Grayling's An Introduction to Philosophical Logic , first published in 1982) with a critique of the indefinabilist position Davidson recommends in "The Folly of Trying to Define Truth". This essay also argues that Davidson's "The Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge" fails to yield a satisfying account of objectivity: in particular "the principle of charity is questionable beyond its heuristic applications" (p.49).

Putnam's famous "twin-earth" argument appears to some to establish that it is essential to Jones's thinking the thought that someone is drinking water in the next room that there is (or has been) some H 2 0 in Jones's environment. In Essay 5 Grayling considers Wiggins's attempt to fuse this construal of Putnam's insight -- "the extension-involvingness of natural kind terms" (p.62) -- with a Fregean theory distinguishing between the sense and reference of such a term. For Wiggins,

Taking the sense of a name as its mode of presentation of an object means that we have two things … : an object that the name presents, and a way in which it is presented. This latter [is] the 'conception' of the object … 'a body of information' -- typically open-ended and imperfect, and hence rarely if ever condensable into a complete description of the object -- in which the object itself plays a role (p.62),

and something similar holds for natural kind terms: "the sense of a natural kind term is correlative to a recognitional conception that is unspecifiable except as the conception of things like this, that and the other specimens exemplifying the concept that this conception is a conception of" (p.65). Grayling suggests that instead of taking senses to be "correlative" to "conceptions" we should instead identify senses with conceptions: "a term's sense is: an open-ended extensible body of information, possession of which enables speakers to identify the term's reference" (p.69). However, this modified account has consequences for the notion of extension-involving sense:

on the minimum specification given for the grasp of the sense of a concept-word, any concept word which applies to nothing retains its sense because what is known by one who understands it is what would count as an exemplary instance of its application if ever one were offered. (p.74)

In consequence, Wiggins was wrong to take it "that the extension-involvingness constraint ensured the realism of the reality-involvingness he took this to entail" (p.75). Related matters are pursued in Essay 6. Grayling rejects Frege's "strong objectivism" about sense, and argues that since the publicity of sense "is essentially a matter of speakers' mutual constrainings of use", it is best construed in terms of "intersubjective agreement in use" (p.85). This has implications for the externalist arguments of Putnam and Burge. Although it is true that meanings are not in the head of any single speaker, "they are in our heads, collectively understood … meaning is the artefact of intersubjectively constituted conventions governing the use of sounds and marks to communicate, and therefore resides in the language itself" (p.89). This shows -- contra Putnam -- that "facts about the physical environment of language-use are not essential to meaning" (p.89). Grayling reaches this conclusion by reflecting on what he calls an "Explicit Speaker", an idealised speaker who knows everything contained in "some best and latest dictionary [which] pooled a community's knowledge of meanings" (p.87). It follows that

when he [an individual speaker with the linguistic community's best joint knowledge at his disposal] says 'water' he intends to refer to water, that is, H 2 0, or if he lives on twin-earth, then to water on twin-earth, that is, XYZ; and so in either case his grasp of the expression's meaning determines its extension, and the psychological state in which his grasp of the meaning consists is broad. But this is not because it is related, causally or in some other way, to water, but rather to theories of water, because he is speaking in conformity with the best dictionary, that is, with the fullest available knowledge of meaning, in accord with the best current theories held by the linguistic community. (p.88)

Grayling does not consider the obvious reply that a defender of Putnam might give: that a 10 th century English peasant's application of "water" to a sample of XYZ is incorrect, and clearly not because of anything to do with the best current theory held by his linguistic community. Moreover, it appears to beg the question against Putnam to assume that, in the late-20 th century scenario that Grayling is concerned with, facts about the physical environment are not essential to grasp the meanings of some of the expressions that appear in "the best current theories held by the linguistic community".

