Steve said to dmb:
You didn’t bother to address the concern that having a theory of truth or not
is exactly the sort of philosophical non-issue that James should want to call a
difference that makes no difference when none of the proposed candidates for
so-called “theories of truth” give us any way of distinguishing true beliefs
from false ones.
dmb says:
I don't understand this concern, probably because I don't think "truth" is a
non-issue. In fact, I'm making a case that it matters, that it is an issue, and
that lots of other pragmatists think so too. To claim that the inventor of the
pragmatic theory of truth would take his own work as the treatment of a
non-issue strikes me as wholly implausible. James thought his theory of truth
could be used to eliminate fake philosophical problems, but having a theory of
truth is not one of them. And of course he thought we could distinguish truth
from falsity by testing our ideas in experience. As Hickman tells it, when
James introduced pragmatism as "a new name for some old ideas" he was making a
cheeky reference to that saying of Jesus; "By their fruits ye shall know them".
At least in this moment, Jesus was a pragmatist. Who knew? And it's not that
the pragmatist just glances up and says, "yep, they look like figs to me". Oh,
no. He's gotta eat a fig or two before he claims knowledge of that tree. What's
more, he insists this is the oldest and best way to know anything. The pudding
is good to eat or it's not and ahistorical foundations very rarely factor into
it. Lucy in the Sky never dared to dream of creamy chocolate foundations,
probably because of her provincial context.
"The real purpose of scientific method is to make sure Nature hasn't misled
you into thinking you know something you don't actually know." (ZAMM, chapter 9)
Steve said:
Not too shabby only if you don’t see an important difference between asserting
that the scientific method is nature’s way of keeping us honest (as it sounded
to me like you were saying) and asserting that the scientific method is one way
of using reality to pursue some of our own particular human desires.
dmb says:
I think Pirsig means that the purpose of empirical practice is to correct our
truths. Yes, I think the method "keeps us honest". That's not a bad way to put
it, actually. Empirical reality is nature's own bullshit detector. In that
sense, it can thwart our human desires. There is a whole community in our
society that would like creationism to be true but nature is not cooperating
with that particular desire. To keep with the same example, we don't need
anything fancy to distinguish science from such things. The creationist's views
are based on tradition and authority, not empirical constraints or intellectual
deliberations. I mean, there is a qualitative difference between them that
won't allow me to say they're just rival contexts with no real way to make
claims about which is better.
Usually the provisionality of truth refers to social and historical processes
of change and development that give rise to new truths but a similar thing
happens to individuals. Hopefully, anyway. Those young fundamentalists that
Professors kidnap, indoctrinate and give disappointing grades to are likely to
come back later and thank them. And it's not that they were wrong then and
right later so much as they were intellectually immature or underdeveloped.
Things like fascism, fundamentalism and bigotry aren't built of ideas so much
as fear, insecurity and such. It's not like they just have a different set of
propositions, a different set of theories. It's that old social level stuff,
which isn't about being correct or accurate. It's about being safe, about
preserving the "natural" order of things. Yes, it walks and talks and has books
on the best seller lists, but it's all guts and no brains. These social level
values get dressed up so you won't notice they're not actually ideas.
When the chief philosopher of white supremacy debated the fundamentalist's
number one intellectual on FOX news the other day, the most famous fascist
philosopher praised them both afterward for their intelligently conducted and
rigorously researched defenses. As was noted in JESUS SAVES, thee Journal for
fundamentalist economists, "the whole intellectual community was enthralled to
such a display of cerebral firepower" and "nothing works to foster democracy
and human rights like honest, open debate about which kind of cruel social
oppression we should impose first" (Spring 2010 edition, page 77).
Sorry, my point is just that there's no such thing as philosophical defense of
bigotry or fascism or fundamentalism. Not just because it's loaded with falsity
but because such things aren't even about true and untrue in any cognitive or
scientific sense. They're mostly attitudes and thought styles. Notice how
fascism was far from unique to Germany. Every Western nation has elements
within it to this day. Notice how Muslim fundamentalists are just like
Christian fundamentalists and bigotry exists wherever there's the other guy.
Ironically, racial bigotry doesn't discriminate on the basis of color. There
are haters of every color in the rainbow. It's one of the things that unites
us. No matter who you are or where you are, you can rest assured that somebody
out there hates you.
Good night.
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