Fonzie asked:

What is Truth?

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I recall an amusing incident when my uncle Jack from America visited me while I was a graduate
student at Oxford back in 1978. At less than half an inch, the slimmest book on my bookshelf was a
volume entitled What is Truth?by C.J.F. Williams. Jack thought this extremely funny. “I can't wait to
tell the folks back home!”

Here is the whole truth about truth:

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If you say something, and I say, 'That's true' then I am agreeing with what you said. If you say lots of
things, and I agree with all of what you say, then 'That's true' saves a lot of wasted breath.

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Ditto for statements I agree with which I read in a book.

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The most notorious case: 'Snow is white' is true if, and only if snow is white. Truth is the predicate of
disquotation.— Why is that interesting?

Because the words '...is true' (or the equivalent) are the only words that will do the trick for every
sentence. It doesn't matter what you substitute for 'Snow is white', it doesn't matter whether you
substitute a true sentence or a false sentence, the resulting bi-conditionalstatement is still true. For
example, 'Snow is black' is true if, and only ifsnow is black.

The words, '...is grammatical' obviously won't do it. Think of a sentence which is grammatical, but
false. The words, '...is poetic' won't do it. Think of a sentence which is poetic, but false. But nor will,
'...is believed by the majority', nor '...is believed by everyone', nor '...has been verified by rigorous and
exhaustive tests', nor '...has never been found to be wrong in 2,000 years'. All these descriptions can
correctly apply to a quoted statement which is in fact (unknown to us) false.

When people ask, What is truth? more often than not the question which worries them is how can we
ever knowthat a statement is true. In other words, they are looking for a criterionof truth. The answer
is that there is no certain criterion of truth. As the above examples show, human knowledge is fallible.

I believe that what these observations teach us is that apart from the problem of knowledge, there is a
deep metaphysical problem of how we are to conceive of whatever-it-is that all true statements have
in common,irrespective of whether we can ever come to know their truth or not. (Philosophers of an
anti-realist bent will have problems in accepting my naive formulation, but that's another story.) To
say that truth is indefinable, that there is no clever formula that can take the place of the simple
words, '...is true' doesn't get philosophy off the hook. — I don't really think that C.J.F. Williams really
thought that, either.

Geoffrey Klempner