The "Explicit Speaker" reappears in Essay 7. As Grayling advertises in the preface, this chapter suggests that " point is the driving force in interpretation of implicatures by competent speakers of a natural language" (p.vi), and that "this simple insight reveals certain puzzles to be artefacts of inexplictness" (ibid.). According to Grayling:

An Explicit Speaker of his language is one who so uses it whenever he makes an assertion (and mutatis mutandis for other kinds of utterance) he: (1) expresses his intended meaning as fully as, if not more fully than, his audience needs in the circumstances; (2) expresses his intended meaning as exactly as, if not more exactly than, his audience, etc; and (3) is as epistemically cautious as the circumstances do or might require, if not more so, with respect to the claims made or presupposed by what he says. (p.93)

Grayling proposes to deploy this notion of an Explicit Speaker to shed light on the analogues in natural language of the logical constants, presupposition-failure in uses of the likes of "Jones omitted to turn out the light", the distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions, and Putnam's use of twin-earth type examples. This chapter is difficult to follow. Although it is titled "Explicit Speaker Theory", and although the expression "Explicit Speaker Theory" is mentioned throughout, Grayling never gives a clear and explicit statement of what the theory actually is. The reader is left to work this out from inexplicit hints. We are told, for example, that according to Explicit Speaker Theory "the crux in meaning is the point, which is to be explained in terms of speakers' intentions to mean something on an occasion" (p.92), that "conventional meaning is to be characterised as the dry residue of speakers' meanings, agreed in the language community under constraints of publicity and stability" (ibid.), that "the meanings of expressions in a language are the agreed dry residue of speakers' meanings" (p.105), and that "what the Explicit Speaker does [when he says "the man whom I take to be drinking champagne is happy tonight"] is what all speakers are enthymematically doing anyway" (p.102). (Grayling does not attempt to explain what it is to do something enthymematically: again, the reader is left to work this out for himself.) In the light of this, readers with less sunny temperaments than the present reviewer are likely to be irritated by comments like "One should surely recognise all this as obvious" (p.100).

That Essay 8 is very much of its time and place is evident from its characterisation as "current orthodoxy" of the view that the realism/antirealism dispute is a debate about whether linguistic understanding is a matter of grasp of epistemically unconstrained truth-conditions or a matter of grasp of assertion conditions. For "current orthodoxy" read "orthodoxy in Oxford in the 1980s", and -- accordingly -- the essay is largely taken up with a discussion of Dummett's analysis of realism as the view that grasp of sentence-meaning is grasp of potentially evidence-transcendent truth-conditions. Grayling argues that rather than attempting in this way to bring all realist/antirealist controversies under one label, we should instead "recognise that they are controversies of different kinds" (p.126). This point is now well-taken -- and indeed defended -- even by philosophers out of the Dummettian stable (cf. Crispin Wright, Truth and Objectivity (Harvard University Press 1992)). However, in contrast to Wright, Grayling argues not that we can develop different realism-relevant considerations that can be brought to bear in different combinations as we move across different discourses, but rather that "we do well to restrict talk of realism to the case where controversy concerns unmetaphorical claims about the knowledge-independent existence of entities or realms of entities -- namely, the 'external world' case" (p.126).

Grayling's argument for this surprising claim is unconvincing. Dummett argues that realism is most fundamentally a semantic thesis, "a doctrine about the sort of thing that makes our statements true when they are true" (quoted by Grayling on p.120), since in some cases a straightforwardly ontological characterisation in terms of the existence of entities is not possible because there are no entities for the realist and antirealist to debate about (Dummett mentions realism about the future and realism about ethics as examples). Grayling argues against this that the semantic thesis is actually less fundamental than realism characterised in metaphysical and epistemological terms on the grounds that Dummett "goes on to unpack the expression 'sort of thing' in a way which shows that its being a semantic thesis comes courtesy of something else" (p.120). To display this Grayling quotes the following passage from Dummett:

the fundamental thesis of realism, so regarded, is that we really do succeed in referring to external objects, existing independently of our knowledge of them, and that the statements we make about them are rendered true or false by an objective reality the constitution of which is, again, independent of our knowledge. (Note that this is not, as Grayling refers to it, on p.55 of Dummett's 1982 "Realism" article, but actually on p.104.)

