Truism Explained

A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device, and is the opposite of falsism.^[1]

In philosophy, a sentence which asserts incomplete truth conditions for a proposition may be regarded as a truism.^[2] An example of such a sentence would be "Under appropriate conditions, the sun rises." Without contextual supporta statement of what those appropriate conditions arethe sentence is true but incontestable.^[3]

Lapalissades, such as "If he were not dead, he would still be alive", are considered to be truisms.

See also

• Aphorism
• Axiom
• Cliché
• Contradiction
• Dictum
• Dogma
• Figure of speech
• Maxim
• Moral
• Platitude
• Synthetic proposition
• Tautology

Notes and References

1. Web site: 10 March 2010 . Webster's Online Dictionary . Definition: truism . An undoubted or self-evident truth; a statement which is pliantly true; a proposition needing no proof or argument; — opposed to falsism. . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110628224016/http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definitions/truism?cx=partner-pub-0939450753529744%3Av0qd01-tdlq&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&q=truism&sa=Search#922 . 28 June 2011.
2. Web site: 10 March 2014 . Truism - Definition and Examples of Truism . 31 August 2021 . Literary Devices .
3. Web site: truism . 31 August 2021 . Dictionary.Cambridge.org.