Steve said to dmb: ...I think the pragmatic method *does* help us settle disputes about what is true (that's why I am a pragmatist), but it does so not by characterizing what it means for something to be true (a theory of truth) but rather by doing something more basic...
dmb replies: It seems to me that you replied without really thinking much about the points you're responding to. I mean, your claim that pragmatism doesn't characterize what it means for something to be true was boldly asserted in the face of James doing exactly that. Again, James says, "This is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that therefore is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth can be known as". And your objection to this, that it doesn't "solve the problem of settling once and for all what actually *is* true" hardly makes sense because the pragmatic theory of truth never claims to settle anything once and for all. That might be what an absolutist or objectivist means by truth but that is very clearly NOT was James or any other pragmatist would claim. As James says, "the truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it". Steve said: If he accepts that truth is agreement with reality, then a belief either agrees with reality or not. It isn't MADE to agree with reality by verifying it. Before verifying it, it either agreed or disagreed with reality. It is through experience that we come to know which one is in fact the case--to know whether or not a belief is justified--but we are not forced by the pragmatic method to see agreement or truth as the same thing as the process of justification. dmb says: I'm heading out for a meeting and maybe I'll come back to your reply later but I gotta say one more thing that might help. It seems pretty clear from your comments here that you are thinking of truth in terms of objective truth and rejecting James claims based on that. But, of course, the pragmatist has already rejected that whole notion and this pragmatic theory of truth is supposed to replace that. See, the reality that our ideas are suppose to agree with is not a pre-existing reality but rather experience itself. That's why ideas are MADE true by experience. To a pragmatist that's what agreement with reality means. Further, this cannot be construed as relativism because experience is not whatever we want it to be, experience is the reality that constrains our beliefs. Later, dmb _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390706/direct/01/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
