Commentary “What is truth?” This was the question Pontius Pilate famously asked Jesus of Nazareth nearly two thousand years ago. Pilate was deeply uncomfortable with the objective truth claims made by Jesus and wanted to dismiss them. On one level, Pilate’s question is easy to answer. Truth is any statement that corresponds to reality. For example, it is true that Canadian Confederation took place in 1867. Any claim that Confederation happened in a different year would be false. That’s because there is abundant evidence that Confederation actually happened in 1867. This is known as the correspondence theory of truth. Simply put, this theory emphasizes that truthfulness can be evaluated on the degree to which it matches, or corresponds to, objective reality. Hence, truth is objective, rather than subjective. Not everyone accepts the existence of objective truth, however. Postmodernists, who typically reside on the political left, argue that truth is relative …
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