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Read our detailed notes on the Francis Bacon’s famous essay, “Of Truth”. Our notes cover Of Truth summary and analysis.

Of Truth by Francis Bacon Summary & Analysis

In this essay, Bacon has presented the objective truth in various manifestations.Similarly, Bacon shares with us the subjective truth, operative in social life. “OF TRUTH” is Bacon’s masterpiece that shows his keen observation of human beings with special regard to truth. In the beginning of the essay, Bacon rightly observes that generally people do not care for truth as Pilate, the governor of the Roman Empire, while conducting the trial of Jesus Christ, cares little for truth:

“What is truth? Said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.”

Advancing his essay, Bacon explores the reasons why the people do not like truth. First, truth is acquired through hard work and man is ever reluctant to work hard. Secondly, truth curtails man’s freedom. More than that the real reason of man’s disliking to truth is that man is attached to lies which Bacon says “a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.” Man loves falsehood because, Bacon says that truth is as if the bright light of the day and would show what men, in actual, are. They look attractive and colourful in the dim light of lies.He futher adds,

“A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.”

It is a fact that man prefers to cherish illusions, which make his life more interesting. With a profound observation of man’s psychology, Bacon states that if deprived of false pride and vanities, the human mind would contract like a deflated balloon and these human beings would become poor, sad and ill. However, poetic untruth is not gone unnoticed by Bacon’s piercing intellect. He says though poetic untruth is a wine of the Devil in priest’s eyes, yet it is not as harmful as the other lies are. Bacon being a literary artist illustrates this concept with an apt imagery that the poetic untruth is but the shadow of a lie. The enquiry of truth, knowledge of truth and belief of truth are compared with the enjoyment of love. Such a comparison lends the literary charm to this essay.Bacon further says in that the last act of creation was to create rational faculty, which helps in finding truth, is the finished product of God’s blessing as he says:

“… The last was the light of reason…is the illumination of his spirit.”

Bacon’s moral idealism is obvious when he advancing his argument in favour of truth asserts that the earth can be made paradise only with the help of truth. Man should ever stick to truth in every matter, do the act of charity and have faith in every matter, do the act of charity and have faith in God. Bacon’s strong belief in truth and Divinity is stated thus:

“Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.”

From the objective truth, Bacon passes judgment, to the subjective truth, which he calls “the truth of civil business”. It is the compelling quality of truth, Bacon observes, that the persons who do not practice truth, acknowledge it. Bacon’s idealistic moral attitude is obvious in these lines when he says: “….. that clear and round dealing is the honour of man’s nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work better, but it embaseth it.”

Bacon further asserts that the liars are like a snake that goes basely upon the belly and not upon the feet. Imagery comprising comparison is apt and convincing. Moreover, Bacon refers to Montaigne who is of the view that “a lie faces God and shrinks from man”. Bacon adds that falsehood is the height of wickedness and as such will invite the Judgment of God upon all human beings on Doom’s day. Therefore, Bacon concludes his essay with didacticism with a tinge of Christian morality.

In the essay, “OF TRUTH”, there is no digression. All the arguments in the essay pertain to the single main idea, truth. Bacon’s wide learning is clearly observed when he refers to Pilate (history), Lucian (Greek literature), Creation, Montaigne (a French essayist). “OF TRUTH” is enriched with striking similes and analogies, such as he equates liars as a snake moving basely on its belly, mixture of falsehood is like an alloy of gold and silver.Similarly, truth is ‘open day light’ whereas lie is ‘candle light i.e fake dim light. Truth is ‘a pearl’ i.e worthy and precious whereas ,lie is ‘a diamond’ that reflects light illusions when placed in daylight.

The essay “OF TRUTH” is not ornamental as was the practice of the Elizabethan prose writers. Bacon is simple, natural and straightforward in his essay though Elizabethan colour is also found in “OF TRUTH” because there is a moderate use of Latinism in the essay. Economy of words is found in the essay not alone, but syntactic brevity is also obvious in this essay. We find conversational ease in this essay, which is the outstanding feature of Bacon’s style. There is a peculiar feature of Bacon i.e. aphorism. We find many short, crispy, memorable and witty sayings in this essay.

Therefore, Bacon’s essay “OF TRUTH” is rich in matter and manner. This is really a council ‘civil and moral’.

Of Truth, by Francis Bacon

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Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
B.A., English, State University of New York

"Of Truth" is the opening essay in the final edition of the philosopher, statesman and jurist Francis Bacon 's "Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral" (1625). In this essay, as associate professor of philosophy Svetozar Minkov points out, Bacon addresses the question of "whether it is worse to lie to others or to oneself--to possess truth (and lie, when necessary, to others) or to think one possesses the truth but be mistaken and hence unintentionally convey falsehoods to both oneself and to others" ("Francis Bacon's 'Inquiry Touching Human Nature,'" 2010). In "Of Truth," Bacon argues that people have a natural inclination to lie to others: "a natural though corrupt love, of the lie itself."

"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly, there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief, affecting free-will in thinking as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth, nor again that when it is found it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor, but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open daylight that doth not show the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum daemonum [the wine of devils] because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God in the works of the days was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well, "It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below; but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below"*; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business: it will be acknowledged, even by those that practice it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which goeth basely upon the belly and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious; and therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace and such an odious charge. Saith he, "If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards man." For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men: it being foretold that when Christ cometh, "He shall not find faith upon the earth."

*Bacon's paraphrase of the opening lines of Book II of "On the Nature of Things" by Roman poet Titus Lucretius Carus.

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Of Truth by Francis Bacon | Summary, Analysis, Explanations

Of Truth by Francis Bacon

Table of Contents

Of Truth Summary

Man bears always a great curiosity to know what is truth? Bacon here, has given us a conception about truth in his essay which he begins with the reference of Pilate. Pilate, the ancient Roman Governor of Judaca, was however, indifferent in knowing the definition of truth, for he was skeptic. Certainly there are some people who delight in frequent changing their believe and they consider that to remain fixed in a belief is a type of mental captivity which hampers man’s free-will in thoughts as well as in actions. There were some skeptic philosophers in Greece, who supported fickleness in belief. According to their view, whatever a man took to believe was true. Till now, some persons prefer alternation of belief.

It is very difficult and toilsome job to discover truth. But it is discovered that truth imposes upon man’s thought. When a truth is discovered, man cannot change his opinion anymore, because he is bound by truth then. Man has a corrupt, but natural love for lie from the ancient time. The poets tell lies in order to make interesting their compositions and to give pleasure to his readers. The businessmen told lies to gain more commercial profit. But the case of man is much different Men tell lies for the lie’s sake.

Truth is like broad day-light in which the things are seen in their original form and shape. But falsehood is like candle-light where the things lose their original glory and genuinely. Under this faint light, the artificial things show up very magnificent which they are not actually Truth gives greater pleasure when a lie has been added to it. That is why man cannot live without falsehood. If the malpractices like vain opinions, false hopes, wrong Valuations, are taken out of man’s mind, his mind will be full of melancholy and illness. Man has a great love for lie that keeps him happy

An early writer of Church described poetry as the wine of the devils because it gives rise to fancies in the mind and encourages lies Poetry tells lies which are received by the mind and then forgotten and so, it does not hurt us for they do not settle down in the mind. But such harm is done by those lies which sink into the mind and settle down there.

The man who understand truth, realize also the value of it. Truth alone is capable of judging its nature or defining itself. The inquiry of truth is the love-making of it, the knowledge of truth is the presence of it, and the belief of truth is the enjoying of it. These three ideas are taught by truth itself. Truth is the supreme good of human nature.

God has created in his six working days all the creatures. – inanimate as well as animate. The first thing God created was the light and the final thing. He created was the rational faculty which he bestowed upon man. In leisure, God began to illuminate the minds of men by grace of divine truths. First God infused light upon the face of matter or chaos. Then he infused light into the face of man. Even now and always he inspires light into the face of that person whom He gives special favour.

The poet Lucretius’ observation was excellent the greatest pleasure for a man was the realization of truth and not any pleasure of the world is comparable to it. Standing upon the vantage-ground of truth, a man can best see the errors, wanderings, lies, follies and foibles prevailing in the world. The outlook of this man should be replete with pity, not with pride or arrogance. All the reasonings of human beings should be based upon truth

Not only theological and philosophical truth, the truth of everyday social life is much important. When we go to deal with men, we should follow clear and direct way of dealing, because clear-cut and straightforward manner of conduct is the supreme honour of men’s nature. Men generally admix falsehood with truth to gain advantages easily. But the mixture of falsehood debases his humanity and lowers his degree. Falsehood brings man disgrace and odium. Montaigne said rightly that, in telling a lie, man is brave towards God and a coward towards men. It is because man has no courage to tell a lie to his brethren.

The wickedness of falsehood and loss of faith will come under the penalty on the Doomsday when God will appeal to call all human beings for the final judgement. In far-off future, when Christ will come on the second Dooms –day, he shall not find men’s belief in God.

Of Truth Explanations

“What is truth’? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.”

It is an eternal query what truth is. Men are pursuit to know truth from the ancient time, but hitherto they cannot find out the definition of truth. They went on investigating from various corner, searched many books, many doctrines, logic, but yet failed to discover truth. At last they cling to an idea that truth cannot be discovered it is unattainable. Actually, men have undergone simply a cursory quest for truth. It is not easy to discover truth, moreover it is a toilsome and mammoth task to discover it. Men do not possess the mind to strive for truth. Not only that men do not care properly to know it. Men love lies more than truth and love to change their very opinions. If truth is discovered, it will act as a kind of restraint upon the minds of men. Then men cannot do according to his own whim. That is why each and every man remains indifferent to know what truth is. To give this idea Bacon cited the example of Pilate, the ancient Roman Governor of Judaea, who is not an exception to common human nature and who acts here as a representative of mankind. He also asked the definition of truth, but in a light-hearted manner. Bacon explains that people generally get much pleasure in frequent changing of their opinions. They think truth a captivity which affects free will in thinking as well as in acting. They aim at complete and unrestricted freedom of thought, opinion and action. So, when they search for truth, they only show a mere cursory quest for it, just like Pilate.

Bacon attempts to test, refine and bring to the perfection, first, man’s conceptions and then, human nature itself. Here, too, Bacon first cited an example of individual and then used it to all human beings. “What is truth?”- is an excerpt from the Bible: John 18.38 . It is very difficult to decide why Pilate was perhaps justified in not waiting for the answer to his question. This effort of the human spirit to fight the fears and limitations of the human condition may perhaps rank as the noblest expression of Bacon’s philosophic mind. There is a slight touch of obscurity here for the uninitiated reader.

“But I cannot tell : this same truth is a naked and open day light, that doth not show the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintily as candle-lights.”

Human beings are somehow or other attracted by lies. They have a natural, though corrupt, love for lies. Poets make use of lies in their compositions in order to cater pleasure to readers. Businessmen tell lies for gaining more commercial profits. But why common people tell lies for the lie’s sake is not clear. It is the common habit of people to hide their real face and figure and character under false hood. Lie hides the original matter of the things and shows what is artificial. Men know well the greatness of truth, yet they follow lies and use masques, mummeries and triumphs, Masque is an entertainment consisting of dancing and other diversions of performers whose faces are disguised in masks. Mummery is also a popular, primitive entertainment in which the performers make sports and gestures without speaking, Triumphs are magnificent because pompous shows are provided to people for amusement. All these are the various types of false hood which hides the genuine shape. It is the difference between truth and lie. Truth is like open daylight while lie is like the faint and dim light of the candle. The faint light of candle shows up the cheap and artificial things very magnificent and attractive. But in daylight the original shape is seen and it shows things what they are. Sun is sublime, Sun-shine is sublime and so is truth. There is nothing superior to truth, nothing brighter than truth.

The passage gives expression to ideas which are noble and worthy of the highest appreciation. Bacon relates truth as stable, pure and serene. He gives here, vivid simile and metaphor in order to elucidate his ideas. The comparison between truth and daylight and between die and candle-light is excellent and remarkable. Bacon is right that truth is not so alluring as a lie or falsehood. The sentences are written in compact and terse style of which Bacon is a master.

“Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day, but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights.”

Bacon points out that truth, in comparison with lie and falsehood, is more stable, pure and serene. Truth is like clear, open daylight which does not show the masques, mummeries and triumphs of the world as so magnificent and attractive as candle lights show them. Yet, people follow the path of falsehood. It is because falsehood hides the original form and shows what is artificial, just like candlelight shows up the simple things the most attractive and magnificent. But truth is like open daylight always showing things in their original form. Nothing is comparable to truth in its sublimity, purity and sanctity. Truth is like pearl which is seen to the best advantage in day-light. Falsehood is like diamond or carbuncle which is seen best in varied lights. Truth is one and always the same. It always appears with its original form and never hides itself in masks. Though the price of pearl is lower than that of diamond or carbuncle, but pearl is more sublime, pure and holy than these precious stones which like falsehood assumes various forms in varied lights. Diamond or carbuncle becomes more attractive at night and thus distracts the belief of the people. That is why, truth is always compared to a pearl, the lustre of which can best be appreciated in daylight and it never be compared to a diamond or a carbuncle which can be best admired in the artificial light of candles and lamps. Truth lacks the charm of verity which falsehood has. So truth is indispensible for glorification and purification of human life.

The passage gives expression to ideas which are noble and worthy of the highest appreciation. There is a didactic tone submerged here. The object of the writer is to instill into the mind of his readers a love of truth Bacon gives us very vivid similes and metaphors in order to illustrate his ideas. The comparison between truth and pearl and between falsehood and carbuncle is excellent and notable. The sentences are written in condensed and aphoristic style of which Bacon is the master. Above all, the passage epitomizes the theme: it does not matter, whether the price is high or low; but it is the genuineness that matters.

“A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.”

Bacon points out that there is a giddiness in man’s nature. Men get more delight in changing their opinions now and then. They do not want to remain fixed on any truth Human mind has a corrupt love for lies. It seems that human beings are somehow or other attracted by lies. Lies told by poets in their composition add delight and taste. The traders tell lies to gain more. But why people take the shelter of lies for lie’s sake is not clear. They feel a certain proneness to lies. Even Bacon is unable to explain it. It is perhaps the main fact that truth gives more pleasure when a lie is added to it. People enjoy much delight and pleasure in admixing falsehood with truth. Human mind is fond of gain opinions, false hopes. In other words, human beings retain falsehood for whole time. If the vain opinions, flattering hopes, wrong judgments were to be taken out of human mind, his mind would be full of melancholy and illness. All these different types of falsehood give people a strange kind of pleasure and keep them happy. Bacon warns us at last. Though falsehood gives our mind pleasure, it is harmful some time. Lies which are received by the mind and then forgotten cannot harm us. But lies which sink into the mind and settle down there forever, hurt us.

The sentence reveals Bacon’s wisdom and gives expression to ideas which are noble and worthy of the appreciation. Nobody will disgrace with Bacon when he says falsehood has a pleasing effect upon a human being. This sentence shows Bacon’s gift of compression. It is epigrammatic and can be used as a quotation in need.

“For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man”.

Truth, in comparison with falsehood, is more stable, pure and serene. It shows us the path of victory to follow. It is so clear as open daylight is, it is so graceful and dignified as a pearl is. Nothing is comparable to truth in its sublimity, purity and sanctity. Yet people constantly tell lies and follow the path of falsehood. Human beings have a natural and corrupt love for lies. With the passing of time, they became too much desperate and reckless in telling lies. They even ignore the honour and dignity of God. They tell hundreds of lies in their everyday life but take oath in the name of God and thus they defy God. But human beings never tell lies to his fellowmen. They cannot trust his brethren. They always get afraid of being unlocked of their secrecy and that is why they cannot tell the truth to their fellow men so desperately and courageously as they tell the lies facing God. In this connection Bacon cited Montaigne who said very logically and aptly that, in telling a lie, man is brave towards God and a coward towards men. A liar does not have the courage to tell the truth to his fellow human beings, but he has the courage to tell a lie defying God. To tell a lie men come face to face of God, but remain far away from man. Here lies the paradox. Bacon feels that the whole world has been submerged under the wickedness of falsehood. In far-off future, when Christ will come on this earth on the second Doomsday, he will certainly not find man’s faith on God.

The sentence is the fruit of high meditation. If gives expression to ides which are noble and worthy of the highest appreciation. Bacon is right that while a man tells a lie, his cowardliness is revealed. It is an illustration of Bacon’s gift of compression. It also implies Bacon’s love of quotations. The quotation from Montaixne is very effective for the purpose for which it has been introduced: “For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man”

“Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a men’s mind move in charity rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth”.

Bacon is here enunciating a noble principle. He uplifts the ideas of charity and truth and teaches us to submit whole-heartedly to the will of god. He relates truth as stable, pure, and sacred. The man who can be able to realize truth, he can feel the heavenly bliss. The greatest pleasure for a man is the realization of truth. Nothing is comparable to the pleasure that comes out of truth. It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and to see ships tossed upon the sea, it is also a pleasure to stand in front of window of a castle and to see a battle and the adventures thereof. But no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth and to survey the errors, false hoods, mistakes and injustices prevailing in the world. While dealing with truth man’s outlook should be full of pity. All the reasonings of human being should be based upon truth. Human beings will be capable of enjoying the bliss of paradise in spite of staying on earth of their mind become replete with kindness, humanity faith on God and, above all, truth.

“Bacon here says that a man’s mind should move in charity’ as the universe is moved by the ‘primum mobile’: rest in providence as the universe rests in infinite space and revolve around truth as the spheres, revolve around the celestial poles.” It expresses the ideas which are noble and worthy of the highest appreciation. The passage also illustrates Bacon’s gift of compression. A great sublime ideal is laid within these few words.

“and that mixture of falsehood is like allay in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it”.

People have a common proneness and inclination to falsehood. It is a corrupt love for lies. The fact is not clear why men give more preference to lies than truth, although they know it very well that truth will show the right path to victory. Truth gives more pleasure when a lie is added to it. If the notion of false hopes, vain opinions and wrong judgments is cut-off from man’s mind, he will feel himself miserable. Falsehood gives people a strange kind of pleasure. But it can never be ignored that, and even people who themselves do not practice truth will admit that direct and straightforward conduct shows honorable and noble quality of human nature. Yet men go to mix lies with truth to gain more conveniences in practical life. But false hood undoubtedly lowers and degrades a man. The mixture of falsehood is like alloy which is mixed into gold or silver. The admixture of an alloy, though makes the metal more flexible and easier to work, but it debases the substance. To strengthen the fact, Bacon compares false hood and dishonest practices with the crooked and twisting movements of the snakes. As the serpent follows the winding way, not straight, it is the lowest creature that moves upon its belly. So if a man tells lies and follows the cooked ways of society, he will remain in the lowest condition than others.

This passage gives expression to ideas which are noble and worthy of the highest appreciation. The object of the writer is to instill into the mind of the readers a kind of love for truth and a kind of contempt for falsehood. Here lies Bacon’s compact and condensed style. Bacon’s comparison here, is excellent. The alloy makes the metal work better, but it lessens the value of the metal. Similarly, falsehood may be useful from the practical and business point of view, but it lowers the dignity of the individual who tells a lie

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Of Truth Critical Analysis by Sir Francis Bacon along with Summary

Of Truth Critical Analysis by Sir Francis Bacon + Summary

The world knows Sir Francis Bacon for his worldly wisdom. He had made an analysis of the world and in “Of Truth”, he guided his readers on how to get success even in critical situations. Alexander Pope called Bacon the meanest kind of person because of his worldly philosophy. Bacon always focuses on worldly benefits and rarely talks about the fruits of eternal life. In “Of Truth”, he speaks in favor of the truth; he also differentiates it from lie and forces us to speak the truth in every situation. He supports his arguments through solid quotations.

Bacon also answers some of the old skeptical people, who were against the truth. He does not exaggerate truth but put reality in front of his readers. A person can only become honest if he speaks the truth. A lie may delight a person but it does not honor him. Let’s see what else he says.

“Of Truth” Summary and Critical Analysis:

Sir Francis Bacon starts his essay while referring the Ancient Roman Governor Pilate, who made the situation critical without doing an analysis of truth. Pilate asked for truth but did not wait for it. If he would have known the truth, he may have not passed the judgment to crucify the Christ. He then talks about skeptical minds, who are not easily convincible. He doubts that Pilate was also skeptical. Definitely, there are people who do not have strong beliefs. Numerous people are there in the world, who change their minds frequently. They consider that fixed beliefs are a sign of mental slavery. Whenever they think or take decisions, they use their free will; they stubbornly ignore every belief. In Greeks, there was a school of philosophers having skeptics. They may have died now but skeptical people are there even today in this world.