Grayling takes the reference to external objects in this latter characterisation to show that the semantic characterisation of realism presupposes the ontological characterisation rather than, as Dummett has it, vice versa. It then follows from this that "what we should say about those 'realisms' which are not readily classifiable in terms of entities is, simply, and on Dummett's own reasoning, that they are not realisms" (p.125), and it is this that leads in part to Grayling's restriction of talk of realism to the 'external world' case.

But this is an uncharitable interpretation of Dummett. I take it that what Dummett is saying in the passage quoted by Grayling is actually along the following lines: "the fundamental thesis of realism, so regarded, is that in cases where there is a relevant class of entities whose existence can be a matter of debate , the statements we make about them are rendered true or false by an objective reality the constitution of which is independent of our knowledge, so that in this sense we really do succeed in referring to external objects, existing independently of our knowledge of them; and that in cases where there is no relevant class of entities whose existence can be a matter of debate , the canonical statements of the discourse concerned are rendered true or false by an objective reality the constitution of which is independent of our knowledge". Read in this more charitable way it is clear that the class of entities mentioned is secondary to the mention of knowledge-independent truth, and so there is no implication that talk of realism should be restricted to the "external world" case, so that the way is left open for a Wright-style broadening of the realist/antirealist canvass.

Essay 9 is an extended discussion of McGinn, Nagel and McFetridge on the realism debate, while the final Essay 10 offers some brief reflections on evidence and judgement.

It is not straightforward to appraise this collection, as it is not clear what its target audience is. The various debates have moved on quite a way since Grayling's conference papers were written, and I can't help feeling that they should have been updated and submitted to the rigours of peer-review in the journals before being issued in a collection. To be fair to Grayling, though, he does attempt to pre-empt this kind of worry in his preface, where he points to the "exploratory character" of the essays and says that he "in no case take[s] them to be remotely near a final word on the debates they relate to" (p.v). But I'm not sure that this is enough to get Grayling off the hook. My main problem with the book is not that it is exploratory (there's nothing wrong with that), or that its approach is parochial and somewhat dated, but that the writing style displays some of the worst vices of philosophical writing a la 1980s Oxford, where writing clearly and succinctly appears to be regarded as a mark of superficiality, and where as you get nearer to the nub of an argument, the cruder the stylistic barbarities become. The following example -- of a single sentence! -- from Essay 5 is, unfortunately, not atypical:

Generalising from natural kind terms, we might wish to say that concept words which, in Frege's terminology, refer to empty concepts, can nevertheless be understood, because we can be (so to say) lexically exposed to -- it is more accurate to say: given an understanding of what it would be for something to fall into -- the extensions they would, in better or fuller worlds, have. (p.74)

I'm here reminded of Schopenhauer's comment that "when parentheses are inserted into sentences that have been broken up to accommodate them" the result is "unnecessary and wanton confusion" ( Essays and Aphorisms , trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Penguin 1970), p.207). At any rate, the cause of serious philosophy is not furthered by the poor attempt at Henry James impersonation. Grayling writes:

Too many gifted colleagues publish too little for fear of having every nut and bolt tightened into place; those who venture ideas as if they were letters to friends, trying out a way of thinking about something, and knowing that they will learn from the mistakes they make, do more both for the conversation and themselves thereby. (p.v)

Far be it from me to dictate Grayling's epistolary habits, but if his style in this book is typical of the way he writes to his friends, I'll give his collected correspondence a miss.

Essays About Happiness: 5 Essay Examples and 6 Writing Prompts

Being happy and content is essential to living a successful life. If you are writing essays about happiness, start by reading our helpful guide.

Whenever we feel positive emotions rushing through our heads, chances are we are feeling happy. Happiness is what you feel when you enter the house, the smell of your favorite food being cooked or when you finally save up enough money to buy something you’ve wanted. It is an undeniably magical feeling. 

