EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONSIDERATION OF FACT AND TRUTH: HOW THEY WORK TOGETHER TO GIVE KNOWLEDGE

Abstract

This paper makes a thematic analysis of fact and truth to demonstrate the synergy between them. It argues that it is this synergy that makes knowledge relatable. In other words, the synergy between fact and truth evidences what we may want to call knowledge. Accordingly, on the one hand, a fact is the representation of the reality as it is. Thus, it is, traditionally, the worldly correlate of a true proposition, a state of affairs whose obtaining makes that proposition true. Truth on the other hand, is what is believed to be a fact by a person; it is being in agreement with fact or reality, or fidelity to an original or a standard. Consequently, the paper, using the phenomenological method of enquiry, shows that the interplay of these concepts gives knowledge in such a way that there is knowledge if and only if what is represented is actually what is. For instance, if I claim to know a thing then my description of the thing should be the thing I am actually claiming to know and not otherwise. After all, to know a thing means to be aware of the state of being of an object or proposition where an alternative state of being is impossible to be the case.