Hi DMB,
> Steve said: > I personally find it absurd to think that, for example, the assertion "the > earth is roundish" was MADE true for a particular person when that person was > able to ride that truth to successful action while "the earth is flat" was at > that time still true for anyone who was able to cash out this alternative > belief. It is far more agreeable to me to just say that people used to think > that the earth was flat, but they were, in truth, wrong. > > > dmb says: > > Well, if you think it's absurd then you don't understand what Pirsig and > James mean by saying that truth is provisional, that it is a species of the > good. Steve: It isn't that I don't understand what James is saying. I just disagree with him. As for Pirsig, I am not convinced that he ought to be read as subscribing to the so-called pragmatic theory of truth. It is one thing to subscribe to fallibism--to assert that all beliefs ought to be held as subject to criticism and updated in light of new evidence and arguments--and another to not be able to say that people who once thought that the world is flat were wrong. To say that truth is provisional can mean that any belief that is currently held as true may turn out to be false. I'd like to think that that is what Pirsig means, but I could be wrong. Perhaps he does side with James. DMB: To think that flat earth theories worked at one time, even though they were in truth wrong entails the assumption that truth corresponds with an objective reality rather than the experience of the believer. > > In other words, you are trying to understand the pragmatic theory of truth in > terms of the metaphysical assumptions it rejects. That, sir, is what's absurd. Steve: This is just your all-or-nothingism with respect to truth and not what I am arguing. I think you really ought to try to find a way out considering how concerned you are about relativism since you won't have any easier time saying that those flat-earthers were wrong about slavery as well. Wasn't slavery wrong even before anyone believed it was? I sure think so. Once we drop correspondence theory you seem to think that we can't maintain our common sense notion of truth. We can keep it if we take the point of departure for pragmatism to be Pierce's notion of a belief as a habit of action instead of James's theory of truth (which I think was a wrong turn). We don't need correspondence theory to say that people were wrong when they thought that the world was flat. Saying "the earth is not now and never was flat in spite of what people once thought" doesn't have to mean that we think those folks had a belief that didn't correspond to reality. In pragmatic terms it means that a better habit of action was possible for them, specifically "the world is roundish," but they didn't avail themselves of this better belief. It means that we think that if they had had this belief (habit of action) they would have been able to better satisfy their desires. 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