Happiness can do wonders for your productivity and well-being; when you are happy, you are more energetic, optimistic, and motivated. So it is, without a doubt, important. However, do not become caught up in trying to be happy, as this may lead to worse problems. Instead, allow yourself to feel your emotions; be authentic, even if that means feeling a little more negative.

5 Top Essay Examples

1. causes of happiness by otis curtis, 2. how to be happy by tara parker-pope, 3. reflections on ‘happiness’ by shahzada sultan.

• 4.  Happiness is Overrated by John Gorman

5. Toxic positivity by Suhani Mahajan

6 prompts for essays about happiness, 1. why is it important to be happy, 2. what is happiness to you, 3. the role of material things in happiness, 4. how does happiness make you more productive, 5. is true happiness achievable, 6. happiness vs. truth.

“If you don’t feel good about yourself you will have a similarly negative attitude towards others and education is one way of having good self-esteem, as it helps you to live life successfully and happily. Education is one way of getting that dream job and education is an essential cog in the wheel to living comfortably and happily. One English survey that included over 15,000 participants revealed that 81 percent of people who had achieved a good level of education had a high level of life satisfaction.”

Based on personal beliefs and research, Curtis’ essay describes different contributing causes to people’s happiness. These include a loving, stable family and good health. Interestingly, there is a positive correlation between education level and happiness, as Curtis cites statistics showing that education leads to high self-esteem, which can make you happier. 

“Socratic questioning is the process of challenging and changing irrational thoughts. Studies show that this method can reduce depression symptoms. The goal is to get you from a negative mindset (“I’m a failure.”) to a more positive one (“I’ve had a lot of success in my career. This is just one setback that doesn’t reflect on me. I can learn from it and be better.”)”

Parker-Pope writes about the different factors of happiness and how to practice mindfulness and positivity in this guide. She gives tips such as doing breathing exercises, moving around more, and spending time in places and with people that make you happy. Most importantly, however, she reminds readers that negative thoughts should not be repressed. Instead, we should accept them but challenge that mindset.

“Happiness is our choice of not leaving our mind and soul at the mercy of the sways of excitement. Happiness cannot eliminate sorrow, suffering, pain or death from the scheme of things, but it can help keep fear, anxiety, sadness, hopelessness, pessimism and other fathers of unhappiness at bay.”

Sultan discusses what happiness means to her personally. It provides an escape from all the dreariness and lousy news of daily life, not eliminating negative thoughts but keeping them at a distance, even just for a moment. She writes that to be happy; we should not base our happiness on the outcomes of our actions. We cannot control the world around us, so we should not link our happiness to it. If something doesn’t go our way, that is just how the world works. It is useless to be sad over what we cannot control.

4.   Happiness is Overrated by John Gorman

“Our souls do float across the sea of life, taking on water as they go, sinking ever so slightly — perhaps even imperceptibly — into despair. But our souls are not the bucket. Happiness itself is. And it’s the bucket we use to pour water out our souls and keep us afloat. What we really need is peace. Peace patches the holes in our souls and stops the leaking. Once we have peace, we will no longer need to seek happiness.”

In his essay, Gorman reflects on how he stopped trying to chase happiness and instead focused on finding peace in life. He writes that we are often so desperate looking for happiness that our lives become complicated, chaotic, and even depressing at times. He wants readers to do what they are passionate about and be their authentic selves; that way, they will find true happiness. You might also be interested in these essays about courage .

“That’s the mindset most of us have. Half of toxic positivity is just the suppression of 200% acceptable feelings such as anger, fear, sadness, confusion, and more. Any combination of such feelings is deemed “negative.” Honestly, mix ‘em up and serve them to me in a cocktail, eh? (Fine, fine, a mocktail. I reserve my right to one of those little umbrellas though.)

But by closing ourselves off to anything but positivity, we’re experiencing the same effects as being emotionally numb. Why are we doing this to ourselves?”

