The Correspondence Theory of Truth

 

Sterling's Core Stoicism: The Six Philosophical Commitments

Four: The Correspondence Theory of Truth

The Commitment

A judgment is true if and only if it accurately represents what is actually the case. "I have been harmed" is true if and only if harm has actually occurred. "This external is evil" is true if and only if the external actually possesses evil quality. Truth is not coherence with other beliefs, not usefulness for achieving goals, not consensus among rational agents. It is alignment between what is claimed and what is.

Why Sterling Needs It

The examination at Step Four is a correspondence audit. The impression makes a claim. The claim is tested against reality. The test has a determinate result — the claim either matches reality or it does not. This structure is only possible if truth means correspondence.

If truth meant coherence, the test would ask whether the impression fits the agent's other beliefs — and a well-integrated false belief system would pass. If truth meant usefulness, the test would ask whether accepting the impression produces good outcomes — and the Stoic answer that externals are indifferent might fail a pragmatic test in many situations. If truth meant consensus, the test would ask what rational agents agree to — and the crowd's judgment that insult is genuine harm would pass.

Correspondence theory is also operative at Step One — before the examination begins. The impression arrives already embodying it. The source texts state: "The impression arrives pre-packaged with its own correspondence claim. It doesn't wait for you to apply correspondence theory. It already embodies it. It says: I am true because I match what is." And at Step Two: "Once the impression is seen as a representation rather than as reality itself, correspondence becomes applicable. The impression may match reality or it may not." And at Step Five: "The criterion governing decision is correspondence. If the impression matches reality, assent is appropriate. If the impression fails to match reality, refusal is appropriate."

Correspondence theory is operative at every step. It is the thread that runs through the entire method — the impression claims to correspond, recognition makes correspondence testable, the examination tests it, and the decision enacts the result.

The Competing Positions

Coherentism holds that a belief is true if it coheres with the rest of the agent's belief system. Truth is a property of belief sets rather than of individual beliefs in relation to the world. A belief is true if it fits — if it does not generate contradiction within the web of beliefs the agent holds.

Pragmatism holds that a belief is true if it works — if acting on it produces successful outcomes, satisfies needs, or enables the agent to navigate the world effectively. Truth is what is useful to believe. William James and John Dewey are the most prominent defenders of this position.

Consensus theory holds that a statement is true if rational agents would agree to it under ideal conditions of inquiry. Truth is the limit of rational consensus rather than a mind-independent fact about the world.

Deflationism holds that truth is not a substantive property at all. To say "it is true that virtue is the only good" adds nothing to saying "virtue is the only good." Truth talk is merely a grammatical convenience — a device for endorsement or generalization — with no deep metaphysical content.

The Answers

Against coherentism: a perfectly coherent belief system can be systematically false. An agent who has consistently misclassified externals as genuine goods has a coherent belief system — all his beliefs fit together — but every value judgment is wrong. Coherentism cannot distinguish between a well-integrated error and correct judgment. The examination requires a standard outside the belief system itself — reality as it actually is — against which the belief system can be measured.

Against pragmatism: the Stoic claim that externals are indifferent does not always work in the pragmatic sense. Treating illness as indifferent may produce equanimity but may also produce poor medical decisions. Pragmatism evaluates beliefs by their consequences — but Sterling's framework evaluates beliefs by their accuracy. A false belief that produces useful outcomes is still false. The examination is not asking whether accepting this impression is useful. It is asking whether the impression is true.

Against consensus theory: what rational agents would agree to under ideal conditions may or may not track moral reality. If moral realism is correct — if virtue really is the only good — then consensus theory would need to converge on this result to be adequate. But consensus theory makes truth dependent on the agreement rather than on the reality the agreement tracks. Sterling needs moral facts that rational agents can be right or wrong about — not facts that are constituted by their agreement.

Against deflationism: if truth is merely a grammatical convenience with no substantive content, the correspondence test dissolves. The examination would have no criterion — it would simply be the act of endorsing or not endorsing the impression, with no account of what makes endorsement appropriate. Deflationism cannot ground the distinction between correct and incorrect assent that the entire practice depends on.

The positive case rests on the structure of the impression itself and the requirements of the practice. The impression claims to represent reality — it presents itself as true in the correspondence sense, as matching what is. The examination tests whether this claim succeeds. A theory of truth that does not take correspondence seriously cannot account for what the impression is doing or what the examination is testing. Correspondence theory is the only account of truth that makes the examination a genuine test of anything.