TRUTH

            Nietzche stated that "in a similarly limited way, man wants the truth; he desires the agreeable life-preserving consequences of truth." This seems to a major idea that holds the blocks of philosophy together. Truth in fact, is the ultimate star philosophers reach for. Many other questioned issues are mere comets when compared to the quest for what truth is, how truth comes about, and what truth means. This paper will explore two of the most important questions concerning truth. The first of these questions refers to what constitutes truth, what defines it. There are many agreeable and opposing opinions regarding what defines truth. These opinions will help us understand what truth is. Once we know how it is defined, we will advance one step closer to understanding the second of our questions. The second question refers to how truth is known, the answers it gives us, and the criteria of truth. This is important since we must know how to test our definitions of truth,.
             to find truths. We must know how truth is known to fully understand it. There seems to be several criteria for taking truth as such. We will explore that in the proceeding.
             Let us begin by dissecting the first question. What constitutes truth? What defines it? Most philosophers argue that truth is based on what is questioned, tested, and proved. We cannot, after all, believe everything we hear and take it as true. Mao Zedong encourages this by stating in his work On Practice that you can "discover truth through practice and through practice verify and develop truth." Is the finished product truth or is it the original idea? I mean to say that one may have an original idea that seems right yet further thought may change your initial hypothesis. This means to say that truth exists in most every thought, just not verified truth. There is arguably truth in one's first instinct; there is truth in an original idea, it just may not be verified.