Mahajan writes about the phenomenon known as “toxic positivity” in which everyone is expected to be happy with their lives. It trivializes people’s misfortunes and sufferings, telling them to be happy with what they have instead. Mahajan opposes this, believing that everyone’s feelings are valid. She writes that it’s okay to be sad or angry at times, and the stigma around “negative feelings” should be erased. When we force ourselves to be happy, we may feel emotionally numb or even sad, the exact opposite of being happy. 

Many would say that happiness aids you in many aspects of your life. Based on personal experience and research, discuss the importance of being happy. Give a few benefits or advantages of happiness. These can include physical, mental, and psychological benefits, as well as anything else you can think of. 

Happiness means different things to different people and may come from various sources. In your essay, you can also explain how you define happiness. Reflect on this feeling and write about what makes you happy and why. Explain in detail for a more convincing essay; be sure to describe what you are writing about well. 

Happiness has a myriad of causes, many of which are material. Research the extent to which material possessions can make one happy, and write your essay about whether or not material things can truly make us happy. Consider the question, “Can money buy happiness?” Evaluate the extent to which it can or cannot, depending on your stance.  

Happiness has often been associated with a higher level of productivity. In your essay, look into the link between these two. In particular, discuss the mental and chemical effects of happiness. Since this topic is rooted in research and statistics, vet your sources carefully: only use the most credible sources for an accurate essay.

In their essays, many, including Gorman and Mahajan, seem to hold a more critical view of happiness. Our world is full of suffering and despair, so some ask: “Can we truly be happy on this earth?” Reflect on this question and make the argument for your position. Be sure to provide evidence from your own experiences and those of others. 

In dystopian stories, authorities often restrict people’s knowledge to keep them happy. We are seeing this even today, with some governments withholding crucial information to keep the population satisfied or stable. Write about whether you believe what they are doing is defensible or not, and provide evidence to support your point. 

For help with this topic, read our guide explaining “what is persuasive writing ?”

For help picking your next essay topic, check out our top essay topics about love .

Martin is an avid writer specializing in editing and proofreading. He also enjoys literary analysis and writing about food and travel.

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Neo’s Choice: Truth versus Happiness in Fear and Trembling

By joel mccrum.

In the recent film The Matrix Neo, the protagonist, is offered a choice between what is revealed to be everyday life’s placating illusions, or the austere truth of an otherworldly ‘reality’. In the movie this choice provokes relatively little thought on his part, doubtless due to confidence in his ability to save the world and thereby rid the truth of its unpleasantness. It seems, however, that this approach merely skirts an issue that deserves more serious attention. I have found it necessary to examine how I would react if given such a choice, while noting that I certainly do not qualify as an action hero, and thus my chances of saving the world must be viewed as negligible.

At first blush, this situation suggests itself as a version of the Platonic cave allegory. Neo is invited to escape the deceptions of the ‘cave’ in favour of the true world, and in so doing becomes a philosopher. No matter that this real world is bleak and unpleasant; it is befitting of one who loves the sight of the truth. The implication is that those possessing the mettle of a philosopher will be willing to accept the gambit, while those less inclined to such elevated ends will content themselves with the happy lies of the everyday world.

Such an interpretation, however, suffers from an overly literal interpretation of Plato and lacks insight into his concept of philosophy. The distinction between the cave and the outside world is of visible versus intelligible realms. Plato would regard both ‘realities’ as equally flawed, as they both possess the falsifications inherent in the visible realm. Beyond the cave lies neither a pleasant or unpleasant ‘alternate reality’, but a purely intellectable realm of forms (e?d?s) that are inherently good. Both ‘realities’ are mere opinions, while the truth lies with the forms, for which no pill is available.

