Latin word meaning equivalence, equality, or conformity.
Unification is a process in which one thing is done to be the same as another. In medieval thought, the truth was defined in terms of adequatio.
According to Thomas Aquinas, truth is adequatio rei et intellectus. In other words, truth is the correspondence between what we think and what we see – in short, between our intellect and reality. If an idea is true, it is in some respects identical with the object in which it is claimed to represent; if it is false, there is a disproportion or lack of equivalence between thinking and object.
The so-called correspondence theory of truth is rejected by some very influential thinkers. An important reason for this rejection is that this concept of truth is suggested by a very simple and elementary idea.
If faced with the question “What is truth?”, we accept Ludwig Wittgenstein‘s advice to see how the word “truth” and the definition of “true” actually work in everyday language, we will find that there is no simple formula to establish the essence of truth.
In fact, the very assumption that truth has essence is questionable. The diverse but equally legitimate uses of “truth” and “true” (true) offer a variety of associations of related concepts, connected not by the unity of essence (or nature) but by a cross-network of similarities.
Thus, our task is not to derive this one essence from the many possibilities of use, but to invest diligence in discovering the many ways in which “truth” is used.
What William James (1842-1910) called the “thirst for universality” should not deceive us into dulling our attention to individuality and our taste for incomprehensible multitudes. When this appeal is tested, it will be seen that simple formulas of truth such as adequatio will fail to express this essence, but will only describe a legitimate but very narrow use of a polysemous word.
Although this critique of the correspondence theory is very strong, the latter still has defenders. The question of truth continues to be the axis around which philosophical and other forms of debate revolve. Although it seems that we will never get to the bottom of the truth about the truth, for philosophers and other scientists, the search itself is worth the effort.
