Abstract

AN ADEQUATE account of the nature of truth, reality, and the relation between them, is not to be expected if attention is not paid to the different views that have been defended and criticized by leading thinkers over the course of history. Unfortunately, the positions initially taken ask for more and more distinctions, with the consequence that one is forced to provide more and more complex formulations. Nothing less than a rather large, complex treatise would be needed to do justice to what they affirmed and implied. Some issues, though, underlie the rest, and help clarify them. By focusing on those underlying issues, it is possible, within a fairly short compass, to deal with what everyone should consider and must sooner or later acknowledge. Six stand out: 1) All men are in contact with the real. 2) "Truth" is the proper name of the real, and there can be as many truths as there are realities. 3) Each truth provides an articulation of the real. 4) Each truth becomes more determinate the more closely it is joined to the reality it names. 5) A reality is receptive to and sustains what is claimed of it. 6) The final truths dealt with in a comprehensive philosophic system refer only indirectly to their appropriate realities.