PHILOSOPHICAL DETERMINATION OF THE CONCEPTUAL NATURE OF TRUTH AS CORRESPONDENCE, AND ITS EXPEDIENCE FOR INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AMONG NIGERIANS

Abstract

Buller and Burgoon both accede to the conclusion that lie, deception or falsehood is a major relational transgression that often leads to disagreement, distrust, and conflict in relationship. It violates relational rules, values, and expectations, and often turns so messy, leading to maiming, killing, abandonment of ideals and values, and disintegration of communal life. Everyone expects relational partners to be unambiguous and truthful, otherwise relating and communicating would entail grave equivocation and misdirection, and consequently require deception indicators to unravel falsehood, ascertain truth, and acquire reliable information. This anomaly is prevalent in many strata of the Nigerian state – politics, religion, family, friendship, organizations, etc. Experiences around point to the fact that lying, deception, falsehood and "speaking with a forked tongue? prevail among all classes of relational partners today, so that such communal relationship of our forebears, which endeared one to the other, and promoted mutual respect, efficiency in trades and services, security, trust and peaceful coexistence, has long gone down the drain giving way to destructive individualism, with all its attendant consequences. This impending catastrophe so stimulated stares at us in the face and looms wide over the land like a bomb of darkness awaiting its appointed programmed time to explode. It is in the bid to avert this impending colossal loss that this paper employs the philosophical qualitative and conceptual research method to explore an acceptable definition of the nature of truth and recommend its espousal as yardstick for interpersonal relations in Nigeria. In its findings, this paper recommends the adoption of the correspondence interpretation of truth, and its enactment as yardstick for interpersonal relations, moral evaluation, and determination of justice in the Nigerian society.