Truth, science, and psychology

Abstract

This Chapter adopts the correspondence theory as a plausible theory of truth and discusses it in relation to science. The correspondence theory is presented in a form that enables one to show that it uniquely fulfils a crucial function in psychological research, because the interpretation of truth claims as suppositions that concern states of affairs in the world clearly explicates what it means for a theory to be true, and what it means for a theory to be false. For this reason, correspondence truth has the advantage of allowing researchers to properly understand the assumptions of scientific research as claims about the factual state of the world, as well as scrutinizing these assumptions. It is concluded that correspondence truth plays an important part in our understanding of science, including psychology.