Why Do Not People Speak the Truth?

There are many reasons behind not speaking the truth. One of them is that discovery of truth requires efforts and time. Let us do a critical analysis of this truth from real life example. There are many courts in every country; each court has thousands of cases; in every case, either the defendant or the plaintiff is right. Every case has been heard for many years in order to find out who is speaking the truth. Secondly, both the parties (plaintiff and defendant) struggle to prove themselves right. Indeed Sir Francis Bacon is right. Effort and time are required to discover the truth. The second reason, which Bacon provides for not speaking the truth, is that it is hard to digest. When it is discovered people hardly believe it.

Then he talks about lies. He is of the view that lies attract people but no one adopts truth. He is confused that why people tell a lie for the sake of a lie. Nevertheless, he understands that poets sell lie because it gives pleasure to human beings. Traders tell lies because they want to sell their goods but lie for the sake of lie is not understandable.

How Is The Truth Different from Lie?

Bacon gives a real-life example. He says that if the audience sees a spectacle on the stage in daylight it will look as it is. On the other hand, if the same show is presented with candlelight then it will attract more people; it would definitely give pleasure to the audience. Lie, in the same way, has a beautiful and shiny cover, due to which people like lie instead of truth. However, if the truth were mixed with a lie then it would also give pleasure. Moreover, people have created their own false beliefs, judgments, and opinions. If these things were snatched from them, their condition would become miserable as these things give them hope and strange kind of pleasure.

Critical Analysis of “Of Truth” Shows that Poetry is Harmful?

Is poetry a lie? If so, is it harmful? No, Bacon does not think so. Early writers of the church called poetry a devil’s wine. It is because it exaggerates things and is full of fancies. It also takes a person in the world of imagination; therefore, they called poetry a lie and harmful to human beings. Bacon agrees that the poetry is a lie but he denies the second allegation. He says that it is not harmful at all. He divides lies into two categories; short-term and long-term. Poetry tells lie but people soon forget it; therefore, it causes no harm to them. Only those lies are harmful that sink in the mind and are difficult to forget.

Truth Ends Pride:

The light was the first thing, which the God had created. Then He bestowed men, rational faculty. Since then, He is illuminating the human minds. Bacon advises that whenever a person takes a decision, he should rely on his rationality. It would be based upon truth. He quotes Lucretius, who says that realization of truth is the greatest pleasure in the world. When someone realizes the truth, he becomes aware of its importance. He also recognizes his false beliefs and silly hopes. Truth also nips the pride in the bud due to which a person becomes pitiful.

Importance of Truth:

If we deeply do critical analysis “Of Truth” then we realize that Bacon truth has its own significance. Falsehood brings disgrace and truth brings honor. Even those persons, who do not speak truth, know its worth. Furthermore, the truth is required not only in the field of theology and philosophy but also in every field of life. Bacon refers Montaigne, who says that a liar is always brave towards God but coward towards humans. By telling a lie, a liar directly challenges God. He knows that he has to face God on doomsday yet he promotes falsehood. Thus, he is brave enough to get punishment in enteral life.

At the end of the essay, we find some morality. Bacon tries his best to convince his readers and compels them to speak the truth. The last argument, which he advances, is the “fear of doomsday”. A liar would be punished on the Day of Judgment, says Sir Francis Bacon.

Conclusion of “Of Truth Critical Analysis”:

To conclude, Bacon in this essay persuades people to speak the truth at any cost. He appreciates those people who stick with the truth. Thus, his tone in this essay is didactic; style is lucid and examples are rich. Solid references from Greeks, Romans, other subjects and various philosophers demonstrate experience and knowledge of the writer in every field of life. It seems that he has made critical analysis of his experiences and then written “Of Truth”. In short, the whole essay is worth reading for the person, who wants success in both the worlds.

Watch the video instead of reading the article “Critical Analysis of “Of Truth”.

Of Truth – Summary and Analysis

Published by sirafzal72 on january 20, 2022 january 20, 2022, of truth by francis bacon.

In this famous essay, Bacon demonstrates his profound observation of human beings with a particular emphasis on truth. Bacon asserts in this article that truth is the highest value for humans. He refers to the pursuit of truth as wooing it, knowledge of truth as being present with it, and belief in truth as enjoying it. He has conveyed objective truth in a variety of ways here. Bacon correctly observes at the outset of the essay that the general public is unconcerned with truth, just as Pilate, the Roman empire’s governor, was unconcerned with truth during the trial of Jesus Christ, ‘What is truth?’ Said a mocking Pilate, refusing to stay for an answer’. Bacon is referring to Pontius Pilate, who had a position of authority in the court of Emperor Tiberius. Pilate was not regarded favourably by Christians due to his role in the persecution of Jesus Christ. He earned a slightly tarnished reputation. Bacon uses Pilate’s name to illustrate how humans, on the whole, avoid truth. They consider truth to be inconvenient and difficult to swallow.

The essay has a didactic tone. The writer’s objective is to establish a love of truth in the brains and hearts of his readers. Bacon, a moralist with moral idealism, says that the planet can only be transformed into paradise via the use of truth. Man should always adhere to the truth in all circumstances, perform acts of kindness, and have trust in all circumstances, including confidence in God. His firm trust in truth and divinity is expressed as follows: ‘Certainly, it is heaven on earth to have a man’s mentality more inclined toward charity, resting in Providence, and turning toward the poles of truth’. The essay concludes with some didactism infused with Christian morality. Bacon makes reference to the Bible in order to express his thoughts. He closes the essay with a Bible verse and an allusion to the ultimate judgement in which God will assess all human beings’ acts.

Bacon's Essays/Of Truth

To passe from Theologicall, and Philosophicall Truth, to the Truth of civil Businesse [24] ; It will be acknowledged, even by those that practize it not, that cleare and Round [25] dealing, is the Honour of Man's Nature; And that Mixture of Falshood, is like Allay in Coyne of Gold and Silver, which may make the Metall worke the better, but it embaseth [26] it. For these winding, and crooked courses, are the Goings of the Serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the Feet. There is no Vice [27] that doth so cover Man with Shame as to be found false and perfidious. And therefore Mountaigny saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the Lie should be such a Disgrace, and such an Odious Charge, Saith he, If it be well weighed, To say that a man lieth, is as much to say as that he is brave towards God and a Coward towards Men. For a Lie faces God, and shrinkes from Man. Surely the Wickednesse of Falshood and Breach of Faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last Peale [28] to call the Iudgements of God upon the Generations of Men; It being foretold that, when Christ cometh, He shall not finde Faith upon the Earth.

↑ said Pilate in derision
↑ fickleness
↑ aiming at
↑ discursive minds
↑ whose disposition is the same as that of the ancients, though their abilities are less
↑ i.e. imposes restraint
↑ at a loss
↑ why it is
↑ But somehow or other
↑ does not make the world's dramatic spectacles and farcical shows and public pageants appear
↑ at pleasure
↑ the wine of devils
↑ i.e. such a lie as
↑ whatever the true cause may be why
↑ created thing
↑ i.e. of men's minds by the Holy Spirit
↑ not to be overlooked, or, perhaps , inaccessible to others
↑ provided that
↑ the habit of truthfulness in social intercourse
↑ plain and straightforward
↑ i.e. no other vice

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

Public domain Public domain false false

Of Truth – Francis Bacon – Complete Explanation

by Francis Bacon

Complete explanation of the essay alongside the original text

WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.

Explanation

Here Francis Bacon refers to Pontius Pilate, who occupied a position of influence in Emperor Tiberius’s court. For his involvement in the persecution of Jesus Christ, Pilate was not looked upon favourably by Christians. He enjoyed a somewhat sullied reputation. Here Bacon takes Pilate’s name to express how humans, in general, avoid Truth. They find Truth inconvenient and difficult to imbibe.

Certainly there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting.

People do not seek Truth, and enjoy resorting to falsehood and lies. People like ambiguity , and inaccuracy, so that they can couch the harshness of Truth in convenient language.

And though the sects of philosophers, of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients.

Bacon goes back to the ancient Greek philosophers, who often lost their way while looking to ascertain what really ‘truth’ was. He laments the fact that some of these independent-minded, free-thinking philosophers proposed that there was nothing real as ‘truth’. But, while trying to prove the contrary, they soon wavered, and came out with conflicting decisions. These types of thinkers have all but ceased to exist. The present day ones lack the rigor and verve of the ancient great minds. They are paler versions of their illustrious predecessors. Nevertheless, they, too, doubt the existence of truth, and tend to drift towards falsehood.

But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth, nor again that when it is found it imposeth upon men’s thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.

Undoubtedly, people do make very sincere and strenuous attempts to discover ‘truth’. They succeed, but regrettably, they find the burden and demands of ‘truth’ to be unbearable. Expediently, they abandon the pursuit of ‘truth’, and drift towards ‘lies’ knowingly very well that resorting to ‘lies’ is degrading. The world of ‘lies’ is dark, but people, somehow’ develop a fascination for lies at the expense of truth.

One of the later school of the Grecians examineth the matter and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies, where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie’s sake.

Some Greek philosophers of later periods delved in to this matter. They tried to know why and what attracts people towards ‘lies’. In poetry, some distortion of truth adds to a poem’s literary beauty. So allowance needs to be made to accommodate fantasy and fiction as they enhance the readers’ literary pleasure. Merchants and traders resort to a certain amount of falsehood to entice the customers to buy their merchandize. But, why do common folks resort to lies despite knowing its unsavoury consequences.

But I cannot tell; this same truth is a naked and open day-light, that doth not show the masks and mummeries and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights.

‘Truth’ depicts everything very honestly, faithfully and transparently. There is no place for extravagant praise or derision, superficial description or sycophantic eulogy in ‘truth’. Emperors, heroes, military commanders and other men and women of prominence are described with the minimum laudatory language. Truth builds no artificial aura of greatness around them. So, bereft of their unrealistic praise, they appear vastly diminished in stature.

Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights.

A pearl shines in the day. A diamond or a carbuncle glow at night giving an unreal feeling of light in the midst of total darkness. ‘Truth’ is like a pearl. It shows what is visible to the naked eye. It can’t show anything by lighting up something unrealistically. Only ‘falsehood’ has that capacity to make something apparent in total darkness.

A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men’s minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?

A cocktail of lies and truth has the potency to please humans more than only lies or only truth. Bacon, paradoxically, suggests the utility of such combination of lies and truth. If everything is portrayed in their true colours with no addition of superficial praise, flaterring comments and allusions, the society will appear drab and indolent. Vanity and aggrandizement induce creativity, energy and intellectual activity. For example, if a poet is not felicitated or a player is not rewarded, how will they be motivated to reach higher levels of accomplishments? While showering praise, use of a certain amount of unreal description of one’s feat is needed. Otherwise, the praise will be bland and ineffective.

One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum dæmonum [devils’-wine], because it filleth the imagination; and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt; such as we spake of before.

Some very revered men of great wisdom denigrated poetry saying it contained lies. They felt, the poet adds fiction, exaggerations, allusions etc. to his poem to impart it some charm and attraction for the reader. Bacon says, most of these lies actually may not stay permanently in the mind of the reader. However, a part of such falsehood does get embedded in the reader’s mind impairing the sense of the readers. This could indeed be a sad consequence of reading poetry.

But howsoever these things are thus in men’s depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.

So, lies, undoubtedly, deprave the mind. Truth, on the other hand, remains unblemished always. It is absolute and does not lend itself to differing interpretations. Inquiry of truth is a romantic pursuit that demands indulgence of the pursuer. Knowledge of truth means owning this unique gift. When one reposes absolute faith in truth, the feeling becomes very enjoyable . It symbolizes the ultimate good of human nature.

The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and his sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his Spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen.

When God created the world, He gave the light of sense to the mankind. Using this, human beings could see and feel the world around them. Then God gave the power of reason. Using this, human beings could reason what was good or bad in the things happening pr being said around them. As a result, human beings got the power of enlightenment. After this, God radiated light that illuminated the world which was so disorderly then. Then His light fell on human beings to make them superior in knowledge and wisdom to other species. After this, He focused his kindly light on the face of those human beings whom He loved most.

The poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

When one stands in the sea beach and gets to see ships being rocked violently by the winds, it becomes a breath-taking experience. In the same way, one can stand by the window of a high castle and watch the fight raging below. This also is a unique experience. In the same way, when a human being can realize truth, he can feel as if he stands atop a high mountain enjoying its beauty and bliss. But attaining such an exalted status must not make the man to feel proud. Instead, he should be humble, and benign towards others. He should engage in charity.

To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business; it will be acknowledged even by those that practise it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor of man’s nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious. And therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace and such an odious charge.

Theosophical and philosophical truth belong to a certain domain. While dealing with our day-to-day mundane matters, one finds it difficult to stick to the truth always. To make his business and dealings smoother, he mixes some lies to his dealings. This, at times, appears to be a practical necessity. Although, he might succeed and emerge a winner, such conduct is vile and degrading. It is like an alloy where a foreign element is added in small quantities to a metal like gold and silver to give it more strength and toughness. However, such alloying robs the silver or gold of its luster. It is like a snake that moves on its belly always, and can never stand up erect and upright. This is why, eminent men like Montaigne declared that falsehood was universally degrading and loathsome.

Saith he, If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God and a coward towards men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men; it being foretold that when Christ cometh, he shall not find faith upon the earth.

When analyzed deeply, he said, it means that a person who lies is afraid of ordinary mortals and has the temerity to face God. He is a lowly soul bereft of any wisdom or intellectual heft. When the Day of the Judgment arrives, a person who has lied all his life, can not face God, and will be punished for his guilt. It has been said that gradual erosion of moral values in the world will slowly drag the earth to a state where ‘Faith’ ceases to exist.

Click here for explanations of more essays by Francis Bacon.

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Of Unity In Religion – Francis Bacon – Complete Explanation
Of Envy – Francis Bacon – Complete Explanation
Of Friendship – Francis Bacon – Complete Explanation
Of Ambition – Francis Bacon – Complete Explanation
Of Marriage and Single Life – Francis Bacon – Complete Explanation
Of Anger – Francis Bacon – Complete Explanation
Of Death – Francis Bacon – Complete Explanation
Of Wisdom for a Man’s Self – Francis Bacon – Complete Explanation
Of Travel – Francis Bacon – Complete Explanation
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Critical Appreciation of "Of Truth" by Francis Bacon

"Of Truth" by Francis Bacon invites a critical appreciation that extends beyond its historical context, delving into the profound philosophical and psychological dimensions that Bacon explores. The essay serves as a thought-provoking commentary on the human experience, truth-seeking, and the intricate relationship between truth and falsehood. Here's a detailed analysis:

1. Literary Craftsmanship:

Bacon's literary craftsmanship is evident in the essay's concise yet profound style. His use of vivid metaphors and similes, comparing truth to open daylight and falsehood to candlelight, contributes to the clarity of his arguments. The aphoristic quality of his sentences enhances the impact of his insights, showcasing a masterful command of language.

2. Psychological Insight:

The essay offers a keen insight into the complexities of human psychology. Bacon's portrayal of Pilate as a skeptic indifferent to the pursuit of truth serves as a poignant representation of humanity's tendency to evade deeper philosophical inquiries. The recognition of the corrupt love for lies and the pleasure derived from their combination with truth reveals a nuanced understanding of the human psyche.

3. Philosophical Depth:

Bacon elevates the discourse to philosophical heights by exploring metaphysical dimensions. The metaphorical comparison of truth to a pearl, shining best in daylight, and falsehood to a diamond or carbuncle, shining best in varied lights, introduces a profound contemplation on the nature of reality. The vision of heaven on earth, where the mind aligns with charity, providence, and truth, reflects Bacon's philosophical depth.

4. Ethical Considerations:

An ethical undercurrent runs through the essay, as Bacon addresses the consequences of falsehood. The analogy of falsehood as an alloy in the coin of gold and silver emphasizes the practical advantages it may bring but also underscores the debasement it introduces. This ethical stance reflects Bacon's concern for the moral integrity of individuals and society.

5. Societal Critique:

Bacon subtly critiques societal norms, pointing to the paradox of individuals being brave towards God but cowardly towards fellow humans when confronted with the truth. The prediction of a future lacking faith in God implies a skeptical view of societal values. This socio-cultural critique adds layers of meaning to the essay.

6. Timeless Relevance:

The themes explored in "Of Truth" retain their relevance across temporal and cultural boundaries. The human struggle with truth, the allure of falsehood, and the ethical considerations associated with honesty are universal, ensuring the enduring significance of the essay.

7. Emotional Resonance:

Bacon strikes a delicate balance between reason and emotion. While providing logical arguments for the supremacy of truth, he acknowledges the emotional pleasure derived from falsehood. This dual approach adds emotional resonance to the essay, acknowledging the intricate interplay between rationality and human emotions.

In conclusion, the critical appreciation of "Of Truth" unveils its layers of meaning, showcasing Bacon's literary prowess, psychological acuity, philosophical depth, ethical considerations, societal critique, and its timeless relevance in understanding the intricacies of the human condition.

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Of Truth | Francis Bacon | Summary | Questions Answers

Table of Contents

Of Truth By Francis Bacon | Summary

Introduction : Of Truth is an aphoristic essay written by Francis Bacon. He begins this essay with a quotation from Pilate, who asks “What is truth?” According to Bacon, truth is a belief that binds the mind and restricts free choice in thinking and acting. The Greek philosophers who questioned the limits of human knowledge are no longer alive, yet some still do. Men go through numerous challenges in order to understand the truth, but once they do, it limits their thinking and they want to go back to lying. Love, according to Bacon, is a corrupt yet inherent human tendency. Bacon, like the Greek philosopher Lucian, wonders what causes a man to love lying because it does not provide delight as poetry does or provide profit as business does.

Summary of “Of Truth”

Francis Bacon’s essay Of Truth is one of his more famous essays. The essay begins by making a genial observation: it mocks those who refuse to admit that there is objective truth that needs to be acknowledged by all. Bacon almost laughs as he says that people oft have a natural love of lying even when lying yields no notable advantage. ‘Truth’ resembles light, but Bacon opines that many people prefer to flirt with darkness because they take some pleasure in lies and take to lying almost without need. Bacon who might have had faced a debacle with allegations labeled against him at the ripe age of 60; however, asserts that truth is the greatest good that a man can possess. Where does Truth come from and why it is so important? Bacon has the answer – he asserts that Truth comes from God and consequently it brings us close to God, and naturally truth provides us with greatest pleasure.

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This essay of Bacon is structured in an interesting manner. It begins with the mentioning Pilate, a symbolic Christ-killer and enemy of God, but it ends by elaborately celebrating God’s goodness and creativity. Pontius Pilate it is said had interrogated Jesus before his crucifixion, Jesus proclaimed that “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” (John 18:37). To this, Pilate had mockingly replied: “What is truth?” and thereafter left Jesus to address the Jewish clergy who were hell bent on getting Christ crucified even over a Barabbas (v. 38). True there is no official record of Jesus’ reply to Pilate but Christians largely believe that Pilate had looked down upon Truth. Jesus does say this to his disciple Thomas, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Pilate was dismissive of truth; God, on the other hand, created truth and personifies truth. The the essay though framed by references especially relevant to Christians, Bacon leads to the conclusion that truth is God. Does it not remind us of the Indian thought: Satyam Sivam Sundaram (Truth is God). Bacon does cite various classical authorities and discusses various classical opinions to augment his belief. Not all classical philosophers believed in the existence of truth but there would be some who like the Christians agreed that truth should be highly valued. Bacon is wit personified. He says lying is found oft attractive and truth pain boring, so people would tell lie even when there is no benefit from it. Bacon takes the essay back to the debate initiated by Plato: Poets told lies. Bacon like most of his contemporaries suggested that the lies told by the poets were not harmful in nature. Almost Aristotelian in argument, he says poetic untruth is shadow lie. Finally he ends the essay by aligning himself to the Christian doctrine of truth. Unlike the two essays of our discussion, this essay sees a number of allusions which are used to drive the basic idea of the essay home. Bacon raises serious questions and pushes the readers to think. Apart from allusion , imagery of light and darkness is used effectively: Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights.

