TRUTH:
that which is true. The quality of being correct or in some way confirmed by
REALITY. The EXISTENCE of truth and/or the possibility of our knowing it has been denied
by a variety of thinkers from ancient SOPHISTS to modern RELATIVISTS. Two major theories
of truth have dominated Western philosophy: the COHERENCE THEORY which states that truth
is known by its coherence within a system of ideas, while the CORRESPONDENCE THEORY sees
truth as corresponding to an external REALITY. Other theories of truth include PRAGMATISM,
that which works is true; and various SCIENTIFIC theories of involving experimentation and
VERIFICATION or the ideas of POPPER based on falsification rather than verification.