Hi DMB,
On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 4:54 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote: > > dmb said to Steve: > > Clearly, you're very interested in making the point that truth and > justification are two different things. ...But what does truth even mean > apart from our justifications? ...The only thing remotely like an > explanation as to what, exactly, this "truth" is supposed to be, you made > some vague reference to a utopian vision of some future knowledge. How that > will happen in the absence of future justifications is a mystery to me. I > really don't see how the notion of truth makes any sense apart from what can > be justified in whatever context you find yourself. ...Why drop this > distinction between truth and justification, you ask? Because that notion of > truth is meaningless. > > Steve replied: > > "The truth of the matter" stands for our hopes for the best possible belief > that we may come to have in the future and if we are fortunate may even > already have. When we are justified in believing something, we can still be > wrong about its truth. Using the "habit of action idea" that I take as the > point of departure for all pragmatists, when we say that an assertion is > true, we are saying that no other belief is a better habit of action. I'm > recommending that you apply such a description and maintain a distinction > between truth and justification because it avoids the "true for you, false > for me" and "true then, false now" conclusions that get pragmatists accused > of relativism. > > dmb says: > > Well, apparently you don't understand my question. Steve: Your question as I understand it was whether or not your take on James makes sense. I think what you have is a common take on James. It makes sense as far as it goes, but I think it is problematic for anyone who is as concerned as you are about relativism. I think you will have a hard time making a case that some other philosopher is a relativist if you are promoting a "true for you, false for me and true then, false now" notion of truth and see no difference between what is true and what can be justified in a given context. If you still see no problem with this version of pragmatism, then you should stick with it, but I will see no reason why I should answer to a philosopher who is a relativist about truth. If there is no such thing as the truth of the matter for one of the parties, then there is little point in arguing. DMB: > All you did was supply the same vague, meaningless reference to a utopian > vision of some future knowledge again. You know, "the best possible belief > that we may come to have in the future". I think that is meaningless. > Backwards, even. > Steve: I don't know how you conclude that our hope for the future is a meaningless notion or what is backwards about that notion. Isn't such hope what inquiry is generally about? It is not merely about validating existing beliefs (making them true in the Jamesian way), it is also about finding better alternatives to our current beliefs. DMB: > I'm saddened and frustrated by this response. It seems that you remain > oblivious to the main point. James's defines truth as what happens to an > idea in the process of verification, as what happens to an idea when it is > justified in experience. This definition of truth is quite deliberately > rejecting the distinction you're insisting upon. Do you really suppose it > makes sense to say his theory would have been better off to retain the > distinction even though it contradicts his definition and thereby undoes > what he just got done doing? Sorry, but I really don't see how you can > comprehend this point and still insist on retaining that distinction Steve: I don't know how it has not occurred to you that my whole point has been to reject that definition. I am explicitly disagreeing with James. DMB: > Not to mention the fact that "justification" is being distinguished from a > notion of "truth" that's practically meaningless. > Steve: You have not made a case that a distinction between justification and truth is necessarily meaningless. I've argued that such a distinction is meaningful in distinguishing our currently justified practice from our hopes of having the best possible habit of action and in maintaining that what we are currently justified in believing can be wrong. I've also argued that this distinction is necessary if you want to avoid relativism with regard to truth. All you seem to me to be saying in response is that this is not what James is saying (I KNOW!) and that the distinction I'm making is meaningless. DMB: > It might be futile but let take up this problem, as you see it, of being > justified now and and being wrong later. I think the pragmatist would say > that it's not a problem. If the future is anything like the past, then we > should not at all be surprised to find our previous justifications lacking, > to find our previous truths obsolete or in need of adjustment. This is what > it means to say that truth is provisional, that it is part of an ongoing > process of adjustment and improvement. That's also why truth can't mean > anything more than what can be justified in terms of the presently available > practices, within whatever context you find yourself. That doesn't mean you > can't be wrong. It just means that ideas are made right and wrong in the > course of experience rather than being measured against some ideal notion of > full or perfect knowledge. > Steve: I am not promoting any idea of perfect knowledge floating around Out There. I'm just saying that our current beliefs however justified they me be may not actually be true. And YES I do understand that that is not what James is saying. He is saying that a belief os true to whatever extent it can be justified, but I'm saying he would have done better to maintain a distinction between truth and justification. I'm also asserting that such a distinction can be maintained while still holding to the pragmatic notion that we can get clarity as to the meaning of a belief by considering that belief as equivalent to the habits of action of one holding this belief. When we say that a belief is, as far as we know, true, we are saying that no other belief is, as far as we know, a better habit of action. I think you and me and James can all fully endorse that last sentence as pragmatists. The difference is about whether we should equate what we are warranted in asserting as true with the truth of the matter. DMB: > For some reason I'm thinking of an analogy. Suppose I said that your hopes > of going to heaven after you die are misplaced. What if told you that heaven > is a noble ideal but it's really about where you are before you die. Heaven > is not some other place forever separated from this life, it's what we wish > we had right here and right now. There is no distinction between heaven and > earth, we just have to get a little more realistic about what we can expect > from heaven, bring it down to earth where it actually has some meaning in > our lives. Heaven is not some place far above, it's what happens on earth. > Your response would be, by analogy, to simply reassert the same old > distinction between heaven and earth. And then when I ask you what meaning > "heaven" has for this life, you make some vague reference to the pearly > gates. > Steve: I'm not proposing that Truth should be held "above." The truth has meaning in our lives right now because some things we once thought were true turned out to actually be false, so presumably some of the beliefs we currently hold as true are false right now in this moment even though we may be well-justified in believing that they are true. > DMB: > Or let me put it this way. You want to replace "truth" with our "best > habits of action" and that just means what we can justify in present > practices. Steve: That is not what I have been saying. The distinction that I would like to see you make is between our currently best justified practices--what we are right now justified in holding as true-- and the best possible habits of action--what actually is true. DMB: > Don't you see how that rejects heaven too? How can you reject this heaven > for such a down to earth thing and still insist on the distinction between > heaven and earth. It's incoherent in several directions at once. Steve: I've lost the train of your analogy and can't see why I should or should not reject heaven or whether I am doing that or not. Perhaps one issue is this. You are correct if you object to truth as a goal of inquiry. If we hold truth as the practical goal of inquiry we run into the problem that we could never know whether we have gotten any closer to it or even if we already have it without already knowing what the truth is, and if we already knew that we wouldn't bother with inquiry and justification. This is why I think every pragmatist will agree with James that the practical goal of inquiry has to be justification. Justification is our only route to truth, but I don't equate justification with the truth as James does. Justification is a practice, the truth is not a practice. The truth is simply the truth. We can't talk about progress toward the truth, but we can measure progress in inquiry as assuages our own doubts, justifying a belief for ever wider audiences, or finding better beliefs to replace our past practices. 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/md/archives.html