What strikes again is the persuasive nature of Bacon and he does it with such smoothness, that he does not sound like a preacher. The essay is not ornamental like contemporary Elizabethan essays but is straight and simple. There is also a moderate use of Latinism in the essay. Of Truth is indicative of the greatness of Bacon’s mind and art. That he wasa philosopher and gifted with practical reasoning sense is also revealed. Bacon talks of subjective truth that is functional in social life. After reading the essay, we are likely to conclude that Bacon is also a moralist. What are the other aspects of Bacon that we will notice is revealed through the essay? He is a keen observer of human mind and behavior. He candidly says that like in the time of Pilate there would be people who do not care about truth. Bacon reasons as to why people do tell lies! First, truth is acquired through hard work and man is not enthusiastic about hard work. Secondly, truth curtails man’s freedom. Thirdly Bacon says “a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.” Further he says: “A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.” In the bright light of truth, man fears exposure. Bacon states that if deprived of false pride and vanities, the human mind would be deflated and would look poor and sad. He uses the idea of truth to create a utopia suggesting that truth can make the earth a paradise: “Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.” Also Bacon presents the need of truth in civic life: “….. that clear and round dealing is the honour of man’s nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work better, but it embaseth it.” The liar virtually has no salvation. Bacon uses the imagery of a snake to present the state of a liar. Bacon takes to the French essayist Montaigne who is of the view that “a lie faces God and shrinks from man” to reiterate his point. It is with this that Bacon concludes that untruth is equal to wickedness. He uses the imagery of the alloy to pin his point. At no point in the essay does it digress, it is single in tone in trying to prove that truth could only salvage man.

Questions and Answers

Q. What is the main theme of the essay of truth?

Answer: In Francis Bacon’s essay “Of Truth,” the author extols the value of truth and critically explains that there are many people who do not place much value on truth, as they find lies more interesting. Bacon asserts that truth comes straight from God, so our relationship with truth brings humans closer to God.

Q. What is truth according to Francis Bacon?

Answer: Bacon says that truth is a belief that binds the mind and hinders free will in thinking and acting. The Greek philosophers who questioned the possibilities of human knowledge are no longer there, but there are still some people who question the same.

Answer : His writing style is aphoristic which means a compact, condensed and epigrammatic style of writing. He was expert in expressing truth in a few possible words with beauty. His essays are an example of this aphoristic style. His essay “Of Truth” has many examples of the aphoristic style.

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51 Francis Bacon: Essays

Introduction.

by Mary Larivee and Rithvik Saravanan

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the English philosopher, was instrumental in the development of the Scientific Revolution in the late 18th century even though he had passed away centuries before. The “Scientific Revolution” was an important movement that emphasized Europe’s shift toward modernized science in fields such as mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, and chemistry (Grant). It was an extension of the Renaissance period, which then led to the Enlightenment which brought advances across all areas of human endeavor. Francis Bacon, in particular, is remembered today primarily for the “scientific method” as a way of establishing what is true from what is false perception (a method that still lies at the heart of modern science). Bacon’s primary focus in his writings revolved around the practice of inductive reasoning, which he believed to be a complement to practical observation (Grant). Most people before this period followed the Aristotelian methodology for scientific arguments. This idea maintained that “if sufficiently clever men discussed a subject long enough, the truth would eventually be discovered” (“History – Francis Bacon.”). However irrational this sounds, the Scientific Revolution helped replace this outdated system of thinking with Bacon’s scientific method. Bacon argued that any proper argument required “evidence from the real world” (“History – Francis Bacon.”). His revolutionary ideas about empirical information helped propel him toward political and societal importance and fame.

Literary Context

Francis Bacon had a passion for metaphors, analogies, and vivid imagery. He was a rhetorical writer and his essays highlight his wisdom and incisive mind. His first book was released in 1597 followed by later editions with added essays that were released in 1612 and 1625. Each essay that Bacon wrote reveals his knowledge of Latin and draws on ancient Roman wisdom through axioms and proverbs. Additionally, Bacon uses wit as a way of getting his point across to his audience and this indeed causes the reader to reflect on his or her own beliefs and values. A key aspect of Bacon’s literature is its “terseness and epigrammatic force” (De). By managing to pack all of his thoughts and ideas into quick, brief statements, Bacon deepens the reach and impact of his work. His writing deviated from the typical Ciceronian style of the time, which was characterized by “melodious language, clarity, and forcefulness of presentation” (“Ciceronian.”). His statements are meaningful particularly because they are straight and to the point. The brevity of his ideas also facilitates the communication of his arguments, which is significant because, at the time, a solid, meaningful education was hard to come by. As such, Bacon’s work helped spread the notions that would eventually bear fruit with the discoveries of the Scientific Revolution.

Historical Context

Francis Bacon’s Essays cover a wide variety of topics and styles, ranging from individual to societal issues and from commonplace to existential. Another important aspect of the appeal of Bacon’s essays are that they weigh the argument at hand with multiple points of view. Bacon’s essays were received at the time with great praise, adoration, and reverence (Potter). He was noted for borrowing ideas from the works of historical writers such as Aristotle (Harmon), and, as such, he represents a continuation of this philosophical school of thought. Another important impact of the Scientific Revolution and Bacon’s literature is that it allowed common people of the era to question old, traditional beliefs. They began to consider everything with reason, which led to a greater sense of self as well as moral and ethical standards. By having the opportunity to judge for themselves, the people were able to advance society a step closer to a form of democracy.

Francis Bacon Essays is a collection of eight of the famous philosopher’s many essays. Each dissertation contains words of wisdom that have proven to be enlightening for many generations that followed. From “Truth” to “Of Superstition” and “Marriage and Single Life”, Bacon covers a wide range of intriguing topics in order to challenge the human mind to think deeply; as he himself writes: “Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider” (Bacon). The philosopher not only provides a framework for the genre of the modern essay but also provides his readers a code to live by.

Works Cited

“Ciceronian.” Dictionary.com , n.d., www.dictionary.com/browse/ciceronian. 23 Oct. 2020.

De, Ardhendu. “Rhetorical Devices as Used by Francis Bacon in His Essays.” A.D.’s English Literature: Notes and Guide , 07 Apr. 2011, ardhendude.blogspot.com/2011/04/rhetorical-devices-used-by-francis.html. Accessed 23 Oct. 2020.

Grant, Edward. The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their Religious, Institutional, and Intellectual Contexts . Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Harmon, William. The Oxford Book of American Light Verse. Oxford University Press, 1979.

“History – Francis Bacon.” History , British Broadcasting Corporation, 2014, www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/bacon_francis.shtml. Accessed 24 Oct. 2020.

Potter, Vincent G. Readings in Epistemology: from Aquinas, Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant. Fordham University Press, 1993.

Discussion Questions

Why do you think Francis Bacon chose to enlighten and inspire his readers as opposed to other writers of his time who focused more on classic folklore tales?
Why do you think Francis Bacon choose the topics that he did? Who or what do you think had a major influence on his writings?
What are the goals and intentions behind Bacon’s use of rhetorical questioning?
What are some common themes and ideas from Francis Bacon’s Essays that can be applied to general situations and contemporary society?
From the ideas presented in this reading, how do you think Francis Bacon’s work affected government policies throughout history, including modern day governmental standards?

Further Resources

Detailed biography of Franics Bacon’s life
Analytical article of Francis Bacon’s impact on the Scientific Revolution
List of Francis Bacon’s most significant accomplishments
Compilation of Francis Bacon’s literature
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Francis Bacon
Discussion video of Francis Bacon’s “Of Studies”

Reading: From Essayes

I. of truth..

What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness; and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursive wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour which men take in finding out of truth, nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men’s thoughts, that doth bring lies in favour, but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later schools of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poet; nor for advantage, as with the mer chant, but for the lie’s sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day, but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men’s minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy “vinum dæmonum,”; because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men’s depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth, that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense: the last was the light of reason; and his Sabbath work ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First, he breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect, that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well: “It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth, (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene,) and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests in the vale below:” so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

To pass from theological and philosophical truth, to the truth of civil business; it will be acknowledged even by those that practise it not, that clean and round dealing is the honour of man’s nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious; and therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason, why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge, saith he, “If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say, that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men. For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man.” Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men: it being foretold, that when “Christ cometh,” he shall not “find faith upon the earth.”

VIII. OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE.

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which, both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public. Yet it were great reason that those that have children should have greatest care of future times, unto which they know they must transmit their dearest pledges. Some there are, who, though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and account future times impertinences; nay, there are some other that account wife and children but as bills of charges; nay more, there are some foolish rich covetous men, that take a pride in having no children, because they may be thought so much the richer; for, perhaps, they have heard some talk, “Such an one’s a great rich man” and another except to it. “Yea, but he hath a great charge of children;” as if it were an abatement to his riches: but the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think heir girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles. Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best subjects; for they are light to run away; and almost all fugitives are of that condition. A single life doth well with churchmen, for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates; for if they be facile and corrupt, you shall have a servant five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the generals commonly, in their hortatives, put men in mind of their wives and children; and I think the despising of marriage among the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more base. Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity; and single men, though they may be many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are more cruel and hardhearted, (good to make severe inquisitors,) because their tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands, as was said of Ulysses, “vetulam suam prætulit immortalitati.” Chaste women are often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity. It is one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if she think her husband wise; which she will never do if she find him jealous. Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses; so as a man may have a quarrel to marry when he will: but yet he was reputed one of the wise men, that made answer to the question when a man should marry:—”A young man not yet, an elder man not at all.” It is often seen, that bad husbands have very good wives; whether it be that it raiseth the price of their husband’s kindness when it comes, or that the wives take a pride in their patience; but this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends consent, for then they will be sure to make good their own folly.

XI. OF GREAT PLACE.

Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self. The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing: “Cum non sis qui fueris, non esse cur velis vivere.” Nay, retire men cannot when they would, neither will they when it were reason; but are impatient of privateness even in age and sickness, which require the shadow: like old townsmen, that will be still sitting at their street door, though thereby they offer age to scorn. Certainly great persons had need to borrow other men’s opinions to think themselves happy; for if they judge by their own feeling, they cannot find it: but if they think with themselves what other men think of them, and that other men would fain be as they are, then they are happy as it were by report, when, perhaps, they find the contrary within; for they are the first that find their own griefs, though they be the last that find their own faults. Certainly men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves, and while they are in the puzzle of business they have no time to tend their health either of body or mind: “Illi mors gravis incubat, qui notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi.” In place there is license to do good and evil; whereof the latter is a curse: for in evil the best condition is not to will; the second not to can. But power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring; for good thoughts (though God accept them,) yet towards men are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that cannot be without power and place, as the vantage and commanding ground. Merit and good works is the end of man’s motion; and conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man’s rest; for if a man can be partaker of God’s theatre, he shall likewise be partaker of God’s rest: “Et conversus Deus, ut aspiceret opera, quaæ fecerunt manus suæ, vidit quod omnia essent bona nimis;” and then the sabbath. In the discharge of the place set before thee the best examples; for imitation is a globe of precepts; and after a time set before thine own example; and examine thyself strictly whether thou didst not best at first. Neglect not also the examples of those that have carried themselves ill in the same place; not to set off thyself by taxing their memory, but to direct thyself what to avoid. Reform, therefore, without bravery or scandal of former times and persons; but yet set it down to thyself, as well to create good precedents as to follow them. Reduce things to the first institution, and observe wherein and how they have degenerated; but yet ask counsel of both times; of the ancienter time what is best; and of the latter time what is fittest. Seek to make thy course regular, that men may know be forehand what they may expect; but be not too positive and peremptory; and express thyself well when thou digressest from thy lure. Preserve the right of thy place, but stir not questions of jurisdiction; and rather assume thy right in silence, and “de facto,” than voice it with claims and challenges. Preserve likewise the rights of inferior places; and think it more honour to direct in chief than to be busy in all. Embrace and invite helps and advices touching the execution of thy place; and do not drive away such as bring thee information as meddlers, but accept of them in good part. The vices of authority are chiefly four; delays, corruption, roughness, and facility. For delays give easy access: keep times appointed; go through with that which is in hand, and interlace not business but of necessity. For corruption, do not only bind thine own hands or thy servant’s hands from taking, but bind the hands of suitors also from offering; for integrity used doth the one; but integrity professed, and with a manifest detestation of bribery, doth the other; and avoid not only the fault, but the suspicion. Whosoever is found variable, and changeth manifestly without manifest cause, giveth suspicion of corruption; therefore, always when thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, and declare it, together with the reasons that move thee to change, and do not think to steal it. A servant or a favourite, if he be inward, and no other apparent cause of esteem, is commonly thought but a by-way to close corruption. For roughness, it is a needless cause of discontent; severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth hate. Even reproofs from authority ought to be grave, and not taunting. As for facility, it is worse than bribery; for bribes come but now and then; but if importunity or idle respects lead a man, he shall never be without; as Solomon saith, “To respect persons is not good, for such a man will transgress for a piece of bread.” It is most true that was anciently spoken, “A place showeth the man; and it showeth some to the better and some to the worse;” “omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset,” saith Tacitus of Galba; but of Vespasian he saith, “solus imperantium, Vespasianus mutatus in melius;” though the one was meant of sufficiency, the other of manners and affection. It is an assured sign of a worthy and generous spirit, whom honour amends; for honour is, or should be, the place of virtue; and as in nature things move violently to their place and calmly in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm. All rising to great place is by a winding stair; and if there be factions, it is good to side a man’s self whilst he is in the rising, and to balance himself when he is placed. Use the memory of thy predecessor fairly and tenderly; for if thou dost not, it is a debt will sure be paid when thou art gone. If thou have colleagues, respect them; and rather call them when they looked not for it, than exclude them when they have reason to look to be called. Be not too sensible or too remembering of thy place in conversation and private answers to suitors; but let it rather be said, “When he sits in place he is another man.”

XVII. OF SUPERSTITION.

It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. Plutarch saith well to that purpose: “Surely,” saith he, “I had rather a great deal men should say there was no such man at all as Plutarch, than that they should say that there was one Plutarch, that would eat his children as soon as they were born:” as the poets speak of Saturn: and, as the contumely is greater towards God, so the danger is greater towards men. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men: therefore atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further, and we see the times inclined to atheism (as the time of Augustus Cæsar) were civil times: but superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new “primum mobile,” that ravisheth all the spheres of government. The master of superstition is the people, and in all superstition wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order. It was gravely said, by some of the prelates in the council of Trent, where the doctrine of the schoolmen bare great sway, that the schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign eccentrics and epicycles, and such engines of orbs to save phenomena, though they knew there were no such things; and, in like manner, that the schoolmen had framed a number of subtle and intricate axioms and theorems, to save the practice of the church. The causes of superstition are, pleasing and sensual rites and ceremonies; excess of outward and pharisaical holiness; over great reverence of traditions, which cannot but load the church; the stratagems of prelates for their own ambition and lucre; the favouring too much of good intentions, which openeth the gate to conceits and novelties; the taking an aim at divine matters by human, which cannot but breed mixture of imaginations; and, lastly, barbarous times, especially joined with calamities and disasters. Superstition, without a veil, is a deformed thing: for as it addeth deformity to an ape to be so like a man, so the similitude of superstition to religion makes it the more deformed: and, as wholesome meat corrupteth to little worms, so good forms and orders corrupt into a number of petty observances. There is a superstition in avoiding superstition, when men think to do best if they go furthest from the superstition formerly received; therefore care would be had that (as it fareth in ill purgings) the good be not taken away with the bad, which commonly is done when the people is the reformer.

XXXIII. OF PLANTATIONS.

Plantations are amongst ancient, primitive, and heroical works. When the world was young, it begat more children; but now it is old, it begets fewer; for I may justly account new plantations to be the children of former kingdoms. I like a plantation in a pure soil; that is, where people are not displanted to the end to plant in others; for else it is rather an extirpation than a plantation. Planting of countries is like planting of woods; for you must make account to lose almost twenty years profit, and expect your recompense in the end: for the principal thing that hath been the destruction of most plantations, hath been the base and hasty drawing of profit in the first years. It is true, speedy profit is not to be neglected, as far as may stand with the good of the plantation, but no further. It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation; for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country to the discredit of the plantation. The people wherewith you plant ought to be gardeners, ploughmen, labourers, smiths, carpenters, joiners, fishermen, fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons, cooks, and bakers. In a country of plantation, first look about what kind of victual the country yields of itself to hand; as chestnuts, walnuts, pineapples, olives, dates, plums, cherries, wild honey, and the like, and make use of them. Then consider what victual, or esculent things there are which grow speedily and within the year: as parsnips, carrots, turnips, onions, radish, artichokes of Jerusalem, maize, and the like: for wheat, barley, and oats, they ask too much labour; but with pease and beans you may begin, both because they ask less labour, and because they serve for meat as well as for bread; and of rice likewise cometh a great increase, and it is a kind of meat. Above all, there ought to be brought store biscuit, oatmeal, flour, meal, and the like, in the beginning, till bread may be had. For beasts, or birds, take chiefly such as are least subject to diseases, and multiply fastest; as swine, goats, cocks, hens, turkeys, geese, house-doves, and the like. The victual in plantations ought to be expended almost as in a besieged town; that is, with certain allowance: and let the main part of the ground employed to gardens or corn, be to a common stock; and to be laid in, and stored up, and then delivered out in proportion; besides some spots of ground that any particular person will manure for his own private use. Consider, likewise, what commodities the soil where the plantation is doth naturally yield, that they may some way help to defray the charge of the plantation; so it be not, as was said, to the untimely prejudice of the main business, as it hath fared with tobacco in Virginia. Wood commonly aboundeth but too much: and therefore timber is fit to be one. If there be iron ore, and streams whereupon to set the mills, iron is a brave commodity where wood aboundeth. Making of bay-salt, if the climate be proper for it, would be put in experience: growing silk likewise, if any be, is a likely commodity: pitch and tar, where store of firs and pines are, will not fail; so drugs and sweet woods, where they are, cannot but yield great profit; soap-ashes likewise, and other things that may be thought of; but moil not too much under ground, for the hope of mines is very uncertain and useth to make the planters lazy in other things. For government, let it be in the hands of one, assisted with some counsel; and let them have commission to exercise martial laws, with some limitation; and, above all, let men make that profit of being in the wilderness, as they have God always, and his service before their eyes; let not the government of the plantation depend upon too many counsellors and undertakers in the country that planteth, but upon a temperate number; and let those be rather noblemen and gentle men, than merchants; for they look ever to the present gain: let there be freedoms from custom, till the plantation be of strength; and not only freedom from custom, but freedom to carry their commodities where they may make their best of them, except there be some special cause of caution. Cram not in people, by sending too fast, company after company; but rather hearken how they waste, and send supplies proportionably; but so as the number may live well in the plantation, and not by surcharge be in penury. It hath been a great endangering to the health of some plantations, that they have built along the sea and rivers in marish and unwholesome grounds: therefore, though you begin there, to avoid carriage and other like discommodities, yet build still rather upwards from the stream, than along. It concerneth likewise the health of the plantation that they have good store of salt with them, that they may use it in their victuals when it shall be necessary. If you plant where savages are, do not only entertain them with trifles and gingles, but use them justly and graciously, with sufficient guard nevertheless; and do not win their favour by helping them to invade their enemies, but for their defence it is not amiss: and send oft of them over to the country that plants, that they may see a better condition than their own, and commend it when they return. When the plantation grows to strength, then it is time to plant with women as well as with men; that the plantation may spread into generations, and not be ever pieced from without. It is the sinfullest thing in the world to forsake or destitute a plantation once in forwardness; for, besides the dishonour, it is the guiltiness of blood of many commiserable persons.

