Zentralblatt für Chirurgie
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Truth and truthfulness are traditional subjects of philosophy. The paper discusses different concepts of truth (epistemological, ontological, normative) and different theories about the acquisition of truth (truth as correspondence, coherence or consensus, pragmatic theories of truth, and truth as immediate subjective evidence). The last part deals with the moral question of truthfulness or sincerity and its conflict with benevolence in cases of patient information about a fatal illness.