Frank,
That is a splendid article, http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/ and I think you undersell it. Even the worse philosophophobes on the list will be happy to read it, and take strength from it. NOT SO MY RESPONSE TO IT, which I copy in below. Philosophophobes beware! Nick Begin philosophophobe free zone: _____ The confusion about truth has its roots in the deep history of Pragmatism. Peirce famously said that the truth is that upon which we are fated to agree and the real is that which is the case, no matter what you, or I or any other person might believe. Some pragmatists (James, perhaps?) took this to mean that the truth is whatever we happen to agree upon. Peirce hated that interpretation because he was well aware that it may take millennia for the fated convergence of opinion to take place. He deplored literary criticism. Dewey was rather on Peirce's side of this argument, and after WWII, and around the time of Dewey's death, this country basked in the glow of a Deweyan consensus until the Left Critics started to hack away at it, and the right wing took up the cry. The author does not mention the role of the field of anthropology in all of this, which, I gather, almost destroyed itself as a field over this very issue, and almost took down social science with it. We probably won't get through this mess until we find a solution to the problem that the Pragmatists struggled over -- that the only measure of the truth or falsity, the reality or unreality, of our experiences is other experiences. How, now, do we pick out from our experiences those upon which the community of inquiry is fated to agree, in the very long run? _____ End of philosophophobe free zone Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly Sent: Monday, June 08, 2015 9:20 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: [FRIAM] The Attack on Truth - The Chronicle of Higher Education Philosophy haters do not read the linked article. It mentions Andy Norman. He is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, in the department where I used to work. My daughter was a friend of his when they were in high school in the 1980s. I am old. Frank http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/ Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE Phone (505) 670-9918
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