Hi DMB,
On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 11:01 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote: > > Steve said to dmb: > ...Pragmatism as a theory of truth does not settle any disputes about what > is true but rather muddles the issue so should be rejected on pragmatic > grounds. > > dmb says: > I don't see any reason for your denials here. How does the test of > experience fail to tell us what's true? How does such empirical validation > muddle the issue? > Steve: Empirical validation can help settle disputes about what we ought to hold as true but not about what actually IS true. (Note that I don't think any proposed theory of truth performs this only function for which anyone would bother pursue the project of having a theory of truth.) It functions as a theory about justification but it does not function well as a theory of truth. Just because "WE CAN ASSIMILATE, VALIDATE, CORROBORATE, AND VERIFY" a belief does not mean that this belief is true. We know this by our personal experience of having in the past assimilated, corroborated, and verified beliefs that later turned out to be false. James can only account for such every-day experiences of having been corrected in a false belief with the odd notion that the belief in question actually was true before, but it is now false because it can no longer be assimilated, validated, corroborated, or verified. If people long ago could validate their belief that the sun revolves around the earth, does that mean that the "the sun revolves around the earth" used to be true but later became false? It was true for them but not true for us? That is pure relativism with respect to truth. > > DMB: > > > > > 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: If it is indeed a fact that James never hoped to settle disputes about what is true (and I think you are right about this), then why call it a "theory of truth"? The only reason I can think of that anyone would pursue a theory of truth is to have a way to settle disputes about what is true. If James never claimed to have a way to do that, why would he say that he had such a theory? Did he ever actually call his talk about truth "a theory of truth?" or is this notion something philosophologists later ascribed to him? I don't actually know the answer to that, but either way I think he is better read as talking about how we decide what beliefs to hold as true and which beliefs that we should drop because they no longer serve us rather than what beliefs actually are true and false. Since he wasn't making clear distinctions between truth and justification, I read him as not talking about what is actually true at all and only about what we ought to hold as true provisionally. It is reading him as talking about what actually is true--that truth itself is a provisional notion--that gives pragmatism a bad name. Such talk is also why Pierce thought that James had pragmatism all wrong and why Rorty thought that Dewey eventually stopped talking about truth itself and instead limited himself to talk about warranted assertibility, and why Davidson, Rorty, and, well, everyone who is not a retro-pragmatist (reading James as deliberately equating what is true with what can be justified within a given context) thinks that truth and justification need to be kept as two distinct concepts. > Steve said: > I am asking James pragmatism's usual question: what is the cash-value in > experiential terms of believing versus disbelieving this proposed theory of > truth? Pragmatism is supposed to put theory in the service of practice. What > other function would anyone ever want from a theory of truth besides helping > us settle disputes about what beliefs are true and what beliefs are false? > > dmb says: > ... I'll take the last one first. > Yes, of course, a theory of truth is supposed to tell us what truth means > and some kind of criteria for determining what we can rightly call "true". > But it seems you're way too concerned with the rules about what a truth > theory must and must not be. Why not just try to see what James is saying? > Doesn't he get to decide what his truth theory entails? > Steve: But as a pragmatist, isn't he also accountable for saying what his theory of truth does for us in practice? It seems to me that it drops a quite useful distinction between what is true and what can be justified in a given time and place. Why do that? Does doing so have other benefits in practice that make up for this loss of clarity? DMB: > To the second question, yes. The theory says that actual practice is the > test. > In the first question you seem to be asking how we cash out this theory's > "belief" in experience in experiential terms. First of all, I don't think we > can believe or disbelieve experience. If there is a way to deny the reality > of experience, I'd surely like to know what it is. That's probably why > Radical Empiricism says that experience and reality amount to the same > thing. It's the only thing we know for sure and philosophically, it's a > mistake to make assertions beyond what can be known in experience and > everything that is known in experience must be accounted for. Pragmatism's > notion of truth is quite consistent with this set of limits. It's a theory > that says truth can only ever be the property of an idea that is made true > in experience. You said, "this 'theory' is a difference that makes no > difference", but if you read the text where he lays it out you'd see that it > makes a huge difference right away. This "theory" is used to destroy > idealism, traditional empiricism and S > OM even while it's still unfolding. It's really an amazing piece of work. > The man was an artist. You should listen to his thoughts real hard, just > once. I mean, stuff like the following makes me think you're not really > bothering to pay much attention.... > Steve: James is able to clear up a whole bunch of metaphysical problems that aren't really problems by considering beliefs in terms of their consequences in practice--by applying Pierce's pragmatic method--not by applying a theory of truth. When he applies his notion of truth, rather than destroy something like SOM he says things like, "SOM is true to whatever extent that... and SOM is simultaneously false to whatever extent that..." > > Steve said: > Unless you can find a way out of the "true for me, false for you" non-sense > this view of truth couldn't be any more relativistic. "True for me, false > for you" is pretty much the paradigm for relativism. > > > dmb says: > If pragmatic truth is constrained by actual experience, how can that count > as relativism? Reality is the fact that determines what we can truthfully > say, but in this case reality is not an objective material reality that > admits only one truth. Steve: Instead of saying "reality is the fact that determines what we can truthfully say" why not say "reality is the fact that determines what is true as well as what we are warranted in asserting as true"? Why not maintain the common sense distinction between what we are justified in asserting given our current tools for inquiry and our limitations as finite historically situated human beings and what is actually true? Everyone can think of examples in their own lives where they had every reason to think that something was true, but later found out that it was actually false. What we are warranted in asserting and what is actually true both depend on facts but they depend on some different facts. What we are justified in believing, for example, depends in part on our other beliefs and whether the new belief in question can be assimilated or not. Our existing beliefs include criteria for what counts as sufficient justification. The facts about what we already believe and what our current standards for justification are are additional necessary facts that come in to play in determining whether or not we are warranted in believing something--whether we are justified in holding a belief AS true--but the factuality of the belief in question--whether the belief in question actually IS true-- is best thought of as independent of the quality of our current justificatory practices. DMB: > Reality is process and flux and a continuum of experience itself. And there > are different perspectives, different ways to take up this reality that > aren't mutually exclusive so that there can be many truths. But that doesn't > mean you can't be wrong. That doesn't mean you can believe or think whatever > you like because reality will bite you in the ass to let you know you're > wrong. The test of experience is really hard to cheat. If you believe your > boat is sound and fit but you find yourself sinking there is no way to talk > your way out of it. The matter has been settled. The pudding has been eaten. > At that point, you just have to admit you were wrong and start bailing. Steve: The fact that one can be wrong is a good reason in itself to maintain a distinction between what can be justified and what is actually true because our justificatory practices themselves can be wrong. Best, Steve 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/
