Tok Essay

REFLECTION OF TRUTH

Knowledge has a close relationship with truth as for belief to be knowledge, it must be true. Thus, it is necessary to understand the existence of truth in order to have a deeper understanding of knowledge. Therefore, this reflection will show the definition of "truth" for me and its characteristics in different culture or groups of people.

"Truth" itself is defined as "success in inquiry" by John Randall. The definition may also mean "verification" and it comprises all the three definitions of truth presented by The Correspondence, Coherence and Pragmatic Theories of Truth. The "success" means bringing scientific solution from the critical employment of the best method that we can develop to solve the "inquiry", the world's problems. Thus, the "success" is worked out "through action" (in Dewey's words) and it fulfills the criteria of truth as an agreement with fact or reality in the Correspondence Theory of Truth. The success must also be verified by our previous body of knowledge as a success (or a solution) to a problem that will be acknowledged by the society who understands the problem in the long run. Thus, the "Truth" corresponds to the Coherence Theory of Truth. Lastly, the "truth' brings useful and helpful solutions or answers to problems thus; it also renders the Pragmatic Theory of Truth to be a fulfilled criterion.

Therefore, a true belief must give solutions or answers to people's problems and is acceptable by the people's body of knowledge, as well as, practical in their lives. An example of a true belief is a religion. The religion is a truth for a certain group of people who hold faith over the religion as it is acceptable by their knowledge formed through life experience. They also see the religion as the answers to their problems or questions about their existences in the world. Hence, religion brings values or solutions to this group of people. It teaches them values that are accepted as facts such as "killing innocent people is a sin" and this correspondence of religion values to reality shows religion's conformity to facts.

Thus, truth may differ from one culture to another, as what may benefit or answer the problems of a specific group of people, may not be useful for another group. Religions are the example. The truth in Christian belief that heaven is the life after death do not synchronize with the truth in Buddhist saying that human keeps reincarnating until perfection is achieved. Then, it is also understandable that all these "truths" based on religions can be true at the same time eventhough they may not be all true for a specific individual. However, there is also a possibility that all these "truths" are false. It happens when during an individual's death, nothing spectacular like reincarnation or the opening of the Heaven's Gates actually occurs as this argument renders religions, with its values, to be useless and not corresponding to the facts. Ultimately, the false truths (in this case the religions) can not be considered as truth anymore for, basically, they are not true.

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