It is important to dispel this rather inviting misconception, as few intelligent people would pass up the chance to transcend the human condition, regardless of the acerbic nature of the resulting world. The red pill truly does “offer nothing but truth”, a sobering thought in relation to the incipient dialectic between truth and meaning. As Nietzsche inquires, “must your truth be so salty that it can no longer even quench thirst”? To the timocrat and the utilitarian alike, acceptance of the offer could only be explained as asceticism. How, then, can one consider the question meaningful, or even problematic? I contend that the meaning in such a question can be found in being ‘called out’ by a higher figure, and being forced to make a decision in ‘fear and trembling’’. For a prototypical example, one might look to Søren Kierkegaard’s treatise of the same title, and his consideration of the Biblical Abraham as a ‘knight of faith’.

Kierkegaard finds himself fascinated with God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son. In the ‘Exordium’ to the text, Kierkegaard attempts to work out rational explanations for Abraham’s actions, but ultimately fails. Instead, he suggests that Abraham enters a special relationship with God as a result of his being ‘called out’, thus rendering himself unintelligible to other people and their morality. A normal person acts in accordance with either will or duty, while a select few renounce their will for duty’s sake. But a ‘knight of faith’, like Abraham, renounces both will and duty, and is therefore incomprehensible in terms of rational morality. The hallmark of the ‘knight of faith’ is that he is called out by a higher power, and is forced to make a choice in ‘fear and trembling’.

The choice offered to Neo in The Matrix might be viewed similarly. He is clearly called out by a greater power, and is offered a choice from which there is no escape. Envisioning myself in a similar situation, I realise immediately the intensity of the fear and trembling that Kierkegaard speaks of. It is neither fear of retribution from Abraham’s vengeful God nor the horrible thought of sacrificing one’s only son. Rather, it is to be found in the realisation that one defines one’s very self in the act of choosing, and that to choose falsely is to falsify one’s entire existence.

In imagining being called out in like fashion, I also begin to realise the futility of a purely calculative approach that arrives at a yes or no answer to the question posed. Any response must be qualified to account for the unpredictability inherent in the crucial moment, which takes place beyond the ken of universal morality. Thus the remainder of this essay can at best serve as Kierkegaard’s Exordium does; it must ultimately fail. Such a caveat must not be viewed as a method of evading the issue, but rather a necessary warning to those who would believe that theory is sufficient to comprehend a decision of this magnitude. This does not render the following consideration moot, however. On the contrary, a rational appropriation of this problem is a necessary step towards understanding of the dilemma. Only with this knowledge can one appreciate the absurdity inherent in the choice, and the terror associated with it.

In considering the problem from a rational perspective, two separate issues present themselves. The first is the epistemological problem grounded in one’s trust of Morpheus and his description of the pills he offers you. Perhaps Morpheus is simply trying to sell a lifetime of unhappiness – a philosophical drug pusher. Clearly one has no objective means of verifying what ‘the truth’ is, especially considering that the 20th century life that was treated as reality has been suggested to be false. There is an equal chance that one might be leaving the truth behind in the 20th century, and entering a fabricated world of unmitigated pain. It should be noted that this epistemological question also confronts Abraham, who must judge whether the voice he hears is truly God. Many would suggest that if a voice commands him to kill his son, Abraham could be positive only that it is not God. While in both cases there is very little evidence available to them, neither Abraham nor Neo can abstain from pronouncing their judgement on this issue, as it is implicit in the choice that they must make.

Given that the epistemological issue is resolved to my satisfaction, there remains a metaphysical question of equal import in weighing the truth against private happiness. It must be noted here that forfeiting one’s private happiness is not merely selfsacrifice, but actually involves the renunciation of a duty, as even Kant agrees that we have a duty to make ourselves happy, if possible. To consider sacrificing happiness for truth, one must raise some serious questions about the nature of the supposed truth. “Perhaps no one has been sufficiently ‘truthful’ about ‘truthfulness’,” says Nietzsche. Here the tension between truth and meaning surfaces, to be ultimately resolved only in the act of choosing. The choice of blissful ignorance disavows the offer of truth as devoid of meaning, while the acceptance of the supposed ‘truth’ suggests a perception of some associated meaning. Regardless, any meaning would be of a private sort, as one presumably could not communicate their new-found truth to others. With respect to this issue, Abraham is torn between his duty to God and his love for his son. Once again, this issue can only be resolved by the choice he makes, and even this choice cannot truly be understood by an observer.

