Aristotle’s “Metaphysics” contains the following statement that can be used to identify his correspondence theory of truth: “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.” Although this statement may appear simple, it nonetheless contains a set of presuppositions that must be understood if the full implications of this theory of truth are to be understood. To begin, Aristotle understands truth in terms of statements that may or may not be said about an object.

This statement is separate from the object itself, and is also separate from the individual who makes it. Both this individual and the object itself are understood to exist outside of the statement, or preposition, that brings them together. It is only because this is the case that a false statement can exist. That is to say, it is only because an object exists outside of the stated perception of an individual that one may be wrong about it.

Secondly, the theory also assumes that such an object possesses determinate properties about which one may be right or wrong. In order for the idea that a false statement involves saying that what is is not, then it must the case that the qualities of what is are objective and can be determined outside of the individual statement that is being tested. Were this not to be the case, then it would simply be the case that each new statement regarding an object produced its own mode of truth. In essence, therefore, the correspondence theory of truth, as it exists in Aristotle, is a theory that firstly assumes a strict separation between subject and object, then assumes that such objects have qualities about which one may be either right or wrong, i.e. their qualities exist outside of the way they are perceived and are, to some extent, inherent in the objects themselves. It is this firm existential ground for objects in the world that enables either true or false statements to exist.