A very
complex theory of truth proferred by
analytic philosophers as an answer to the questions: "Why are true beliefs true?", and "What makes true beliefs true?".
First proposed by
Plato and
Aristotle, the correspondence theory of truth stated that: "a sentence p is true if and only if p corresponds to a fact". This
definition is
unpacked as one explicates the term
correspondence and it has always been the claim of detractors of the correspondence theory that the theory is vacuous and, in fact, doesn't explain anything at all.
The correspondenc theory of truth was thought by many, including
Bertrand Russell, to be perfected in the
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by the young
Ludwig Wittgenstein where it was stated that a
proposition (i.e., a belief, a sentence, or a non-linguistic statement, depending on which philosopher we are dealing with) is true insofar as its
logical form mirrors an actual
state of affairs in the world. Wittgenstein urged that first we discern the logical form of our propositions. Then, we compare this logical form to an arrangement of objects in the world (such an arrangement might be called a
fact). If this state of affairs
exists, then the proposition is true.