Veracity

We explain what truthfulness is, with multiple examples and how it differs from the truth. Also, what is the presumption of truthfulness.

What is truthfulness?

The truthfulness It is the degree of confidence you have that a person or an organization always (or almost always) tells the truth. Therefore, when it is said that something or someone is truthfulit is stated that in general he does not lie.

Both “truthful” and “veracity” come from the Latin word verax (“who tells the truth”), composed by the voices verus (“true”) and –ax (quality suffix). During the transition from medieval Latin to the Romance languages, verax became truthful and thus he entered the Spanish language.

In general, the truthfulness It is understood as a value and a positive trait of people and institutions, especially in contexts in which there is a need to trust what others say, such as in journalism and social communication, for example.

In this way, a newspaper can be classified as truthful (that is, as telling truthfully) by those who trust its judgment and assume that, most of the time, they will find the truth of what is happening within its pages. The same can be said about the veracity of a statement: it refers to the degree of certainty that its content is true.

The following terms should not be confused:

• Veracityhow much the truth is told.
• Verisimilitudehow much something resembles the truth.
• TRUE, how true something that is said is.

Based on its meaning, “truthfulness” can be considered synonymous with “reliability”, “honesty” and “objectivity”.

Examples of truthfulness

Some examples of truthfulness are the following:

• A news agency that is committed to objective truth and is not influenced by the interests of its sponsors.
• A chronicler who sticks as closely as possible to the real way in which the events he recounts occurred, distancing himself from his own subjectivity.
• A person who, taking part as a witness in a trial, tells the truth about what happened, at least to the best of his or her understanding.
• A police officer who is careful never to manipulate evidence, and always tells the truth about what happened, even when it could harm him.

Difference between truth and veracity

Given that the word “veracity” comes from “truthful”, and the latter in turn comes from “truth”, it is possible to affirm that truth and veracity are closely related concepts, and that the former (veracity) cannot be understood without the second (TRUE). However, each one points to different realities.

The truth is, broadly speaking, the certainty that one has that something happened as it is told.. That is, something that is said is more or less true (that is, it is closer or further from the truth) depending on how much its adaptation to real facts can be verified. This can be complicated, since the truth needs to be proven, demonstrated with facts, and this often depends on the point of view from which the facts are evaluated.

Truthfulness, on the other hand, has to do with how often someone tells the truth.. Those who always express the truth are considered truthful, that is, people with a lot of truth in what they say. Seen this way, veracity is nothing more than the proven tendency towards the truth of the arguments or sayings of a given issuer.

Presumption of truth

The presumption of truthfulness is, in a similar way to the presumption of innocence in criminal law, a principle that establishes, from the outset, the validity and legitimacy of what someone said, unless there is proof or evidence that suggests otherwise. This principle, therefore, can be stated as follows:

“We all tell the truth until proven otherwise.”

According to this principle, furthermore, The need for evidence and proof falls on the person who doubts what was said, and not on the sender.so if someone claims something (for example, that he did not murder the victim), the presumption of truth gives him the benefit of the doubt, at least until the evidence suggests otherwise.

Continue with: Reliable

References

• “Truthfulness” in the Language Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy.
• “Truthful” in the Dictionary of the Language of the Royal Spanish Academy.
• “Radication of the word Veracity” in the Online Spanish Etymological Dictionary.
• “Authenticity and truthfulness” in Filosofía.org.