XLVII. OF NEGOTIATING.

It is generally better to deal by speech than by letter; and by the mediation of a third than by a man’s self. Letters are good when a man would draw an answer by letter back again; or when it may serve for a man’s justification afterwards to produce his own letter; or where it may be danger to be interrupted, or heard by pieces. To deal in person is good, when a man’s face breedeth regard, as commonly with inferiors; or in tender cases, where a man’s eye upon the countenance of him with whom he speaketh, may give him a direction how far to go; and generally, where a man will reserve to himself liberty either to disavow or to expound. In choice of instruments, it is better to choose men of a plainer sort, that are like to do that that is committed to them, and to report back again faithfully the success, than those that are cunning to contrive out of ether men’s business somewhat to grace themselves, and will help the matter in report, for satisfaction sake. Use also such persons as affect the business wherein they are employed, for that quickeneth much; and such as are fit for the matter, as bold men for expostulation, fair-spoken men for persuasion, crafty men for inquiry and observation, froward and absurd men for business that doth not well bear out itself. Use also such as have been lucky and prevailed before in things wherein you have employed them; for that breeds confidence, and they will strive to maintain their prescription. It is better to sound a person with whom one deals afar off, than to fall upon the point at first; except you mean to surprise him by some short question. It is better dealing with men in appetite, than with those that are where they would be. If a man deal with another upon conditions, the start of first performance is all; which a man can reasonably demand, except either the nature of the thing be such, which must go before: or else a man can persuade the other party, that he shall still need him in some other thing; or else that he be counted the honester man. All practice is to discover, or to work. Men discover themselves in trust, in passion, at unawares; and of necessity, when they would have somewhat done, and cannot find an apt pretext, if you would work any man, you must either know his nature and fashions, and so lead him; or his ends, and so persuade him; or his weakness and disadvantages, and so awe him; or these that have interest in him, and so govern him. In dealing with cunning persons, we must ever consider their ends, to interpret their speeches; and it is good to say little to them, and that which they least look for. In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.

XXXVII. OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS.

These things are but toys to come amongst such serious observations; but yet, since princes will have such things, it is better they should be graced with elegancy, than daubed with cost. Dancing to song, is a thing of great state and pleasure. I understand it that the song be inquire, placed aloft, and accompanied by some broken music; and the ditty fitted to the device. Acting in song, especially in dialogues, hath an extreme good grace; I say acting, not dancing, (for that is a mean and vulgar thing;) and the voices of the dialogue would be strong and manly, (a base and a tenor, no treble,) and the ditty high and tragical, not nice or dainty. Several quires placed one over against another, and taking the voice by catches anthem-wise, give great pleasure. Turning dances into figure is a childish curiosity; and generally let it be noted, that those things which I here set down are such as do naturally take the sense, and not respect petty wonderments. It is true, the alterations of scenes, so it be quietly and without noise, are things of great beauty and pleasure; for they feed and relieve the eye before it be full of the same object. Let the scenes abound with light, especially coloured and varied; and let the masquers, or any other that are to come down from the scene, have some motions upon the scene it self before their coining down; for it draws the eye strangely, and makes it with great pleasure to desire to see that it cannot perfectly discern. Let the songs be loud and cheerful, and not chirpings or pulings: let the music likewise be sharp and loud, and well placed. The colours that show best by candle-light, are white, carnation, and a kind of sea-water green and ouches, or spangs, as they are of no great cost, so they are of most glory. As for rich embroidery, it is lost and not discerned. Let the suits of the masquers be graceful, and such as become the person when the vizards are off; not after examples of known attires; Turks, soldiers, mariners, and the like. Let anti-masques not be long; they have been commonly of fools, satyrs, baboons, wild men antics, beasts, spirits, witches, Ethiopes, pigmies turquets, nymphs, rustics, Cupids, statues moving and the like. As for angels, it is not comical enough to put them in anti-masques; and any thing that is hideous, as devils, giants, is, on the other side as unfit; but chiefly, let the music of them be recreative, and with some strange changes. Some sweet odours suddenly coming forth, without any drops falling, are, in such a company as there is steam and heat, things of great pleasure and refreshment. Double masques, one of men another of ladies, addeth state and variety; but all is nothing except the room be kept clean and neat.

For jousts, and tourneys, and barriers, the glories of them are chiefly in the chariots, wherein the challengers make their entry; especially if they be drawn with strange beasts; as lions, bears camels, and the like; or in the devices of their entrance, or in bravery of their liveries, or in the goodly furniture of their horses and armour. But enough of these toys.

L. OF STUDIES.

Studies serve for delight, for ornament and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one: but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar: they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend “Abeunt studia in mores;” nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises; bowling is good for the stone and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle walking for the stomach, riding for the head, and the like; so, if a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again; if his wit be no apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen, for they are “Cymini sectores;” if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call upon one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyer’s cases: so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

Source Text:

Bacon, Francis. Bacon’s Essays and Wisdom of the Ancients . Little, Brown, and Company, 1884, is licensed under no known copyright.

An Open Companion to Early British Literature Copyright © 2019 by Allegra Villarreal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Francis Bacon: Essays and Major Works

By francis bacon, francis bacon: essays and major works themes.

Empiricism is one of the concepts for which Bacon is best known. He is often referred to as the father of Empiricism. Empiricism is a philosophical school of thought that maintains that true knowledge derives from sensory experience rather than an innate human existence. It is empiricism and the notion that one's interactions in and with the world dictate one's beliefs that ultimately leads to Bacon's more detailed explanations of induction and the scientific method.

Truth and Perception

Because of the inherent limitations of perception, Bacon spends a long time considering truth and human perception. He observes that humans understand their perceptions are limited, but without clearly demonstrating how exactly those limitations shape human consciousness, we might be leaving free knowledge on the table. He explains that in addition to the native limitations of the human mind, we are also limited by ideas shared in our culture, such as the artistic and economic shape of our respective cultures.

Culture and Community as Obstacles

Bacon writes that in order to become a philosopher in the true sense of the word, to be a pursuer of actual truth, one must be ready to accept the shame and opposition that come when one passes the cultural ideas of one's community. The community will not really appreciate that, says Bacon. Therefore, the love and support of one's community goes from being a good thing to a restrictive obstacle that must be overcome, so that a person can think clearly without prejudice.

Systematic Approaches to Knowledge

Bacon's essays gradually point the reader to the need for some new approach to knowledge. He urges the reader to consider the tasks of gaining and categorizing knowledge. In his essay about knowledge, he urges his reader to differentiate between commonly held beliefs and actual knowledge, because knowledge might be available past the illusion of belief. He also argues that learning is more than just the acquisition of knowledge, saying that to learn is to undergo a transformation of consciousness. We will become more likely to receive new information the more humble we are about our current beliefs.

Scientific Study

Bacon's essays take a logical turn toward the various sciences, because he says that there are obviously categories of knowledge that emerge as one tries to be scientific. He outlines several schools of scientific study, claiming that medicine can be studied scientifically. He also outlines his curiosity in chemistry stemming from his alchemical studies, arguing for a more standardized chemistry. He also outlines the need for taxonomy in the sciences so that a scientific language can emerge.

God's Role in Learning

While Bacon's focus is often on science and learning, these meditations almost always appear in tandem with Bacon's praise of God and organized religion. Far from seeing science and religion as contentious opposites, Bacon advances the notion that learning and the acquisition of knowledge are guided by God's grace. In The New Atlantis , Bacon details a utopian society in which the land itself – and its government-sanctioned dedication to learning everything there is to know about the universe – is divinely inspired.

One surprising subject that Bacon approaches with an analytical perspective is friendship. While Bacon argues throughout his major works for a rigorous and dedicated pursuit of knowledge (something one might consider a solitary or individual pursuit), he also emphasizes the importance of friendship as a natural and beneficial human pursuit. Friendship, he argues, is comparable to a medicine – just as certain remedies target different areas of the body, Bacon proposes that "no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend" (391).

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Francis Bacon: Essays and Major Works Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Francis Bacon: Essays and Major Works is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

why baccon used OF before starting his essays

becose it is used to mention the things particular

What is Sir Francis Bacon’s main purpose in the text?

In this essay Bacon states his ideology about education and learning. He argues that, "studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability." Bacon felt that people should delight in knowledge for its own sake rather than a means to an end...

Part A: which statement best summarizes the text

A. Learning is personal and focuses on improving weaknesses and enhancing strengths.

Study Guide for Francis Bacon: Essays and Major Works

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Of Truth by Francis Bacon Summary

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Introduction

Francis Bacon was a prose writer of renaissance age, a great philosopher and pioneer of scientific thoughts. He had set some goals in his life. One is to serve his country, second is to serve the church and the other is to learn the truth.

His interest in his science and reasoning lead him to write critically about the aspects of life. He wrote many essays which till today receives appreciation and is up to date. Being an essayist his aim was to share the wisdom of his life.

Style of Writing

Bacon’s style is most remarkable for his preciseness. He has a great command of condensation of the sentences. Each sentence of his essay contains multiple meanings and references. He combines wisdom with brevity and his short, pithy sayings become famous as mottoes and useful expressions.

His writing style is aphoristic which means a compact, condensed and epigrammatic style of writing. He was expert in expressing truth in a few possible words with beauty. His essays are an example of this aphoristic style. His essay “Of Truth” has many examples of the aphoristic style.

Humans and Truth & Lie

Of truth is Bacon’s great work of prose which shows his keen observation of human beings with their attributes of truth and lie. In the beginning, he states that people generally do not care for the truth.

He gives the example of Pilate, the governor of the Roman Empire while conducting the session with Jesus Christ, does not pay attention to the truth and said: “what is the truth? Said Jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.”

Reason Why People Hate Truth

Moving on he describes the reasons why people do not like the truth. First, the truth is difficult to acquire without hard work and man is ever reluctant to work hard. Moreover, truth makes people bound to a certain fact. It diminishes freedom.

According to Bacon truth is like a bright day which shows the real self. Truth is like a pearl that shows what is visible to the naked eye. It cannot show anything by adding unrealistic elements. Falsehood can show something apparent in dark.

Lies and Pleasure

People lie because it covers their real personality. Bacon rightly says that “A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.” The mixture of truth and lie makes things interesting and pleases everyone.

He states if everything is presented as its real colour with no additional praise, flattering comments, and illusions the society will become indolent.

Same is the case with poets. They add false praises in their poetry to reach a higher level of accomplishments. Truth is utmost important in every aspect of life civil or business.

A bit of lie added to truth is like making an alloy of copper and gold. It becomes easier to work with these metals but at the same times, it makes it impure.

Lie is Like Snake

Bacon compares lie with a snake crawling on its belly instead of walking on its feet. The false person has to let his head down because he feels guilty all the time due to his habit of speaking falsehood all the time to earn benefits in business. There is no shameful act than to be a liar.

Bacon quotes Montaigne who said that “a liar is a man who is brave towards God but is coward towards men.” He emphasizes on the wickedness of the falsehood by saying that these are the negative qualities of men which will call upon the judgment of God upon mankind.

Therefore Bacon concludes his essay with didacticism by giving a tinge of Christian morality. The essay is rich in manner and matter. This is a council, civil and moral and should be read slowly to understand the lucid and condensed prose style of Bacon.

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Truth is one of the central subjects in philosophy. It is also one of the largest. Truth has been a topic of discussion in its own right for thousands of years. Moreover, a huge variety of issues in philosophy relate to truth, either by relying on theses about truth, or implying theses about truth.

It would be impossible to survey all there is to say about truth in any coherent way. Instead, this essay will concentrate on the main themes in the study of truth in the contemporary philosophical literature. It will attempt to survey the key problems and theories of current interest, and show how they relate to one-another. A number of other entries investigate many of these topics in greater depth. Generally, discussion of the principal arguments is left to them. The goal of this essay is only to provide an overview of the current Theories. Many of the papers mentioned in this essay can be found in the anthologies edited by Blackburn and Simmons (1999) and Lynch (2001b). There are a number of book-length surveys of the topics discussed here, including Burgess and Burgess (2011), Kirkham (1992), and Künne (2003). Also, a number of the topics discussed here, and many further ones, are surveyed at more length in papers in Glanzberg (2018).

The problem of truth is in a way easy to state: what truths are, and what (if anything) makes them true. But this simple statement masks a great deal of controversy. Whether there is a metaphysical problem of truth at all, and if there is, what kind of theory might address it, are all standing issues in the theory of truth. We will see a number of distinct ways of answering these questions.

1.1 The correspondence theory

1.1.1 the origins of the correspondence theory, 1.1.2 the neo-classical correspondence theory, 1.2 the coherence theory, 1.3 pragmatist theories, 2.1 sentences as truth-bearers, 2.2 convention t, 2.3 recursive definition of truth, 2.4 reference and satisfaction, 3.1 correspondence without facts, 3.2 representation and correspondence, 3.3 facts again, 3.4 truthmakers, 4.1 realism and truth, 4.2 anti-realism and truth, 4.3 anti-realism and pragmatism, 4.4 truth pluralism, 5.1 the redundancy theory, 5.2 minimalist theories, 5.3 other aspects of deflationism, 6.1 truth-bearers, 6.2 truth and truth conditions, 6.3 truth conditions and deflationism, 6.4 truth and the theory of meaning, 6.5 the coherence theory and meaning, 6.6 truth and assertion, other internet resources, related entries, 1. the neo-classical theories of truth.

Much of the contemporary literature on truth takes as its starting point some ideas which were prominent in the early part of the 20th century. There were a number of views of truth under discussion at that time, the most significant for the contemporary literature being the correspondence, coherence, and pragmatist theories of truth.

These theories all attempt to directly answer the nature question : what is the nature of truth? They take this question at face value: there are truths, and the question to be answered concerns their nature. In answering this question, each theory makes the notion of truth part of a more thoroughgoing metaphysics or epistemology. Explaining the nature of truth becomes an application of some metaphysical system, and truth inherits significant metaphysical presuppositions along the way.

The goal of this section is to characterize the ideas of the correspondence, coherence and pragmatist theories which animate the contemporary debate. In some cases, the received forms of these theories depart from the views that were actually defended in the early 20th century. We thus dub them the ‘neo-classical theories’. Where appropriate, we pause to indicate how the neo-classical theories emerge from their ‘classical’ roots in the early 20th century.

Perhaps the most important of the neo-classical theories for the contemporary literature is the correspondence theory. Ideas that sound strikingly like a correspondence theory are no doubt very old. They might well be found in Aristotle or Aquinas. When we turn to the late 19th and early 20th centuries where we pick up the story of the neo-classical theories of truth, it is clear that ideas about correspondence were central to the discussions of the time. In spite of their importance, however, it is strikingly difficult to find an accurate citation in the early 20th century for the received neo-classical view. Furthermore, the way the correspondence theory actually emerged will provide some valuable reference points for the contemporary debate. For these reasons, we dwell on the origins of the correspondence theory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries at greater length than those of the other neo-classical views, before turning to its contemporary neo-classical form. For an overview of the correspondence theory, see David (2018).

The basic idea of the correspondence theory is that what we believe or say is true if it corresponds to the way things actually are – to the facts. This idea can be seen in various forms throughout the history of philosophy. Its modern history starts with the beginnings of analytic philosophy at the turn of the 20th century, particularly in the work of G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell.

Let us pick up the thread of this story in the years between 1898 and about 1910. These years are marked by Moore and Russell’s rejection of idealism. Yet at this point, they do not hold a correspondence theory of truth. Indeed Moore (1899) sees the correspondence theory as a source of idealism, and rejects it. Russell follows Moore in this regard. (For discussion of Moore’s early critique of idealism, where he rejects the correspondence theory of truth, see Baldwin (1991). Hylton (1990) provides an extensive discussion of Russell in the context of British idealism. An overview of these issues is given by Baldwin (2018).)

In this period, Moore and Russell hold a version of the identity theory of truth . They say comparatively little about it, but it is stated briefly in Moore (1899; 1902) and Russell (1904). According to the identity theory, a true proposition is identical to a fact. Specifically, in Moore and Russell’s hands, the theory begins with propositions, understood as the objects of beliefs and other propositional attitudes. Propositions are what are believed, and give the contents of beliefs. They are also, according to this theory, the primary bearers of truth. When a proposition is true, it is identical to a fact, and a belief in that proposition is correct. (Related ideas about the identity theory and idealism are discussed by McDowell (1994) and further developed by Hornsby (2001).)

The identity theory Moore and Russell espoused takes truth to be a property of propositions. Furthermore, taking up an idea familiar to readers of Moore, the property of truth is a simple unanalyzable property. Facts are understood as simply those propositions which are true. There are true propositions and false ones, and facts just are true propositions. There is thus no “difference between truth and the reality to which it is supposed to correspond” (Moore, 1902, p. 21). (For further discussion of the identity theory of truth, see Baldwin (1991), Candlish (1999), Candlish and Damnjanovic (2018), Cartwright (1987), Dodd (2000), and the entry on the identity theory of truth .)

Moore and Russell came to reject the identity theory of truth in favor of a correspondence theory, sometime around 1910 (as we see in Moore, 1953, which reports lectures he gave in 1910–1911, and Russell, 1910b). They do so because they came to reject the existence of propositions. Why? Among reasons, they came to doubt that there could be any such things as false propositions, and then concluded that there are no such things as propositions at all.

Why did Moore and Russell find false propositions problematic? A full answer to this question is a point of scholarship that would take us too far afield. (Moore himself lamented that he could not “put the objection in a clear and convincing way” (1953, p. 263), but see Cartwright (1987) and David (2001) for careful and clear exploration of the arguments.) But very roughly, the identification of facts with true propositions left them unable to see what a false proposition could be other than something which is just like a fact, though false. If such things existed, we would have fact-like things in the world, which Moore and Russell now see as enough to make false propositions count as true. Hence, they cannot exist, and so there are no false propositions. As Russell (1956, p. 223) later says, propositions seem to be at best “curious shadowy things” in addition to facts.

As Cartwright (1987) reminds us, it is useful to think of this argument in the context of Russell’s slightly earlier views about propositions. As we see clearly in Russell (1903), for instance, he takes propositions to have constituents. But they are not mere collections of constituents, but a ‘unity’ which brings the constituents together. (We thus confront the ‘problem of the unity of the proposition’.) But what, we might ask, would be the ‘unity’ of a proposition that Samuel Ramey sings – with constituents Ramey and singing – except Ramey bearing the property of singing? If that is what the unity consists in, then we seem to have nothing other than the fact that Ramey sings. But then we could not have genuine false propositions without having false facts.

As Cartwright also reminds us, there is some reason to doubt the cogency of this sort of argument. But let us put the assessment of the arguments aside, and continue the story. From the rejection of propositions a correspondence theory emerges. The primary bearers of truth are no longer propositions, but beliefs themselves. In a slogan:

A belief is true if and only if it corresponds to a fact .

Views like this are held by Moore (1953) and Russell (1910b; 1912). Of course, to understand such a theory, we need to understand the crucial relation of correspondence, as well as the notion of a fact to which a belief corresponds. We now turn to these questions. In doing so, we will leave the history, and present a somewhat more modern reconstruction of a correspondence theory. (For more on facts and proposition in this period, see Sullivan and Johnston (2018).)

The correspondence theory of truth is at its core an ontological thesis: a belief is true if there exists an appropriate entity – a fact – to which it corresponds. If there is no such entity, the belief is false.

Facts, for the neo-classical correspondence theory, are entities in their own right. Facts are generally taken to be composed of particulars and properties and relations or universals, at least. The neo-classical correspondence theory thus only makes sense within the setting of a metaphysics that includes such facts. Hence, it is no accident that as Moore and Russell turn away from the identity theory of truth, the metaphysics of facts takes on a much more significant role in their views. This perhaps becomes most vivid in the later Russell (1956, p. 182), where the existence of facts is the “first truism.” (The influence of Wittgenstein’s ideas to appear in the Tractatus (1922) on Russell in this period was strong, and indeed, the Tractatus remains one of the important sources for the neo-classical correspondence theory. For more recent extensive discussions of facts, see Armstrong (1997) and Neale (2001).)

Consider, for example, the belief that Ramey sings. Let us grant that this belief is true. In what does its truth consist, according to the correspondence theory? It consists in there being a fact in the world, built from the individual Ramey, and the property of singing. Let us denote this $\langle$ Ramey , Singing $\rangle$. This fact exists. In contrast, the world (we presume) contains no fact $\langle$ Ramey , Dancing $\rangle$. The belief that Ramey sings stands in the relation of correspondence to the fact $\langle$ Ramey , Singing $\rangle$, and so the belief is true.

What is the relation of correspondence? One of the standing objections to the classical correspondence theory is that a fully adequate explanation of correspondence proves elusive. But for a simple belief, like that Ramey sings, we can observe that the structure of the fact $\langle$ Ramey , Singing $\rangle$ matches the subject-predicate form of the that -clause which reports the belief, and may well match the structure of the belief itself.