From the above consideration, it is clear that a rational, pragmatic approach to this problem is of limited value. One’s everyday experience is of no use, as the choice transcends one’s experience. However, based only on rational consideration, I would clearly opt against the truth that Morpheus peddles. From the above, it seems that choosing the red pill can only be viewed as a most desperate gamble with a limited ‘philosophical’ payoff. However, this is the same reasoning that suggests that Abraham’s dilemma is not problematic, as he already knows that killing his son is immoral, and that God must simply be testing him. It is clearly not sufficient to understand either problem, and it must inevitably fall short.

What this reasoned approach fails to appreciate is the experiential force of having to choose, and being defined by one’s choice. This existential angst, Kierkegaard’s ‘fear and trembling’, will ultimately be responsible for the choice that one makes. For Abraham, it results in a choice contrary to his will and duty. Indeed, as Kierkegaard discovered in writing his Exordium, the choice remains contrary to any rational appropriation. The result is that even God cannot understand Abraham, as understanding implies rational comprehension.

The same applies for my choice of truth versus happiness. I have just written that my answer would be an emphatic refusal of truth on Morpheus’ terms – I would swallow the blue pill. But this rational decision would be useless in the actual situation. For, while it is laudable to consider such questions in an essay, ultimately one must consider the process as somewhat reversed. Writing an essay presumes that I am responsible for the choice I make. But to an equal or greater degree it is the choice that defines me. No amount of pontification, meditation, or thought will allow me to experience the urgency and trepidation of one who is truly forced to choose. My choice, then is but a guess. Anyone who cannot see why this rider must be added to my answer underestimates the intensity of having to choose, the seriousness inherent in the choice. They ignore the fear and trembling, and in doing so, annul the significance of the choice.

© Joel McCrum

Joel McCrum is from Edmonton and studies biochemistry at the University of Alberta. He says he occasionally finds time to trade tumour viruses and western blots for truth and being.

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Brave Thinking Institute

Is Happiness More Important Than Success? (The Surprising Truth)

In a world that often measures worth by material achievements, the age-old question persists: Is happiness more important than success?

Many of us mistakenly believe we have to choose one over the other.

But, the surprising truth is this: You don’t have to choose! In fact, you were never meant to.

Happy vs Successful: A Common Dilemma

Before diving into the relationship between happiness and success, let’s clarify what these terms actually mean.

Happiness is a state of contentment, well-being, and emotional satisfaction. On the other hand, success is typically linked to achieving goals, gaining recognition, and gaining wealth or power.

The conflict arises because many of us have been taught to believe that we have to sacrifice one for the other.

This pattern can be seen in common beliefs, like:

• “Success Requires Sacrifice” : Many people believe that achieving success requires them to sacrifice happiness, particularly in terms of work-life balance. This belief can lead individuals to hustle for success at the expense of their well-being.
• “I’ll Be Happy When…” : This mindset involves postponing happiness until a specific milestone or goal is achieved. Believing that happiness is contingent upon external signs if success can make it challenging to create either.
• “I Don’t Deserve Happiness” : Low self-esteem and feelings of unworthiness can prevent individuals from pursuing happiness or believing they deserve it. This self-sabotaging belief can undermine their efforts to achieve both success and happiness.
• “Success Guarantees Happiness” : Conversely, some people assume that achieving external success will automatically bring happiness. This belief can lead to a relentless pursuit of success without paying attention to well-being and disappointment when success doesn’t deliver the expected happiness.
• “Success Means Constant Struggle” : Some individuals believe that success is synonymous with perpetual hard work and struggle. This belief can discourage them from seeking a more balanced and joyful approach to life.

