What makes a statement (particularly one not factually-based, such as about society) true, and who decides? Not sure if this is more philosophy or sociology, but in studying for end-of-school exams my English class have a few problems unearthing the syllabus' meaning! We've read something of the basic theories about Truth, such as proof by correspondence, but we are completely confused by the need to discover (without help from our teacher who is determined to keep us away from philosophical debate) the 'processes by which statements come to be accepted as true', including who has the authority to make such statements and the ways in which statements are explored, tested, endorsed or refuted, etc. While we suspect that all the answer required is to mention something about the legal system (the focus of our text), it is still frustrating not being able to fight this out ourselves and we were hoping that you could help us by providing a few ideas as to what really does make statements true (the ...

The view that there is something which makes true a statement or something in virtue of which the statement is true is usually referred to as the conception of truth as correspondence. It presupposes that the something which makes true the statement - say the statement that the cat is on the mat - and which is is "out there" in the world, i.e a cat being on a mat, or some sort of "fact" or "truthmaker". This view is often considered problematic because we do not know exactly the nature of the "facts" in question, which seem to be arbitrary depending upon the language wxho use to describe them. For instance is "the cat is on the mat" is made true by the presence of *several* cats on the mat ( in which case it is false to talk of "the" (unique) cat, or by an animal who is boardline for a cat (say a lynx)? Some facts seem to be identical although the descriptions differ ( for instance that I gave you 100 $ is the same fact as that you received 100 $ from me, but not quite) We feel that in this case it's a...