So far, we have very much the kind of view that Moore and Russell would have found congenial. But the modern form of the correspondence theory seeks to round out the explanation of correspondence by appeal to propositions . Indeed, it is common to base a correspondence theory of truth upon the notion of a structured proposition . Propositions are again cast as the contents of beliefs and assertions, and propositions have structure which at least roughly corresponds to the structure of sentences. At least, for simple beliefs like that Ramey sings, the proposition has the same subject predicate structure as the sentence. (Proponents of structured propositions, such as Kaplan (1989), often look to Russell (1903) for inspiration, and find unconvincing Russell’s reasons for rejecting them.)

With facts and structured propositions in hand, an attempt may be made to explain the relation of correspondence. Correspondence holds between a proposition and a fact when the proposition and fact have the same structure, and the same constituents at each structural position. When they correspond, the proposition and fact thus mirror each-other. In our simple example, we might have:

Propositions, though structured like facts, can be true or false. In a false case, like the proposition that Ramey dances, we would find no fact at the bottom of the corresponding diagram. Beliefs are true or false depending on whether the propositions which are believed are.

We have sketched this view for simple propositions like the proposition that Ramey sings. How to extend it to more complex cases, like general propositions or negative propositions, is an issue we will not delve into here. It requires deciding whether there are complex facts, such as general facts or negative facts, or whether there is a more complex relation of correspondence between complex propositions and simple facts. (The issue of whether there are such complex facts marks a break between Russell (1956) and Wittgenstein (1922) and the earlier views which Moore (1953) and Russell (1912) sketch.)

According to the correspondence theory as sketched here, what is key to truth is a relation between propositions and the world, which obtains when the world contains a fact that is structurally similar to the proposition. Though this is not the theory Moore and Russell held, it weaves together ideas of theirs with a more modern take on (structured) propositions. We will thus dub it the neo-classical correspondence theory. This theory offers us a paradigm example of a correspondence theory of truth.

The leading idea of the correspondence theory is familiar. It is a form of the older idea that true beliefs show the right kind of resemblance to what is believed. In contrast to earlier empiricist theories, the thesis is not that one’s ideas per se resemble what they are about. Rather, the propositions which give the contents of one’s true beliefs mirror reality, in virtue of entering into correspondence relations to the right pieces of it.

In this theory, it is the way the world provides us with appropriately structured entities that explains truth. Our metaphysics thus explains the nature of truth, by providing the entities needed to enter into correspondence relations.

For more on the correspondence theory, see David (1994, 2018) and the entry on the correspondance theory of truth .

Though initially the correspondence theory was seen by its developers as a competitor to the identity theory of truth, it was also understood as opposed to the coherence theory of truth.

We will be much briefer with the historical origins of the coherence theory than we were with the correspondence theory. Like the correspondence theory, versions of the coherence theory can be seen throughout the history of philosophy. (See, for instance, Walker (1989) for a discussion of its early modern lineage.) Like the correspondence theory, it was important in the early 20th century British origins of analytic philosophy. Particularly, the coherence theory of truth is associated with the British idealists to whom Moore and Russell were reacting.

Many idealists at that time did indeed hold coherence theories. Let us take as an example Joachim (1906). (This is the theory that Russell (1910a) attacks.) Joachim says that:

Truth in its essential nature is that systematic coherence which is the character of a significant whole (p. 76).

We will not attempt a full exposition of Joachim’s view, which would take us well beyond the discussion of truth into the details of British idealism. But a few remarks about his theory will help to give substance to the quoted passage.

Perhaps most importantly, Joachim talks of ‘truth’ in the singular. This is not merely a turn of phrase, but a reflection of his monistic idealism. Joachim insists that what is true is the “whole complete truth” (p. 90). Individual judgments or beliefs are certainly not the whole complete truth. Such judgments are, according to Joachim, only true to a degree. One aspect of this doctrine is a kind of holism about content, which holds that any individual belief or judgment gets its content only in virtue of being part of a system of judgments. But even these systems are only true to a degree, measuring the extent to which they express the content of the single ‘whole complete truth’. Any real judgment we might make will only be partially true.

To flesh out Joachim’s theory, we would have to explain what a significant whole is. We will not attempt that, as it leads us to some of the more formidable aspects of his view, e.g., that it is a “process of self-fulfillment” (p. 77). But it is clear that Joachim takes ‘systematic coherence’ to be stronger than consistency. In keeping with his holism about content, he rejects the idea that coherence is a relation between independently identified contents, and so finds it necessary to appeal to ‘significant wholes’.

As with the correspondence theory, it will be useful to recast the coherence theory in a more modern form, which will abstract away from some of the difficult features of British idealism. As with the correspondence theory, it can be put in a slogan:

A belief is true if and only if it is part of a coherent system of beliefs.

To further the contrast with the neo-classical correspondence theory, we may add that a proposition is true if it is the content of a belief in the system, or entailed by a belief in the system. We may assume, with Joachim, that the condition of coherence will be stronger than consistency. With the idealists generally, we might suppose that features of the believing subject will come into play.

This theory is offered as an analysis of the nature of truth, and not simply a test or criterion for truth. Put as such, it is clearly not Joachim’s theory (it lacks his monism, and he rejects propositions), but it is a standard take on coherence in the contemporary literature. (It is the way the coherence theory is given in Walker (1989), for instance. See also Young (2001) for a recent defense of a coherence theory.) Let us take this as our neo-classical version of the coherence theory. The contrast with the correspondence theory of truth is clear. Far from being a matter of whether the world provides a suitable object to mirror a proposition, truth is a matter of how beliefs are related to each-other.

The coherence theory of truth enjoys two sorts of motivations. One is primarily epistemological. Most coherence theorists also hold a coherence theory of knowledge; more specifically, a coherence theory of justification. According to this theory, to be justified is to be part of a coherent system of beliefs. An argument for this is often based on the claim that only another belief could stand in a justification relation to a belief, allowing nothing but properties of systems of belief, including coherence, to be conditions for justification. Combining this with the thesis that a fully justified belief is true forms an argument for the coherence theory of truth. (An argument along these lines is found in Blanshard (1939), who holds a form of the coherence theory closely related to Joachim’s.)

The steps in this argument may be questioned by a number of contemporary epistemological views. But the coherence theory also goes hand-in-hand with its own metaphysics as well. The coherence theory is typically associated with idealism. As we have already discussed, forms of it were held by British idealists such as Joachim, and later by Blanshard (in America). An idealist should see the last step in the justification argument as quite natural. More generally, an idealist will see little (if any) room between a system of beliefs and the world it is about, leaving the coherence theory of truth as an extremely natural option.

It is possible to be an idealist without adopting a coherence theory. (For instance, many scholars read Bradley as holding a version of the identity theory of truth. See Baldwin (1991) for some discussion.) However, it is hard to see much of a way to hold the coherence theory of truth without maintaining some form of idealism. If there is nothing to truth beyond what is to be found in an appropriate system of beliefs, then it would seem one’s beliefs constitute the world in a way that amounts to idealism. (Walker (1989) argues that every coherence theorist must be an idealist, but not vice-versa.)

The neo-classical correspondence theory seeks to capture the intuition that truth is a content-to-world relation. It captures this in the most straightforward way, by asking for an object in the world to pair up with a true proposition. The neo-classical coherence theory, in contrast, insists that truth is not a content-to-world relation at all; rather, it is a content-to-content, or belief-to-belief, relation. The coherence theory requires some metaphysics which can make the world somehow reflect this, and idealism appears to be it. (A distant descendant of the neo-classical coherence theory that does not require idealism will be discussed in section 6.5 below.)

For more on the coherence theory, see Walker (2018) and the entry on the coherence theory of truth .

A different perspective on truth was offered by the American pragmatists. As with the neo-classical correspondence and coherence theories, the pragmatist theories go with some typical slogans. For example, Peirce is usually understood as holding the view that:

Truth is the end of inquiry.

(See, for instance Hartshorne et al., 1931–58, §3.432.) Both Peirce and James are associated with the slogan that:

Truth is satisfactory to believe.

James (e.g., 1907) understands this principle as telling us what practical value truth has. True beliefs are guaranteed not to conflict with subsequent experience. Likewise, Peirce’s slogan tells us that true beliefs will remain settled at the end of prolonged inquiry. Peirce’s slogan is perhaps most typically associated with pragmatist views of truth, so we might take it to be our canonical neo-classical theory. However, the contemporary literature does not seem to have firmly settled upon a received ‘neo-classical’ pragmatist theory.

In her reconstruction (upon which we have relied heavily), Haack (1976) notes that the pragmatists’ views on truth also make room for the idea that truth involves a kind of correspondence, insofar as the scientific method of inquiry is answerable to some independent world. Peirce, for instance, does not reject a correspondence theory outright; rather, he complains that it provides merely a ‘nominal’ or ‘transcendental’ definition of truth (e.g Hartshorne et al., 1931–58, §5.553, §5.572), which is cut off from practical matters of experience, belief, and doubt (§5.416). (See Misak (2004) for an extended discussion.)

This marks an important difference between the pragmatist theories and the coherence theory we just considered. Even so, pragmatist theories also have an affinity with coherence theories, insofar as we expect the end of inquiry to be a coherent system of beliefs. As Haack also notes, James maintains an important verificationist idea: truth is what is verifiable. We will see this idea re-appear in section 4.

For more on pragmatist theories of truth, see Misak (2018). James’ views are discussed further in the entry on William James . Peirce’s views are discussed further in the entry on Charles Sanders Peirce .

2. Tarski’s theory of truth

Modern forms of the classical theories survive. Many of these modern theories, notably correspondence theories, draw on ideas developed by Tarski.

In this regard, it is important to bear in mind that his seminal work on truth (1935) is very much of a piece with other works in mathematical logic, such as his (1931), and as much as anything this work lays the ground-work for the modern subject of model theory – a branch of mathematical logic, not the metaphysics of truth. In this respect, Tarski’s work provides a set of highly useful tools that may be employed in a wide range of philosophical projects. (See Patterson (2012) for more on Tarski’s work in its historical context.)

Tarski’s work has a number of components, which we will consider in turn.

In the classical debate on truth at the beginning of the 20th century we considered in section 1, the issue of truth-bearers was of great significance. For instance, Moore and Russell’s turn to the correspondence theory was driven by their views on whether there are propositions to be the bearers of truth. Many theories we reviewed took beliefs to be the bearers of truth.

In contrast, Tarski and much of the subsequent work on truth takes sentences to be the primary bearers of truth. This is not an entirely novel development: Russell (1956) also takes truth to apply to sentence (which he calls ‘propositions’ in that text). But whereas much of the classical debate takes the issue of the primary bearers of truth to be a substantial and important metaphysical one, Tarski is quite casual about it. His primary reason for taking sentences as truth-bearers is convenience, and he explicitly distances himself from any commitment about the philosophically contentious issues surrounding other candidate truth-bearers (e.g., Tarski, 1944). (Russell (1956) makes a similar suggestion that sentences are the appropriate truth-bearers “for the purposes of logic” (p. 184), though he still takes the classical metaphysical issues to be important.)

We will return to the issue of the primary bearers of truth in section 6.1. For the moment, it will be useful to simply follow Tarski’s lead. But it should be stressed that for this discussion, sentences are fully interpreted sentences, having meanings. We will also assume that the sentences in question do not change their content across occasions of use, i.e., that they display no context-dependence. We are taking sentences to be what Quine (1960) calls ‘eternal sentences’.

In some places (e.g., Tarski, 1944), Tarski refers to his view as the ‘semantic conception of truth’. It is not entirely clear just what Tarski had in mind by this, but it is clear enough that Tarski’s theory defines truth for sentences in terms of concepts like reference and satisfaction, which are intimately related to the basic semantic functions of names and predicates (according to many approaches to semantics). For more discussion, see Woleński (2001).

Let us suppose we have a fixed language $\mathbf{L}$ whose sentences are fully interpreted. The basic question Tarski poses is what an adequate theory of truth for $\mathbf{L}$ would be. Tarski’s answer is embodied in what he calls Convention T :

An adequate theory of truth for $\mathbf{L}$ must imply, for each sentence $\phi$ of $\mathbf{L}$

$\ulcorner \phi \urcorner$ is true if and only if $\phi$.

(We have simplified Tarski’s presentation somewhat.) This is an adequacy condition for theories, not a theory itself. Given the assumption that $\mathbf{L}$ is fully interpreted, we may assume that each sentence $\phi$ in fact has a truth value. In light of this, Convention T guarantees that the truth predicate given by the theory will be extensionally correct , i.e., have as its extension all and only the true sentences of $\mathbf{L}$.

Convention T draws our attention to the biconditionals of the form

$\ulcorner \ulcorner \phi \urcorner$ is true if and only if $\phi \urcorner$,

which are usually called the Tarski biconditionals for a language $\mathbf{L}$.

Tarski does not merely propose a condition of adequacy for theories of truth, he also shows how to meet it. One of his insights is that if the language $\mathbf{L}$ displays the right structure, then truth for $\mathbf{L}$ can be defined recursively. For instance, let us suppose that $\mathbf{L}$ is a simple formal language, containing two atomic sentences ‘snow is white’ and ‘grass is green’, and the sentential connectives $\vee$ and $\neg$.

In spite of its simplicity, $\mathbf{L}$ contains infinitely many distinct sentences. But truth can be defined for all of them by recursion.

‘Snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white.
‘Grass is green’ is true if and only if grass is green.
$\ulcorner \phi \vee \psi \urcorner$ is true if and only if $\ulcorner \phi \urcorner$ is true or $\ulcorner \psi \urcorner$ is true.
$\ulcorner \neg \phi \urcorner$ is true if and only if it is not the case that $\ulcorner \phi \urcorner$ is true.

This theory satisfies Convention T.

This may look trivial, but in defining an extensionally correct truth predicate for an infinite language with four clauses, we have made a modest application of a very powerful technique.

Tarski’s techniques go further, however. They do not stop with atomic sentences. Tarski notes that truth for each atomic sentence can be defined in terms of two closely related notions: reference and satisfaction . Let us consider a language $\mathbf{L}'$, just like $\mathbf{L}$ except that instead of simply having two atomic sentences, $\mathbf{L}'$ breaks atomic sentences into terms and predicates. $\mathbf{L}'$ contains terms ‘snow’ and ‘grass’ (let us engage in the idealization that these are simply singular terms), and predicates ‘is white’ and ‘is green’. So $\mathbf{L}'$ is like $\mathbf{L}$, but also contains the sentences ‘Snow is green’ and ‘Grass is white’.)

We can define truth for atomic sentences of $\mathbf{L}'$ in the following way.

‘Snow’ refers to snow.
‘Grass’ refers to grass.
$a$ satisfies ‘is white’ if and only if $a$ is white.
$a$ satisfies ‘is green’ if and only if $a$ is green.
For any atomic sentence $\ulcorner t$ is $P \urcorner$: $\ulcorner t$ is $P \urcorner$ is true if and only if the referent of $\ulcorner t \urcorner$ satisfies $\ulcorner P\urcorner$.

One of Tarski’s key insights is that the apparatus of satisfaction allows for a recursive definition of truth for sentences with quantifiers , though we will not examine that here. We could repeat the recursion clauses for $\mathbf{L}$ to produce a full theory of truth for $\mathbf{L}'$.

Let us say that a Tarskian theory of truth is a recursive theory, built up in ways similar to the theory of truth for $\mathbf{L}'$. Tarski goes on to demonstrate some key applications of such a theory of truth. A Tarskian theory of truth for a language $\mathbf{L}$ can be used to show that theories in $\mathbf{L}$ are consistent. This was especially important to Tarski, who was concerned the Liar paradox would make theories in languages containing a truth predicate inconsistent.

For more, see Ray (2018) and the entries on axiomatic theories of truth , the Liar paradox , and Tarski’s truth definitions .

3. Correspondence revisited

The correspondence theory of truth expresses the very natural idea that truth is a content-to-world or word-to-world relation: what we say or think is true or false in virtue of the way the world turns out to be. We suggested that, against a background like the metaphysics of facts, it does so in a straightforward way. But the idea of correspondence is certainly not specific to this framework. Indeed, it is controversial whether a correspondence theory should rely on any particular metaphysics at all. The basic idea of correspondence, as Tarski (1944) and others have suggested, is captured in the slogan from Aristotle’s Metaphysics Γ 7.27, “to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true” (Ross, 1928). ‘What is’, it is natural enough to say, is a fact, but this natural turn of phrase may well not require a full-blown metaphysics of facts. (For a discussion of Aristotle’s views in a historical context, see Szaif (2018).)

Yet without the metaphysics of facts, the notion of correspondence as discussed in section 1.1 loses substance. This has led to two distinct strands in contemporary thinking about the correspondence theory. One strand seeks to recast the correspondence theory in a way that does not rely on any particular ontology. Another seeks to find an appropriate ontology for correspondence, either in terms of facts or other entities. We will consider each in turn.

Tarski himself sometimes suggested that his theory was a kind of correspondence theory of truth. Whether his own theory is a correspondence theory, and even whether it provides any substantial philosophical account of truth at all, is a matter of controversy. (One rather drastic negative assessment from Putnam (1985–86, p. 333) is that “As a philosophical account of truth, Tarski’s theory fails as badly as it is possible for an account to fail.”) But a number of philosophers (e.g., Davidson, 1969; Field, 1972) have seen Tarski’s theory as providing at least the core of a correspondence theory of truth which dispenses with the metaphysics of facts.

Tarski’s theory shows how truth for a sentence is determined by certain properties of its constituents; in particular, by properties of reference and satisfaction (as well as by the logical constants). As it is normally understood, reference is the preeminent word-to-world relation. Satisfaction is naturally understood as a word-to-world relation as well, which relates a predicate to the things in the world that bear it. The Tarskian recursive definition shows how truth is determined by reference and satisfaction, and so is in effect determined by the things in the world we refer to and the properties they bear. This, one might propose, is all the correspondence we need. It is not correspondence of sentences or propositions to facts; rather, it is correspondence of our expressions to objects and the properties they bear, and then ways of working out the truth of claims in terms of this.

This is certainly not the neo-classical idea of correspondence. In not positing facts, it does not posit any single object to which a true proposition or sentence might correspond. Rather, it shows how truth might be worked out from basic word-to-world relations. However, a number of authors have noted that Tarski’s theory cannot by itself provide us with such an account of truth. As we will discuss more fully in section 4.2, Tarski’s apparatus is in fact compatible with theories of truth that are certainly not correspondence theories.

Field (1972), in an influential discussion and diagnosis of what is lacking in Tarski’s account, in effect points out that whether we really have something worthy of the name ‘correspondence’ depends on our having notions of reference and satisfaction which genuinely establish word-to-world relations. (Field does not use the term ‘correspondence’, but does talk about e.g., the “connection between words and things” (p. 373).) By itself, Field notes, Tarski’s theory does not offer an account of reference and satisfaction at all. Rather, it offers a number of disquotation clauses , such as:

These clauses have an air of triviality (though whether they are to be understood as trivial principles or statements of non-trivial semantic facts has been a matter of some debate). With Field, we might propose to supplement clauses like these with an account of reference and satisfaction. Such a theory should tell us what makes it the case that the word ‘snow’ refer to snow. (In 1972, Field was envisaging a physicalist account, along the lines of the causal theory of reference.) This should inter alia guarantee that truth is really determined by word-to-world relations, so in conjunction with the Tarskian recursive definition, it could provide a correspondence theory of truth.

Such a theory clearly does not rely on a metaphysics of facts. Indeed, it is in many ways metaphysically neutral, as it does not take a stand on the nature of particulars, or of the properties or universals that underwrite facts about satisfaction. However, it may not be entirely devoid of metaphysical implications, as we will discuss further in section 4.1.

Much of the subsequent discussion of Field-style approaches to correspondence has focused on the role of representation in these views. Field’s own (1972) discussion relies on a causal relation between terms and their referents, and a similar relation for satisfaction. These are instances of representation relations. According to representational views, meaningful items, like perhaps thoughts or sentences or their constituents, have their contents in virtue of standing in the right relation to the things they represent. On many views, including Field’s, a name stands in such a relation to its bearer, and the relation is a causal one.