Overcoming these limiting beliefs requires a shift in mindset . You can start with this…

Success is Not the Key to Happiness: Being Happy is the Greatest Form of Success

Contrary to conventional wisdom, success alone does not lead to happiness .

The pursuit of success through the accumulation of wealth can actually lead to stress, burnout, and a sense of emptiness.

This isn’t to say that material achievements aren’t fulfilling; they certainly can be! However, true happiness is a far broader and more enduring concept.

Consider the tales of celebrities and billionaires who seemingly have it all but still struggle with depression and anxiety.

That’s because the accumulation of things doesn’t lead to a feeling of abundance. And trying to create success this way never works.

The mindset that will empower you to create true success and full-spectrum happiness in your life is this: We are not just physical beings. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Our true nature is connected to the infinite. 

The more we embody our true nature, the easier it becomes to manifest all forms of success… but also a life that is rich with purpose, meaning, connection, joy, and fulfillment. 

The success we create in our external lives is a reflection of our internal state.

Success AND Happiness Are Found in What You Love

If success doesn’t guarantee happiness, then what does?

When you build a life you love , you create a solid foundation for personal growth, resilience, and genuine contentment.

Happiness is not just an emotional state; it’s a mindset that can be cultivated.

Imagine waking up every day with a genuine smile on your face, regardless of your current life circumstances. That’s a form of success that transcends material achievements. True success should encompass your overall well-being, relationships, and personal fulfillment.

When you pursue what you love, you become more resilient, creative, and motivated. Your positive mindset can lead to greater productivity and a more satisfying approach to your goals.

So… Is Happiness More Important Than Success?

Now that we’ve explored the relationship between happiness and success, let’s answer the question directly: Is happiness more important than success? The answer is both yes and no, but not in the way you might expect.

Happiness is more important than the conventional definition of success, which often revolves around external achievements and validation.

However, true success is equally important because it encompasses personal growth, self-fulfillment, and the pursuit of meaningful goals.

In essence, the two are not mutually exclusive; they are interconnected facets of a fulfilling life.

You Deserve Both

The most empowering message of all is that you deserve both happiness and success

Happiness and success can coexist harmoniously, and you have every right to pursue and enjoy both.

Here are some strategies to help you achieve this delicate balance:

1. Define Your Own Success

Take a step back and evaluate what success means to you based on your values, passions, and goals.

2. Prioritize Self-Care

Make self-care a non-negotiable part of your daily routine. This includes physical health, mental well-being, and emotional resilience.

3. Cultivate Gratitude

Regularly reflect on the positive aspects of your life. You’ll find it easier to maintain a positive mindset, even in the face of challenges.

4. Set Meaningful Goals

Set goals that align with your values and bring you joy. Pursuing meaningful goals is more likely to lead to both success and happiness because you’re invested in the journey, not just the outcome.

5. Foster Positive Relationships

Nurture your relationships with family, friends, and colleagues. Building a support network can enhance your emotional well-being and open doors to collaborative success.

Continue Your Journey to True Success & Genuine Happiness

The truth about happiness and success lies in the understanding that these two aspects of life are not mutually exclusive. Not only can you have both happiness and success, but you deserve both.

You don’t have to choose one over the other— happiness and success can be your allies on the journey to a fulfilling life.

Download this free, 10-minute guided meditation to take the next step toward both happiness and success in your own life. 

After listening, you’ll begin to see golden opportunities that were once blocked by the frequencies of fear, doubt, worry and criticism. Open door to a happier, healthier and wealthier life!

About Mary Morrissey

Mary Morrissey is widely considered the world’s foremost expert on “dream-building,” having invested the last 40 years into studying the art and science of transforming dreams into results. Mary has also written two best-selling books, addressed the United Nations three times, co-convened three week-long meetings with His Holiness The Dalai Lama, and met with President Nelson Mandela in South Africa. Through her books, live events and programs, Mary has helped empower millions of people worldwide to achieve new heights of meaning, purpose, aliveness and authentic success.

Learn More About Mary Morrissey

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