An Argument for a Phenomenological Pragmatic Conception of Truth

Correspondence theories of truth claim that truth involves a relationship between ideas in the mind and facts in the world, but because minds are viewed as being disconnected from the world, there is no way to determine whether beliefs are true or false under the correspondence view. For truth to be a meaningful concept, a theory about it must conceive of it in a way that is meaningful for humans. By looking at Heidegger’s ideas about phenomenology and humans as Dasein I argue for a framework that does not rest on a Cartesian subject/object dualism, and instead grounds concepts, like truth, in experience. I then turn to William James’ pragmatic theory of truth as “what works” and argue that it is applicable for Dasein and provides a meaningful conception of truth