The project of developing a naturalist account of the representation relation has been an important one in the philosophy of mind and language. (See the entry on mental representation .) But, it has implications for the theory of truth. Representational views of content lead naturally to correspondence theories of truth. To make this vivid, suppose you hold that sentences or beliefs stand in a representation relation to some objects. It is natural to suppose that for true beliefs or sentences, those objects would be facts. We then have a correspondence theory, with the correspondence relation explicated as a representation relation: a truth bearer is true if it represents a fact.

As we have discussed, many contemporary views reject facts, but one can hold a representational view of content without them. One interpretation of Field’s theory is just that. The relations of reference and satisfaction are representation relations, and truth for sentences is determined compositionally in terms of those representation relations, and the nature of the objects they represent. If we have such relations, we have the building blocks for a correspondence theory without facts. Field (1972) anticipated a naturalist reduction of the representation via a causal theory, but any view that accepts representation relations for truth bearers or their constituents can provide a similar theory of truth. (See Jackson (2006) and Lynch (2009) for further discussion.)

Representational views of content provide a natural way to approach the correspondence theory of truth, and likewise, anti-representational views provide a natural way to avoid the correspondence theory of truth. This is most clear in the work of Davidson, as we will discuss more in section 6.5.

There have been a number of correspondence theories that do make use of facts. Some are notably different from the neo-classical theory sketched in section 1.1. For instance, Austin (1950) proposes a view in which each statement (understood roughly as an utterance event) corresponds to both a fact or situation, and a type of situation. It is true if the former is of the latter type. This theory, which has been developed by situation theory (e.g., Barwise and Perry, 1986), rejects the idea that correspondence is a kind of mirroring between a fact and a proposition. Rather, correspondence relations to Austin are entirely conventional. (See Vision (2004) for an extended defense of an Austinian correspondence theory.) As an ordinary language philosopher, Austin grounds his notion of fact more in linguistic usage than in an articulated metaphysics, but he defends his use of fact-talk in Austin (1961b).

In a somewhat more Tarskian spirit, formal theories of facts or states of affairs have also been developed. For instance, Taylor (1976) provides a recursive definition of a collection of ‘states of affairs’ for a given language. Taylor’s states of affairs seem to reflect the notion of fact at work in the neo-classical theory, though as an exercise in logic, they are officially $n$-tuples of objects and intensions .

There are more metaphysically robust notions of fact in the current literature. For instance, Armstrong (1997) defends a metaphysics in which facts (under the name ‘states of affairs’) are metaphysically fundamental. The view has much in common with the neo-classical one. Like the neo-classical view, Armstrong endorses a version of the correspondence theory. States of affairs are truthmakers for propositions, though Armstrong argues that there may be many such truthmakers for a given proposition, and vice versa. (Armstrong also envisages a naturalistic account of propositions as classes of equivalent belief-tokens.)

Armstrong’s primary argument is what he calls the ‘truthmaker argument’. It begins by advancing a truthmaker principle , which holds that for any given truth, there must be a truthmaker – a “something in the world which makes it the case, that serves as an ontological ground, for this truth” (p. 115). It is then argued that facts are the appropriate truthmakers.

In contrast to the approach to correspondence discussed in section 3.1, which offered correspondence with minimal ontological implications, this view returns to the ontological basis of correspondence that was characteristic of the neo-classical theory.

For more on facts, see the entry on facts .

The truthmaker principle is often put as the schema:

If $\phi$, then there is an $x$ such that necessarily, if $x$ exists, then $\phi$.

(Fox (1987) proposed putting the principle this way, rather than explicitly in terms of truth.)

The truthmaker principle expresses the ontological aspect of the neo-classical correspondence theory. Not merely must truth obtain in virtue of word-to-world relations, but there must be a thing that makes each truth true. (For one view on this, see Merricks (2007).)

The neo-classical correspondence theory, and Armstrong, cast facts as the appropriate truthmakers. However, it is a non-trivial step from the truthmaker principle to the existence of facts. There are a number of proposals in the literature for how other sorts of objects could be truthmakers; for instance, tropes (called ‘moments’, in Mulligan et al., 1984). Parsons (1999) argues that the truthmaker principle (presented in a somewhat different form) is compatible with there being only concrete particulars.

As we saw in discussing the neo-classical correspondence theory, truthmaker theories, and fact theories in particular, raise a number of issues. One which has been discussed at length, for instance, is whether there are negative facts . Negative facts would be the truthmakers for negated sentences. Russell (1956) notoriously expresses ambivalence about whether there are negative facts. Armstrong (1997) rejects them, while Beall (2000) defends them. (For more discussion of truthmakers, see Cameron (2018) and the papers in Beebee and Dodd (2005).)

4. Realism and anti-realism

The neo-classical theories we surveyed in section 1 made the theory of truth an application of their background metaphysics (and in some cases epistemology). In section 2 and especially in section 3, we returned to the issue of what sorts of ontological commitments might go with the theory of truth. There we saw a range of options, from relatively ontologically non-committal theories, to theories requiring highly specific ontologies.

There is another way in which truth relates to metaphysics. Many ideas about realism and anti-realism are closely related to ideas about truth. Indeed, many approaches to questions about realism and anti-realism simply make them questions about truth.

In discussing the approach to correspondence of section 3.1, we noted that it has few ontological requirements. It relies on there being objects of reference, and something about the world which makes for determinate satisfaction relations; but beyond that, it is ontologically neutral. But as we mentioned there, this is not to say that it has no metaphysical implications. A correspondence theory of truth, of any kind, is often taken to embody a form of realism .

The key features of realism, as we will take it, are that:

The world exists objectively, independently of the ways we think about it or describe it.
Our thoughts and claims are about that world.

(Wright (1992) offers a nice statement of this way of thinking about realism.) These theses imply that our claims are objectively true or false, depending on how the world they are about is. The world that we represent in our thoughts or language is an objective world. (Realism may be restricted to some subject-matter, or range of discourse, but for simplicity, we will talk about only its global form.)

It is often argued that these theses require some form of the correspondence theory of truth. (Putnam (1978, p. 18) notes, “Whatever else realists say, they typically say that they believe in a ‘correspondence theory of truth’.”) At least, they are supported by the kind of correspondence theory without facts discussed in section 3.1, such as Field’s proposal. Such a theory will provide an account of objective relations of reference and satisfaction, and show how these determine the truth or falsehood of what we say about the world. Field’s own approach (1972) to this problem seeks a physicalist explanation of reference. But realism is a more general idea than physicalism. Any theory that provides objective relations of reference and satisfaction, and builds up a theory of truth from them, would give a form of realism. (Making the objectivity of reference the key to realism is characteristic of work of Putnam, e.g., 1978.)

Another important mark of realism expressed in terms of truth is the property of bivalence . As Dummett has stressed (e.g., 1959; 1976; 1983; 1991), a realist should see there being a fact of the matter one way or the other about whether any given claim is correct. Hence, one important mark of realism is that it goes together with the principle of bivalence : every truth-bearer (sentence or proposition) is true or false. In much of his work, Dummett has made this the characteristic mark of realism, and often identifies realism about some subject-matter with accepting bivalence for discourse about that subject-matter. At the very least, it captures a great deal of what is more loosely put in the statement of realism above.

Both the approaches to realism, through reference and through bivalence, make truth the primary vehicle for an account of realism. A theory of truth which substantiates bivalence, or builds truth from a determinate reference relation, does most of the work of giving a realistic metaphysics. It might even simply be a realistic metaphysics.

We have thus turned on its head the relation of truth to metaphysics we saw in our discussion of the neo-classical correspondence theory in section 1.1. There, a correspondence theory of truth was built upon a substantial metaphysics. Here, we have seen how articulating a theory that captures the idea of correspondence can be crucial to providing a realist metaphysics. (For another perspective on realism and truth, see Alston (1996). Devitt (1984) offers an opposing view to the kind we have sketched here, which rejects any characterization of realism in terms of truth or other semantic concepts.)

In light of our discussion in section 1.1.1, we should pause to note that the connection between realism and the correspondence theory of truth is not absolute. When Moore and Russell held the identity theory of truth, they were most certainly realists. The right kind of metaphysics of propositions can support a realist view, as can a metaphysics of facts. The modern form of realism we have been discussing here seeks to avoid basing itself on such particular ontological commitments, and so prefers to rely on the kind of correspondence-without-facts approach discussed in section 3.1. This is not to say that realism will be devoid of ontological commitments, but the commitments will flow from whichever specific claims about some subject-matter are taken to be true.

For more on realism and truth, see Fumerton (2002) and the entry on realism .

It should come as no surprise that the relation between truth and metaphysics seen by modern realists can also be exploited by anti-realists. Many modern anti-realists see the theory of truth as the key to formulating and defending their views. With Dummett (e.g., 1959; 1976; 1991), we might expect the characteristic mark of anti-realism to be the rejection of bivalence.

Indeed, many contemporary forms of anti-realism may be formulated as theories of truth, and they do typically deny bivalence. Anti-realism comes in many forms, but let us take as an example a (somewhat crude) form of verificationism. Such a theory holds that a claim is correct just insofar as it is in principle verifiable , i.e., there is a verification procedure we could in principle carry out which would yield the answer that the claim in question was verified.

So understood, verificationism is a theory of truth. The claim is not that verification is the most important epistemic notion, but that truth just is verifiability. As with the kind of realism we considered in section 4.1, this view expresses its metaphysical commitments in its explanation of the nature of truth. Truth is not, to this view, a fully objective matter, independent of us or our thoughts. Instead, truth is constrained by our abilities to verify, and is thus constrained by our epistemic situation. Truth is to a significant degree an epistemic matter, which is typical of many anti-realist positions.

As Dummett says, the verificationist notion of truth does not appear to support bivalence. Any statement that reaches beyond what we can in principle verify or refute (verify its negation) will be a counter-example to bivalence. Take, for instance, the claim that there is some substance, say uranium, present in some region of the universe too distant to be inspected by us within the expected lifespan of the universe. Insofar as this really would be in principle unverifiable, we have no reason to maintain it is true or false according to the verificationist theory of truth.

Verificationism of this sort is one of a family of anti-realist views. Another example is the view that identifies truth with warranted assertibility. Assertibility, as well as verifiability, has been important in Dummett’s work. (See also works of McDowell, e.g., 1976 and Wright, e.g., 1976; 1982; 1992.)

Anti-realism of the Dummettian sort is not a descendant of the coherence theory of truth per se . But in some ways, as Dummett himself has noted, it might be construed as a descendant – perhaps very distant – of idealism. If idealism is the most drastic form of rejection of the independence of mind and world, Dummettian anti-realism is a more modest form, which sees epistemology imprinted in the world, rather than the wholesale embedding of world into mind. At the same time, the idea of truth as warranted assertibility or verifiability reiterates a theme from the pragmatist views of truth we surveyed in section 1.3.

Anti-realist theories of truth, like the realist ones we discussed in section 4.1, can generally make use of the Tarskian apparatus. Convention T, in particular, does not discriminate between realist and anti-realist notions of truth. Likewise, the base clauses of a Tarskian recursive theory are given as disquotation principles, which are neutral between realist and anti-realist understandings of notions like reference. As we saw with the correspondence theory, giving a full account of the nature of truth will generally require more than the Tarskian apparatus itself. How an anti-realist is to explain the basic concepts that go into a Tarskian theory is a delicate matter. As Dummett and Wright have investigated in great detail, it appears that the background logic in which the theory is developed will have to be non-classical.

For more on anti-realism and truth, see Shieh (2018) and the papers in Greenough and Lynch (2006) and the entry on realism .

Many commentators see a close connection between Dummett’s anti-realism and the pragmatists’ views of truth, in that both put great weight on ideas of verifiability or assertibility. Dummett himself stressed parallels between anti-realism and intuitionism in the philosophy of mathematics.

Another view on truth which returns to pragmatist themes is the ‘internal realism’ of Putnam (1981). There Putnam glosses truth as what would be justified under ideal epistemic conditions. With the pragmatists, Putnam sees the ideal conditions as something which can be approximated, echoing the idea of truth as the end of inquiry.

Putnam is cautious about calling his view anti-realism, preferring the label ‘internal realism’. But he is clear that he sees his view as opposed to realism (‘metaphysical realism’, as he calls it).

Davidson’s views on truth have also been associated with pragmatism, notably by Rorty (1986). Davidson has distanced himself from this interpretation (e.g., 1990), but he does highlight connections between truth and belief and meaning. Insofar as these are human attitudes or relate to human actions, Davidson grants there is some affinity between his views and those of some pragmatists (especially, he says, Dewey).

Another view that has grown out of the literature on realism and anti-realism, and has become increasingly important in the current literature, is that of pluralism about truth. This view, developed in work of Lynch (e.g. 2001b; 2009) and Wright (e.g. 1992; 1999), proposes that there are multiple ways for truth bearers to be true. Wright, in particular, suggests that in certain domains of discourse what we say is true in virtue of a correspondence-like relation, while in others it is its true in virtue of a kind of assertibility relation that is closer in spirit to the anti-realist views we have just discussed.

Such a proposal might suggest there are multiple concepts of truth, or that the term ‘true’ is itself ambiguous. However, whether or not a pluralist view is committed to such claims has been disputed. In particular, Lynch (2001b; 2009) develops a version of pluralism which takes truth to be a functional role concept. The functional role of truth is characterized by a range of principles that articulate such features of truth as its objectivity, its role in inquiry, and related ideas we have encountered in considering various theories of truth. (A related point about platitudes governing the concept of truth is made by Wright (1992).) But according to Lynch, these display the functional role of truth. Furthermore, Lynch claims that on analogy with analytic functionalism, these principles can be seen as deriving from our pre-theoretic or ‘folk’ ideas about truth.

Like all functional role concepts, truth must be realized, and according to Lynch it may be realized in different ways in different settings. Such multiple realizability has been one of the hallmarks of functional role concepts discussed in the philosophy of mind. For instance, Lynch suggests that for ordinary claims about material objects, truth might be realized by a correspondence property (which he links to representational views), while for moral claims truth might be manifest by an assertibility property along more anti-realist lines.

For more on pluralism about truth, see Pedersen and Lynch (2018) and the entry on pluralist theories of truth .

5. Deflationism

We began in section 1 with the neo-classical theories, which explained the nature of truth within wider metaphysical systems. We then considered some alternatives in sections 2 and 3, some of which had more modest ontological implications. But we still saw in section 4 that substantial theories of truth tend to imply metaphysical theses, or even embody metaphysical positions.

One long-standing trend in the discussion of truth is to insist that truth really does not carry metaphysical significance at all. It does not, as it has no significance on its own. A number of different ideas have been advanced along these lines, under the general heading of deflationism .

Deflationist ideas appear quite early on, including a well-known argument against correspondence in Frege (1918–19). However, many deflationists take their cue from an idea of Ramsey (1927), often called the equivalence thesis :

$\ulcorner \ulcorner \phi \urcorner$ is true $\urcorner$ has the same meaning as $\phi$.

(Ramsey himself takes truth-bearers to be propositions rather than sentences. Glanzberg (2003b) questions whether Ramsey’s account of propositions really makes him a deflationist.)

This can be taken as the core of a theory of truth, often called the redundancy theory . The redundancy theory holds that there is no property of truth at all, and appearances of the expression ‘true’ in our sentences are redundant, having no effect on what we express.

The equivalence thesis can also be understood in terms of speech acts rather than meaning:

To assert that $\ulcorner \phi \urcorner$ is true is just to assert that $\phi$.

This view was advanced by Strawson (1949; 1950), though Strawson also argues that there are other important aspects of speech acts involving ‘true’ beyond what is asserted. For instance, they may be acts of confirming or granting what someone else said. (Strawson would also object to my making sentences the bearers of truth.)

In either its speech act or meaning form, the redundancy theory argues there is no property of truth. It is commonly noted that the equivalence thesis itself is not enough to sustain the redundancy theory. It merely holds that when truth occurs in the outermost position in a sentence, and the full sentence to which truth is predicated is quoted, then truth is eliminable. What happens in other environments is left to be seen. Modern developments of the redundancy theory include Grover et al. (1975).

The equivalence principle looks familiar: it has something like the form of the Tarski biconditionals discussed in section 2.2. However, it is a stronger principle, which identifies the two sides of the biconditional – either their meanings or the speech acts performed with them. The Tarski biconditionals themselves are simply material biconditionals.

A number of deflationary theories look to the Tarski biconditionals rather than the full equivalence principle. Their key idea is that even if we do not insist on redundancy, we may still hold the following theses:

For a given language $\mathbf{L}$ and every $\phi$ in $\mathbf{L}$, the biconditionals $\ulcorner \ulcorner \phi \urcorner$ is true if and only if $\phi \urcorner$ hold by definition (or analytically, or trivially, or by stipulation …).
This is all there is to say about the concept of truth.

We will refer to views which adopt these as minimalist . Officially, this is the name of the view of Horwich (1990), but we will apply it somewhat more widely. (Horwich’s view differs in some specific respects from what is presented here, such as predicating truth of propositions, but we believe it is close enough to what is sketched here to justify the name.)

The second thesis, that the Tarski biconditionals are all there is to say about truth, captures something similar to the redundancy theory’s view. It comes near to saying that truth is not a property at all; to the extent that truth is a property, there is no more to it than the disquotational pattern of the Tarski biconditionals. As Horwich puts it, there is no substantial underlying metaphysics to truth. And as Soames (1984) stresses, certainly nothing that could ground as far-reaching a view as realism or anti-realism.

If there is no property of truth, or no substantial property of truth, what role does our term ‘true’ play? Deflationists typically note that the truth predicate provides us with a convenient device of disquotation . Such a device allows us to make some useful claims which we could not formulate otherwise, such as the blind ascription ‘The next thing that Bill says will be true’. (For more on blind ascriptions and their relation to deflationism, see Azzouni, 2001.) A predicate obeying the Tarski biconditionals can also be used to express what would otherwise be (potentially) infinite conjunctions or disjunctions, such as the notorious statement of Papal infallibility put ‘Everything the Pope says is true’. (Suggestions like this are found in Leeds, 1978 and Quine, 1970.)

Recognizing these uses for a truth predicate, we might simply think of it as introduced into a language by stipulation . The Tarski biconditionals themselves might be stipulated, as the minimalists envisage. One could also construe the clauses of a recursive Tarskian theory as stipulated. (There are some significant logical differences between these two options. See Halbach (1999) and Ketland (1999) for discussion.) Other deflationists, such as Beall (2005) or Field (1994), might prefer to focus here on rules of inference or rules of use, rather than the Tarski biconditionals themselves.

There are also important connections between deflationist ideas about truth and certain ideas about meaning. These are fundamental to the deflationism of Field (1986; 1994), which will be discussed in section 6.3. For an insightful critique of deflationism, see Gupta (1993).

For more on deflationism, see Azzouni (2018) and the entry on the deflationary theory of truth .

6. Truth and language

One of the important themes in the literature on truth is its connection to meaning, or more generally, to language. This has proved an important application of ideas about truth, and an important issue in the study of truth itself. This section will consider a number of issues relating truth and language.

There have been many debates in the literature over what the primary bearers of truth are. Candidates typically include beliefs, propositions, sentences, and utterances. We have already seen in section 1 that the classical debates on truth took this issue very seriously, and what sort of theory of truth was viable was often seen to depend on what the bearers of truth are.

In spite of the number of options under discussion, and the significance that has sometimes been placed on the choice, there is an important similarity between candidate truth-bearers. Consider the role of truth-bearers in the correspondence theory, for instance. We have seen versions of it which take beliefs, propositions, or interpreted sentences to be the primary bearers of truth. But all of them rely upon the idea that their truth-bearers are meaningful , and are thereby able to say something about what the world is like. (We might say that they are able to represent the world, but that is to use ‘represent’ in a wider sense than we saw in section 3.2. No assumptions about just what stands in relations to what objects are required to see truth-bearers as meaningful.) It is in virtue of being meaningful that truth-bearers are able to enter into correspondence relations. Truth-bearers are things which meaningfully make claims about what the world is like, and are true or false depending on whether the facts in the world are as described.

Exactly the same point can be made for the anti-realist theories of truth we saw in section 4.2, though with different accounts of how truth-bearers are meaningful, and what the world contributes. Though it is somewhat more delicate, something similar can be said for coherence theories, which usually take beliefs, or whole systems of beliefs, as the primary truth-bearers. Though a coherence theory will hardly talk of beliefs representing the facts, it is crucial to the coherence theory that beliefs are contentful beliefs of agents, and that they can enter into coherence relations. Noting the complications in interpreting the genuine classical coherence theories, it appears fair to note that this requires truth-bearers to be meaningful, however the background metaphysics (presumably idealism) understands meaning.

Though Tarski works with sentences, the same can be said of his theory. The sentences to which Tarski’s theory applies are fully interpreted, and so also are meaningful. They characterize the world as being some way or another, and this in turn determines whether they are true or false. Indeed, Tarski needs there to be a fact of the matter about whether each sentence is true or false (abstracting away from context dependence), to ensure that the Tarski biconditionals do their job of fixing the extension of ‘is true’. (But note that just what this fact of the matter consists in is left open by the Tarskian apparatus.)

We thus find the usual candidate truth-bearers linked in a tight circle: interpreted sentences, the propositions they express, the belief speakers might hold towards them, and the acts of assertion they might perform with them are all connected by providing something meaningful. This makes them reasonable bearers of truth. For this reason, it seems, contemporary debates on truth have been much less concerned with the issue of truth-bearers than were the classical ones. Some issues remain, of course. Different metaphysical assumptions may place primary weight on some particular node in the circle, and some metaphysical views still challenge the existence of some of the nodes. Perhaps more importantly, different views on the nature of meaning itself might cast doubt on the coherence of some of the nodes. Notoriously for instance, Quineans (e.g., Quine, 1960) deny the existence of intensional entities, including propositions. Even so, it increasingly appears doubtful that attention to truth per se will bias us towards one particular primary bearer of truth.

For more on these issues, see King (2018).

There is a related, but somewhat different point, which is important to understanding the theories we have canvassed.

The neo-classical theories of truth start with truth-bearers which are already understood to be meaningful, and explain how they get their truth values. But along the way, they often do something more. Take the neo-classical correspondence theory, for instance. This theory, in effect, starts with a view of how propositions are meaningful. They are so in virtue of having constituents in the world, which are brought together in the right way. There are many complications about the nature of meaning, but at a minimum, this tells us what the truth conditions associated with a proposition are. The theory then explains how such truth conditions can lead to the truth value true , by the right fact existing .

Many theories of truth are like the neo-classical correspondence theory in being as much theories of how truth-bearers are meaningful as of how their truth values are fixed. Again, abstracting from some complications about meaning, this makes them theories both of truth conditions and truth values . The Tarskian theory of truth can be construed this way too. This can be seen both in the way the Tarski biconditionals are understood, and how a recursive theory of truth is understood. As we explained Convention T in section 2.2, the primary role of a Tarski biconditional of the form $\ulcorner \ulcorner \phi \urcorner$ is true if and only if $\phi \urcorner$ is to fix whether $\phi$ is in the extension of ‘is true’ or not. But it can also be seen as stating the truth conditions of $\phi$. Both rely on the fact that the unquoted occurrence of $\phi$ is an occurrence of an interpreted sentence, which has a truth value, but also provides its truth conditions upon occasions of use.

Likewise, the base clauses of the recursive definition of truth, those for reference and satisfaction, are taken to state the relevant semantic properties of constituents of an interpreted sentence. In discussing Tarski’s theory of truth in section 2, we focused on how these determine the truth value of a sentence. But they also show us the truth conditions of a sentence are determined by these semantic properties. For instance, for a simple sentence like ‘Snow is white’, the theory tells us that the sentence is true if the referent of ‘Snow’ satisfies ‘white’. This can be understood as telling us that the truth conditions of ‘Snow is white’ are those conditions in which the referent of ‘Snow’ satisfies the predicate ‘is white’.

As we saw in sections 3 and 4, the Tarskian apparatus is often seen as needing some kind of supplementation to provide a full theory of truth. A full theory of truth conditions will likewise rest on how the Tarskian apparatus is put to use. In particular, just what kinds of conditions those in which the referent of ‘snow’ satisfies the predicate ‘is white’ are will depend on whether we opt for realist or anti-realist theories. The realist option will simply look for the conditions under which the stuff snow bears the property of whiteness; the anti-realist option will look to the conditions under which it can be verified, or asserted with warrant, that snow is white.

There is a broad family of theories of truth which are theories of truth conditions as well as truth values. This family includes the correspondence theory in all its forms – classical and modern. Yet this family is much wider than the correspondence theory, and wider than realist theories of truth more generally. Indeed, virtually all the theories of truth that make contributions to the realism/anti-realism debate are theories of truth conditions. In a slogan, for many approaches to truth, a theory of truth is a theory of truth conditions.

Any theory that provides a substantial account of truth conditions can offer a simple account of truth values: a truth-bearer provides truth conditions, and it is true if and only if the actual way things are is among them. Because of this, any such theory will imply a strong, but very particular, biconditional, close in form to the Tarski biconditionals. It can be made most vivid if we think of propositions as sets of truth conditions. Let $p$ be a proposition, i.e., a set of truth conditions, and let $a$ be the ‘actual world’, the condition that actually obtains. Then we can almost trivially see:

$p$ is true if and only if $a \in p$.

This is presumably necessary. But it is important to observe that it is in one respect crucially different from the genuine Tarski biconditionals. It makes no use of a non-quoted sentence, or in fact any sentence at all. It does not have the disquotational character of the Tarski biconditionals.

Though this may look like a principle that deflationists should applaud, it is not. Rather, it shows that deflationists cannot really hold a truth-conditional view of content at all. If they do, then they inter alia have a non-deflationary theory of truth, simply by linking truth value to truth conditions through the above biconditional. It is typical of thoroughgoing deflationist theories to present a non-truth-conditional theory of the contents of sentences: a non-truth-conditional account of what makes truth-bearers meaningful. We take it this is what is offered, for instance, by the use theory of propositions in Horwich (1990). It is certainly one of the leading ideas of Field (1986; 1994), which explore how a conceptual role account of content would ground a deflationist view of truth. Once one has a non-truth-conditional account of content, it is then possible to add a deflationist truth predicate, and use this to give purely deflationist statements of truth conditions. But the starting point must be a non-truth-conditional view of what makes truth-bearers meaningful.

Both deflationists and anti-realists start with something other than correspondence truth conditions. But whereas an anti-realist will propose a different theory of truth conditions, a deflationists will start with an account of content which is not a theory of truth conditions at all. The deflationist will then propose that the truth predicate, given by the Tarski biconditionals, is an additional device, not for understanding content, but for disquotation. It is a useful device, as we discussed in section 5.3, but it has nothing to do with content. To a deflationist, the meaningfulness of truth-bearers has nothing to do with truth.

It has been an influential idea, since the seminal work of Davidson (e.g., 1967), to see a Tarskian theory of truth as a theory of meaning. At least, as we have seen, a Tarskian theory can be seen as showing how the truth conditions of a sentence are determined by the semantic properties of its parts. More generally, as we see in much of the work of Davidson and of Dummett (e.g., 1959; 1976; 1983; 1991), giving a theory of truth conditions can be understood as a crucial part of giving a theory of meaning. Thus, any theory of truth that falls into the broad category of those which are theories of truth conditions can be seen as part of a theory of meaning. (For more discussion of these issues, see Higginbotham (1986; 1989) and the exchange between Higginbotham (1992) and Soames (1992).)

A number of commentators on Tarski (e.g., Etchemendy, 1988; Soames, 1984) have observed that the Tarskian apparatus needs to be understood in a particular way to make it suitable for giving a theory of meaning. Tarski’s work is often taken to show how to define a truth predicate. If it is so used, then whether or not a sentence is true becomes, in essence, a truth of mathematics. Presumably what truth conditions sentences of a natural language have is a contingent matter, so a truth predicate defined in this way cannot be used to give a theory of meaning for them. But the Tarskian apparatus need not be used just to explicitly define truth. The recursive characterization of truth can be used to state the semantic properties of sentences and their constituents, as a theory of meaning should. In such an application, truth is not taken to be explicitly defined, but rather the truth conditions of sentences are taken to be described. (See Heck, 1997 for more discussion.)

Inspired by Quine (e.g., 1960), Davidson himself is well known for taking a different approach to using a theory of truth as a theory of meaning than is implicit in Field (1972). Whereas a Field-inspired representational approach is based on a causal account of reference, Davidson (e.g., 1973) proposes a process of radical interpretation in which an interpreter builds a Tarskian theory to interpret a speaker as holding beliefs which are consistent, coherent, and largely true.

This led Davidson (e.g. 1986) to argue that most of our beliefs are true – a conclusion that squares well with the coherence theory of truth. This is a weaker claim than the neo-classical coherence theory would make. It does not insist that all the members of any coherent set of beliefs are true, or that truth simply consists in being a member of such a coherent set. But all the same, the conclusion that most of our beliefs are true, because their contents are to be understood through a process of radical interpretation which will make them a coherent and rational system, has a clear affinity with the neo-classical coherence theory.

In Davidson (1986), he thought his view of truth had enough affinity with the neo-classical coherence theory to warrant being called a coherence theory of truth, while at the same time he saw the role of Tarskian apparatus as warranting the claim that his view was also compatible with a kind of correspondence theory of truth.

In later work, however, Davidson reconsidered this position. In fact, already in Davidson (1977) he had expressed doubt about any understanding of the role of Tarski’s theory in radical interpretation that involves the kind of representational apparatus relied on by Field (1972), as we discussed in sections 3.1 and 3.2. In the “Afterthoughts” to Davidson (1986), he also concluded that his view departs too far from the neo-classical coherence theory to be named one. What is important is rather the role of radical interpretation in the theory of content, and its leading to the idea that belief is veridical. These are indeed points connected to coherence, but not to the coherence theory of truth per se. They also comprise a strong form of anti-representationalism. Thus, though he does not advance a coherence theory of truth, he does advance a theory that stands in opposition to the representational variants of the correspondence theory we discussed in section 3.2.

For more on Davidson, see Glanzberg (2013) and the entry on Donald Davidson .

The relation between truth and meaning is not the only place where truth and language relate closely. Another is the idea, also much-stressed in the writings of Dummett (e.g., 1959), of the relation between truth and assertion. Again, it fits into a platitude:

Truth is the aim of assertion.

A person making an assertion, the platitude holds, aims to say something true.

It is easy to cast this platitude in a way that appears false. Surely, many speakers do not aim to say something true. Any speaker who lies does not. Any speaker whose aim is to flatter, or to deceive, aims at something other than truth.

The motivation for the truth-assertion platitude is rather different. It looks at assertion as a practice, in which certain rules are constitutive . As is often noted, the natural parallel here is with games, like chess or baseball, which are defined by certain rules. The platitude holds that it is constitutive of the practice of making assertions that assertions aim at truth. An assertion by its nature presents what it is saying as true, and any assertion which fails to be true is ipso facto liable to criticism, whether or not the person making the assertion themself wished to have said something true or to have lied.

Dummett’s original discussion of this idea was partially a criticism of deflationism (in particular, of views of Strawson, 1950). The idea that we fully explain the concept of truth by way of the Tarski biconditionals is challenged by the claim that the truth-assertion platitude is fundamental to truth. As Dummett there put it, what is left out by the Tarski biconditionals, and captured by the truth-assertion platitude, is the point of the concept of truth, or what the concept is used for. (For further discussion, see Glanzberg, 2003a and Wright, 1992.)

Whether or not assertion has such constitutive rules is, of course, controversial. But among those who accept that it does, the place of truth in the constitutive rules is itself controversial. The leading alternative, defended by Williamson (1996), is that knowledge, not truth, is fundamental to the constitutive rules of assertion. Williamson defends an account of assertion based on the rule that one must assert only what one knows.

For more on truth and assertion, see the papers in Brown and Cappelen (2011) and the entry on assertion .

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Josh Parsons for advice on metaphysics, and to Jc Beall, Justin Khoo, Jason Stanley, Paul Teller, and an anonymous referee for very helpful comments on earlier drafts.

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‘Disability Intimacy’ starts a long-overdue conversation

Alice Wong, the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project

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Book Review

Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire

Edited by Alice Wong Vintage: 384 pages, $19 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org , whose fees support independent bookstores.

To whom does desire belong? How about love and care? These are the questions at the heart of “Disability Intimacy,” a new book of essays and ephemera collected by the San Francisco activist Alice Wong, and the answers are painfully obvious: Those human experiences are for everyone. What’s less obvious to many, and acutely painful to some of us, is that those questions needed to be asked and answered. This book needed to exist.

It is a longstanding and unfortunate truth that disabled people are often seen as undesirable and even as unable to experience desire, love or care in the ways that all individuals do. As disabled people we understand how false that notion is and how harmful it can be. Giving and receiving love — physically or verbally, in a context of romance, sex, close friendship or family bonds — is as much our right to experience as anyone else’s, and our stories of intimate connections and losses are worth telling as much as anyone else’s. So I commend Wong and the collection’s 40 contributors for taking on this topic.

“Disability Intimacy” is not an extended lament. Many of its standouts are downright celebratory, as well as lessons in engaging storytelling. “The Last Walk” by Melissa Hung explores the grief of losing a beloved friend while simultaneously cherishing their last moments together and the sling bag that became a physical memory of her friend Judy. In “Hi, Are You Single?” by Ryan J. Haddad, one of the standout poems in the collection, Haddad explores the messy, awkward and welcome way a hookup can support their collective desire for pleasure.

Having contributed to and read Wong’s anthology from 2020, “Disability Visibility,” I thought I knew what I was getting into, but the two collections are quite different. It was disappointing to come away from “Intimacy” without a theme as clear as that of “Visibility,” perhaps in part reflecting the older collection’s more straightforward subject matter. Love is complicated. And 40 contributors is a lot.

As one of the first of its kind to attempt what it is attempting, “Disability Intimacy” has the unfair expectation to be everything for everyone, to answer the question of desirability for an entire community that is not monolithic. Wong refuses to shut out the “other” in favor of the conventionally digestible. This collection shines in its entries that take big swings, discussing topics such as BDSM, queer love and intergenerational relationships — and even laziness, a concept that one essay reclaims and celebrates as a purposeful act of rest, epitomized by the love between a father and son who connect over turning out the light and climbing in bed to take naps. In these pieces, the authors seem to be living as unapologetically on the page as they do in life.

Tucked among the essays, readers will be delighted to also discover poems and even a conversation between two disabled people of color about redefining intimacy for themselves, ableism and what they refuse to call intimacy. It’s a refreshing and effective shakeup of the anthology form. It’s also a lot to take in.

I had to reread certain sections as some of the points got lost along the way, and sometimes I found myself mentally rearranging the book because entries felt misplaced. Although many of the pieces could have been shorter, none should have been left out. Might the cause have been better served with these many entries divided between two volumes? This could have encouraged the reader to sit with the thoughts and feelings that come up rather than rushing onward.

There is often a lot of pressure placed on books of this kind that amplify marginalized voices or tackle taboo topics, but remember: Sometimes a book does the world a service not because it is encyclopedic or full of answers but simply because it raises questions and starts conversations.

In the end, what we readers ask of ourselves is what counts. Whom do we allow ourselves to desire, and why? Toward whose stories do we gravitate, and whom do we leave in the margins? How will we expand our own worldview?

Keah Brown , a journalist, activist, actor and screenwriter, is the author of “ The Pretty One ” and “ The Secret Summer Promise .”

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Meet the company beating theme parks at their own game.

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The concept that was launched with Disney's MagicBand is now being used in a whole new industry ... [+] (Photo by Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)

Few industries are as offbeat as the theme park sector. It's a world where making artificial mountains and organising mass mobs of dancers dressed in period clothing is commonplace. So it's hard to see how expertise in the field could apply to other sectors but actually this couldn't be further from the truth.

Indeed, when a colossus of one of the oldest industries on earth turned to a veteran of the theme park industry, it made such a splash that it transformed its entire business model.

With origins dating back nearly 60 years, Princess Cruises is the oldest North American cruise line operator. In 1965, Canadian construction equipment distributor Stanley McDonald spotted an opportunity to put Canadian Pacific's Princess Patricia cruise ship to more use. The Princess Pat, as she was fondly known, usually cruised around Alaska but McDonald chartered it on Mexican Riviera cruises from Los Angeles when it would have otherwise been laid up for the winter. Princess Cruises was born and it went full steam ahead from then on.

Princess became so successful that it came onto the radar of Britain's Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O). The historic shipping line was founded in 1837 and by 1960 it had become the world's largest shipping company with 320 ocean-going vessels. In 1974 P&O bought Princess and it went from strength to strength. So much so indeed that P&O eventually realized Princess could stand on its own two feet and spun it off in 2000 to form an independent company, P&O Princess Cruises.

Three years later, Princess merged with industry giant Carnival Corporation in a $5.4 billion deal which made the combined business the world's largest cruise operator and kept it on the crest of the wave in the face of increasing competition. Over the following years the market was awash with consolidation and a steady stream of mega cruise liners emerged from from Princess' rivals. In 2014 Princess began to chart a new course and it hasn't looked back since then.

According to CruiseMarketWatch, Princess has $3.5 billion of annual revenue and carries 1.6 million passengers annually. It is thanks to John Padgett, a veteran of Disney's theme park division, who became Carnival's chief experience and innovation officer in 2014 and took the wheel of Princess itself in 2021.

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Princess Cruises' President, John Padgett, has introduced theme park technology to the cruise line ... [+] (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Princess Cruises)

A theme park executive might not sound like someone who could give a magic touch to a luxury cruise line but actually Padgett cast perhaps the most powerful spell on the company in its entire history. Padgett is probably the most important technology innovator in the modern era of Disney and over an 18-year career with the Mouse he rose through its ranks until he ultimately landed a role with the suitably imaginative title of head of game changer experience development. There was good reason for this name.

Padgett is one of the most respected and talented innovators in the leisure industry. He invented and implemented many of the most groundbreaking guest engagement developments at Disney's theme parks including the FastPass+ queue-cutting system, the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique princess-themed children's makeover outlets and the Be Our Guest restaurant which replicates the ballroom scene from Beauty and the Beast .

He holds 35 patents covering everything from itinerary scheduling to digital experience interaction platforms and, crucially, wearable devices. The reason for the latter is that he developed Disney's wearable wireless MagicBand device which revolutionized the entry, ride access and payment process at its theme parks.

The device debuted at the sprawling Walt Disney World Resort in 2013 and is essentially a rubber bracelet with a removable button in the center. The button contains a chip connected to a small antenna as well as a high frequency radio device. Visitors' ticket, accommodation and payment details can be synced to the MagicBand enabling them to enter the parks and their hotel room by tapping the bracelet to wireless receivers. Likewise, they can pay at shops and restaurants in the same way making impulse buys much easier.

MagicBands can even be used to play interactive games in Disney's fairytale-themed Magic Kingdom theme park with guests going on a treasure hunt following clues which appear when the bracelet is touched to receivers hidden in the scenery.

Deploying the MagicBand cost a reported $1 billion but it soon started to make the money back. Disney's chief executive "Bob Iger had amazing foresight and when he saw the original prototype of the MagicBand, he said 'this thing's going to be very special' and he was right," says Padgett.

Not only were customers prepared to pay more for their stays due to the convenience of the MagicBand but it also boosted guest spending and triggered a new collecting craze as fans clamored for the different designs of wristbands that Disney put on sale. Like all of the best technological advancements, necessity was the mother of this invention.

"I used to go into the Magic Kingdom and I would think, people are paying a tremendous amount of money for this experience which makes more money the more people you put into it. But the experience degrades the more you put people into it," says Padgett.

"So to me that set up a broader dilemma in all of travel and it is the same story with cruise ships. They started small and the cruise experience was personalized. It was individualized, and this was before any technology existed on ships. But as ships grew so did the volume of people experiencing their amenities, attractions, restaurants, retail, casinos and the experience actually degrades.

"I wanted to be the person who creates experiences like something an elite person has on a very limited volume but I wanted to do it at scale because scale gives choice, scale gives options. So that's where I started with the MagicBand."

His eureka moment came on a flight from Hollywood Burbank Airport, just a few miles from Disney's headquarters. Padgett opened the Sky Mall magazine and turned to the golf section where he saw the Trion:Z magnetic therapy bracelet which is designed to help players with their swing.

Padgett says it occurred to him that "if someone wore something like this and it seamlessly interacted with everything that you have on a vacation experience, we could eliminate hotel key cards, credit cards, meal vouchers, Fastpass tickets, transportation vouchers and credit cards." That was just step one as he adds that this could also enable guests to "be recognized as an individual so you could have scale but you could also have a personalized interaction." It sounds like a no-brainer but getting it to market was far from child's play.

"The biggest challenge was telling an organization renowned for being the best of the best on delivering experience, that it was not doing it good enough, and that we could do it better. And if you believe in this little thing, and you believe in this theory of eliminating friction, everything improves. At Disney, the business model was built on growing by building attractions but this was saying, 'no, all your content is great. It's improving access to your content that will increase consumption'. So it was a different mindset.

"There was also a lot of challenge around would people wear a device because wearable devices didn’t exist yet. So you had to believe in the philosophy that if you improve the experience, the guests will do it. So you're not telling them to wear this wearable, you're saying, 'if you do it, we will deliver a greater experience with this MagicBand'. And it was universally adopted. Whether you were three years old or 93 years old, it was instant adoption."

Padget introduced the MagicBand to Disney's theme parks (Photo by Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews ... [+] Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)

Within just two years, more than 10 million MagicBands had been distributed and although it ushered in a whole new world for Disney, Padgett had even grander plans in mind.

"The reality is it only accomplished half of the equation that I had envisioned," he says. "It took friction out of the overall experience. The math behind it was if you eliminate friction, you increase consumption. And so that was the principle behind the MagicBand.

"The other 50% of it was if I can individually recognize you, I can give you a personalized experience and a personalized experience is more valuable than a commodity experience so it's worth more." Not just for guests but for Disney too. "If I can increase volume by reducing friction, and I can increase value by increasing personalization, those things multiply. You create value for the guest and you create value for the enterprise."

However, he adds "the reality is that the personalization element was before its time. The MagicBand was no doubt the leader in eliminating friction from an entire experience spanning a complete city or destination but what it did not do was deliver personalization at scale. My passion was to finish that job."

The MagicBand was a wearable before the category even existed and although it broke new ground, its potential has yet to be fully realized. Many guests only use the device for entering the parks and paying for tickets, merchandise, food and drink but, other than that, the experience is largely the same as before the tech was introduced. Padgett explains why.

"A fundamental element to achieving personalization at scale is individual recognition and identification. And doing that spanning an entire experience. Well, the Disney model eliminated the transactional friction but it wasn't based on a horizontal platform that spanned every element of the experience to interact uniquely in real time."

In short, as the MagicBand's popularity hadn't been proven when it was introduced, it wasn't integrated into the parks and Disney's MyMagic+ digital platform as widely as it could have been. Having seen the success of the MagicBand at Disney World, a year after Padgett joined Carnival he spearheaded the development of a new form of technology which would be integrated across all aspects of the on-board experience and would finally achieve his aim of true guest personalization.

The gold standard in cruising has long been the ratio between the number of guests and staff with the holy grail being 1:1 as it means that travelers should never be kept waiting. Padgett realised that wireless wearable tech could be used to reach this objective without needing to increase staff numbers and thereby costs.

"My vision was that the concept of personalization at scale would change the game in the travel business," he says. It was shared by Carnival's then-CEO Arnold Donald. "Everyone in the cruise industry knows that the ships were getting bigger and bigger and with that, there were more and more guests to handle," adds Padgett. "But also everyone in the cruise industry knows that yacht-class, small-ship sailing has personalization. So to me, the cruise ship was the perfect platform, a complete city-like environment where I could set out to accomplish this vision of personalization at scale."

Wireless technology was moving so fast that by 2015, when Padgett began exploring the use of it on Princess' ships, he was able to develop a completely new cutting-edge platform for the cruise operator. It now operates on every Princess ship and, as Padgett says, it "orchestrates every single guest interaction, every single crew interaction with every single aspect of the entire experience end-to-end with no exceptions. That means every guest is recognized as an individual with their needs, wants and desires in real time.

"It allows Princess crew members to interact digitally or physically and deliver service to that guest in a personalized way and do it on some of the largest cruise ships in the world. We have accomplished the mission of eliminating friction across the entire experience while delivering a personalized experience in real time to anyone in the world on any ship, any time." It is no exaggeration.

At the heart of the system is a Quarter-sized waterproof, heatproof and sand-proof button-like wearable wireless transmitter called the Ocean Medallion. Inside it are two microscopic antennas – one for Near Field Communication (NFC) and the other utilizing Bluetooth Low Energy. The Medallion is given free to every guest and communicates with receivers scattered all over the ship. In technical jargon, it turns the ship into what is known as an Internet of Things (IoT) - a network of interconnected systems which are embedded with sensors, software, network connectivity and electronics to enable them to collect and exchange data.

Princess's Ocean Medallion brings a new level of personalisation to cruising

In practical terms, it gives guests the kind of freedom and flexibility that could previously only be dreamed of on a cruise. That starts on embarkation as filling in seemingly endless forms is a thing of the past. The Medallions are sent to guests in advance and come with a lanyard or they can be clipped to your shirt. All it takes to get onboard is tapping the Medallion on a receiver and showing your ID to staff. Then the device really comes into its own.

Anyone who has been on a cruise knows how similar the floors and corridors can look. It's usually easy to get lost but not with the Medallion as it can connect to an app on your phone to pinpoint your precise position and even the location of others in your group.

Guests store their name and personal preferences on the app so staff at bars and restaurants know who you are and what you usually order before you get to the front of the queue. Like the MagicBand, it can also be used for payment but that's just the start.

If a guest places an order at the bar and then rushes out to the deck to see a school of dolphins in the sea, the server can use the system to locate them and bring their drink over. The same goes if guests head up to one of the restaurants only to find that it's fully booked. The staff can find them if there's a cancelation before they get a table elsewhere. On other cruise liners guests would have to be contacted by cell phone which can come at quite a cost using satellite connections in the middle of an ocean.

The Medallion even opens the door to their room as they walk up without needing to touch the handle. It even helps guests to get more shut eye as they don't have to be up when housekeeping come round. Thanks to the Medallion locator, housekeeping know when guests have left the room so they can come over to clean it then.

As Padgett says, it is "by far the most advanced experiential IoT that exists on the planet and it is operational at any scale." He explains that two advancements were crucial to its creation. The first was advancements in radio technology and the other was the development of the bespoke Princess OceanPlatform that is installed on hardware throughout the ship to interact with the Medallions.

Padgett says that it is different to the MagicBand tech in almost every way but what really makes the difference is the function of the sensors and receivers scattered around the ship. "We have an embedded sensor network on all the ships that is pervasive versus being at transactional points. The pervasiveness of the sensor network facilitates individual recognition in real time everywhere. Whereas within the theme park model, and I won't say just Disney, I'll say the theme park model, the technology is fundamental to transaction points. On a Princess ship, it's the whole. Generally speaking, the mindset is real time identification and delivery of service any time anywhere. It's dynamic."

Without the OceanPlatform pulling the different sets of data together, the system wouldn't be give guests anywhere near as much flexibility. Padgett adds that Disney lacks this because “it was before its time. When the magic band was created we were still using Blackberries. So the concept of an iOS that would span a physical infrastructure was not conceived. What happened is the MagicBand took you to a level where you could see more potential but you could also see the next hurdle and that was the creation of a platform that spanned all legacy systems."

He says that the OceanPlatform "extends across every single vertical, and when I say that, I'm talking hospitality, restaurants, bars, casinos, recreation." It even operates in the shops at some of the ports Princess' ships stop at "so there's never a break that you have to pull out your credit card.

"It's one thing to say you operate within a theme park, or you operate within a cruise ship, but can you extend that umbrella out to include assets and experiences that you don't physically control, own or operate? The answer is yes and I think more than 12 countries and over 200 different outlets participate in our ecosystem." He says that more are on the way and there's a very basic reason for this.

"The most simple interaction – recognition of your name, your needs, wants, desires and relationships in real time – blows people away so it takes hospitality back to its core. It's weird that we have the most technologically advanced IoT on the planet, enabling a fully connected mobile smart city in real time but the value comes from the most organic service interaction. There is an irony there." It took more than the wave of a magic wand to pull it off.

"The challenge was taking 15 cruise ships that never stop, that are always full and only go into dry dock once every three years for 13 days, and installing a complete IoT infrastructure without altering the economics of the assets, which is to keep them running.

"We did that and I would say that the biggest challenge was figuring out how to do it, which was a tremendous amount of planning. We ended up with a method by which we could do it and not change the overall economics of our dry docking. Then Covid hit and it was very hard to access ships but we were actually able to complete 10 ship transformations during the Covid pause. When everyone else was going home, we went to the ships and finished our job."

Each upgrade involved the installation of 72 miles of cable, 4,000 sensors, 650 readers, 500 edge computing devices and more than 4,000 interactive portals.

Despite getting an unexpected boost from the pandemic, the entire Medallion development process from inception to completion of installation still took seven years from 2015 to 2021.

Padgett explains that at sea "everything is harder than on land. One giant reason is the ship is made of 19 decks of steel. One of the most challenging aspects to deal with is connectivity. Another challenging element is working through satellites versus terrestrial communications. And then the others are all about weight, heat all of those engineering factors are taken to the next level in a maritime environment because of the extreme focus on safety. And the whole thing is moving all the time, even when a ship is in port"

The IoT devices, software, firmware and digital interaction layers for guests and crew were all developed for Princess. It came at quite a cost. "You're talking hundreds of millions. That's complete. That’s development, hardware, software, implementation at scale across a whole fleet of ships."

Like the MagicBands, different bracelets can be bought for the Medallions and Padgett says that the look of the device itself can be "personalized to you based on you as an individual, whether you're in a military branch, your favorite pet, your favorite color, or all of those things."

The Medallion can be personalised in a variety of ways

However, he adds that the system isn't designed to be a revenue generator and is instead "inherent in our overall business model. Apple doesn't look at their iOS segmented from their mobile device or apps. The enterprise value of Apple increased with the advent of iOS but they don't sell iOS itself.

"The overall revenue driver is the personalized experience that it enables you to deliver. So you make money on the whole, not the thing. The value comes from making sure you remember that the thing itself doesn't deliver any value. The experience becomes personalized and hassle free and that is the value to the consumer.

“Value comes from benefiting the consumer holistically across the experience so that they pay more overall both on their initial visit and their repeat visits. That is where you really create value. Differentiation and loyalty are the two key points.

"This is completely unique to Princess and it has become so synonymous with the Princess point of differentiation. Every cruise brand picks a point of differentiation with which to compete and Princess has become synonymous with personalised service at scale."

Indeed, the system is so transformational that Princess created a new name, called MedallionClass, for the category of service which can only be found on its ships. It isn't marketing mumbo-jumbo as the Medallion has won more than 10 major awards and been nominated for a prestigious innovation prize at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Importantly, Padgett says that after it was introduced "we saw double-digit improvements in our experiential levels." It also led to a sea change in the approach towards the lifespan of the ships themselves.

"Before the advent of this, and this happens in theme parks too, the belief was that as your assets get older, your experience goes down. Once we moved to a platform based service delivery, we actually proved that the service level can be ubiquitous, regardless of the age of your physical platform. It was a mindset shift that if an old ship has a universal service delivery that's consistent with your new ships, you can score experiential levels just as high.

"When you put that in the context of a cruise ship roughly costing a billion dollars, spending a few hundred million that can raise the productivity of your entire fleet is a very efficient investment."

It enabled Princess to maximise the use from its assets which increased their return on investment and contributed to Padgett being promoted to president of the brand in 2021. There is more to come from his invention as he says "let's just say that at this point, there's a lot of capabilities that we haven't manifested yet and so we still have a lot in our tank."

Ironically, although Disney pioneered the MagicBand in its parks before any of its rivals more than a decade ago, it only launched it on its cruise ships last summer. Padgett won't comment on why he thinks it has taken the Mouse so long to bring its wearable tech to sea but there is no doubt that with Princess firmly docked in this space it will be tough for Disney to make waves.

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Of Truth by Francis Bacon Summary & Analysis
First, truth is acquired through hard work and man is ever reluctant to work hard. Secondly, truth curtails man's freedom. More than that the real reason of man's disliking to truth is that man is attached to lies which Bacon says "a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.". Man loves falsehood because, Bacon says that truth is ...
Francis Bacon's Classic Essay, "Of Truth"
Updated on January 24, 2019. "Of Truth" is the opening essay in the final edition of the philosopher, statesman and jurist Francis Bacon 's "Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral" (1625). In this essay, as associate professor of philosophy Svetozar Minkov points out, Bacon addresses the question of "whether it is worse to lie to others or to ...
Of Truth by Francis Bacon
The inquiry of truth is the love-making of it, the knowledge of truth is the presence of it, and the belief of truth is the enjoying of it. These three ideas are taught by truth itself. Truth is the supreme good of human nature. God has created in his six working days all the creatures. - inanimate as well as animate.
Of Truth by Francis Bacon: Explained in Easy Language
Truth has value, and there are benefits to being truthful. Lies might offer temporary pleasure. However, truth has a deep and lasting significance for individuals. We have discussed a summary, line-by-line explanation, and the theme of the essay in the following paragraphs, all explained in simple language.
Of Truth, Sir Francis Bacon, Analysis & Summary
In his thought-provoking essay, "Of Truth," Sir Francis Bacon initiates the discourse by alluding to the historical figure of Pilate, the Ancient Roman Governor. Pilate's failure to fully comprehend and analyze the truth led him to make a critical decision without patiently awaiting its revelation. Bacon suggests that had Pilate possessed a ...
Of Truth Critical Analysis by Sir Francis Bacon along with Summary
The world knows Sir Francis Bacon for his worldly wisdom. He had made an analysis of the world and in "Of Truth", he guided his readers on how to get success even in critical situations. Alexander Pope called Bacon the meanest kind of person because of his worldly philosophy. Bacon always focuses on worldly benefits and rarely talks about ...
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Francis Bacon's essay "Of Truth" is one of the more famous of his works of prose. The essay begins by mocking those who refuse to admit that there is any certain, objective truth. Bacon ...
The Works of Francis Bacon/Volume 1/Essays/Of Truth
The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense: the last was the light of reason; and his Sabbath work ever since, is the illumination of his Spirit. First, he breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the ...
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Of Truth by Francis Bacon. In this famous essay, Bacon demonstrates his profound observation of human beings with a particular emphasis on truth. Bacon asserts in this article that truth is the highest value for humans. He refers to the pursuit of truth as wooing it, knowledge of truth as being present with it, and belief in truth as enjoying it.
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ESSAYES. I. OF TRUTH. WHAT is Truth? said jesting Pilate; [1] And would not stay for an Answer. Certainly there be, that delight in Giddinesse, [2] And count it a Bondage to fix a Beleefe; Affecting [3] Freewill in Thinking, as well as in Acting. And though the Sects of Philosophers of that Kinde be gone, yet there remaine certaine discoursing ...
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Jul 2, 2023. Sir Francis Bacon, renowned for his profound worldly wisdom, offers a compelling analysis of the human condition in his essay "Of Truth.". Although criticized by some, such as ...
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Explanation. Undoubtedly, people do make very sincere and strenuous attempts to discover 'truth'. They succeed, but regrettably, they find the burden and demands of 'truth' to be unbearable. Expediently, they abandon the pursuit of 'truth', and drift towards 'lies' knowingly very well that resorting to 'lies' is degrading.
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The Essays of Francis Bacon. Ed. Mary Augusta Scott, PhD. New York: Scribner's, 1908. PDF file. philosophers of that kind be gone: refers to the Ancient Philosophers known as The Skeptics, the first being Pyrrho (360BCE-270CBE) which asserts nothing of this world can be truly understood in full. Basic perceptions of humans may be in misguided.
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The essay serves as a thought-provoking commentary on the human experience, truth-seeking, and the intricate relationship between truth and falsehood. Here's a detailed analysis: 1. Literary Craftsmanship: ... The themes explored in "Of Truth" retain their relevance across temporal and cultural boundaries. The human struggle with truth, the ...
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Answer: In Francis Bacon's essay "Of Truth," the author extols the value of truth and critically explains that there are many people who do not place much value on truth, as they find lies more interesting. Bacon asserts that truth comes straight from God, so our relationship with truth brings humans closer to God. Q.
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The three main themes in Essays include life, relationships, and truth. Life: Many of Bacon's essays are concerned with how humans can to conduct themselves to lead better lives. Relationships ...
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Francis Bacon Essays is a collection of eight of the famous philosopher's many essays. Each dissertation contains words of wisdom that have proven to be enlightening for many generations that followed. From "Truth" to "Of Superstition" and "Marriage and Single Life", Bacon covers a wide range of intriguing topics in order to ...
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Culture and Community as Obstacles. Bacon writes that in order to become a philosopher in the true sense of the word, to be a pursuer of actual truth, one must be ready to accept the shame and opposition that come when one passes the cultural ideas of one's community. The community will not really appreciate that, says Bacon.
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He was expert in expressing truth in a few possible words with beauty. His essays are an example of this aphoristic style. His essay "Of Truth" has many examples of the aphoristic style. Summary Humans and Truth & Lie. Of truth is Bacon's great work of prose which shows his keen observation of human beings with their attributes of truth ...
Truth
Instead, this essay will concentrate on the main themes in the study of truth in the contemporary philosophical literature. It will attempt to survey the key problems and theories of current interest, and show how they relate to one-another. ... "The monistic theory of truth", in Philosophical Essays, London: George Allen and Unwin, 131 ...
Theme and Symbolism: TRUTH
The truth will always come out. The truth is complicated. The truth will set you free. The whole truth should be told at all times. We are each a sum of the stories we believe. LIES (ANTI-THEMATIC STATEMENTS) YOUR CHARACTER MIGHT BELIEVE: There is no black or white, only gray. I never lie. My word is my bond.
The Truth About Safe Harbors by Susan C. Morse :: SSRN
The Truth About Safe Harbors. Tennessee Law Review, Forthcoming. 75 Pages Posted: 25 Apr 2024. See all articles by Susan C. Morse Susan C. Morse. University of Texas at Austin - School of Law. ... PAPERS. 10,180. Feedback. Feedback to SSRN. Feedback (required) Email (required) Submit
What are the themes in Francis Bacon's Essays, and how do they relate
Bacon's views on life are shaped by his belief in the importance of knowledge, truth, and morality. He suggests that individuals should strive to live a virtuous life. Related to this is the theme ...
'Disability Intimacy' starts a long-overdue conversation
Book Review. Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire. Edited by Alice Wong Vintage: 384 pages, $19 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop ...
Meet The Company Beating Theme Parks At Their Own Game
Few industries are as offbeat as the theme park sector. So it's hard to see how expertise in the field could apply to other sectors but actually this couldn't be further from the truth.
Taylor Swift
[Verse 1] I was in my new house placing daydreams Patching up the crack along the wall I pass it and lose track of what I'm saying 'Cause that's where I was when I got the call [Pre-Chorus] When ...

Of Truth by Francis Bacon Summary & Analysis

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Of Truth Critical Analysis by Sir Francis Bacon along with Summary

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Why Do Not People Speak the Truth?

How Is The Truth Different from Lie?

Critical Analysis of “Of Truth” Shows that Poetry is Harmful?

Truth Ends Pride:

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Of Truth – Summary and Analysis

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Of Truth | Francis Bacon | Summary | Questions Answers

Of Truth By Francis Bacon | Summary

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51 Francis Bacon: Essays

Literary Context

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Reading: From Essayes

VIII. OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE.

XI. OF GREAT PLACE.

XVII. OF SUPERSTITION.

XXXIII. OF PLANTATIONS.

XLVII. OF NEGOTIATING.

XXXVII. OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS.

L. OF STUDIES.

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Francis Bacon: Essays and Major Works

Truth and Perception

Culture and Community as Obstacles

Systematic Approaches to Knowledge

Scientific Study

God's Role in Learning

Francis Bacon: Essays and Major Works Questions and Answers

Study Guide for Francis Bacon: Essays and Major Works

Essays for Francis Bacon: Essays and Major Works

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Of Truth by Francis Bacon Summary

Introduction

Style of Writing

Humans and Truth & Lie

Reason Why People Hate Truth

Lies and Pleasure

Lie is Like Snake

Related Posts:

Bibliography

1.1 The correspondence theory

2. Tarski’s theory of truth

3. Correspondence revisited

4. Realism and anti-realism