Hi DMB,
> Steve said: > > 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 says: > Like I said, this objection entails the assumption that truth corresponds > with an objective reality, namely a planet called Earth. Steve: Nothing in the above appeals to correspondence to reality or experience, and I explained below how we can keep a simple "'X' is true iff X is true" without needing to appeal to correspondence. DMB: But Pirsig had already rejected that notion of truth in the opening chapters of ZAMM, where he tells us that scary, scary ghost story. "The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination. It's all a ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized." (p42) You can see how it might be a problem to ask about the actual shape of the planet in light of this ghostly vision, no? "... the laws of physics and logic ... the number system... These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real." "The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton." (p41) By the same token, the flatness and roundness of the planet are both ghosts. Once upon a time, the idea of a round earth was useless. Until people needed to sail across oceans or do some kind of astronomy, there was no round earth. Until then, the earth was flat. "We are all of us very arrogant and conceited about running down other peoples ghosts but just as ignorant and barbaric and superstitious about our own." The question you pose tells me you're haunted by the ghost of objectivity. Steve: The idea that the earth is round was not useless, it just wasn't used. The belief that the earth is roundish would still have been a better habit of action for people to have. It would have satisfied more desires and awakened new and better desires. We all agree that the law of gravity didn't exist before Newton. There is a big difference between saying that ideas only existed once there were human beings to think them and making the embarrassing claim that the word used to be flat before people came to believe it is round. The assertion "the earth is roundish" did not exist before someone asserted it. That doesn't mean it can't be thought of as having been true before anyone thought it. Though the law of gravity did not exist before Newton, we can still say that belief in Newtonian physics would have been a better belief to have than what they had. I noticed that you continued to avoid the even more embarrassing conclusion from Jamesian truth theory that slavery was not wrong until people came to believe it was wrong. Is it true that female circumcision wrong? Many tribes even today find that they can ride their belief that it ought to be done. I suppose for them "female circumcision is good" is true to whatever extent it works? > Steve said previously: > 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. > > > dmb says: > > I can almost go along with that, except that people probably believe what > works until it doesn't work anymore. Habits of action that make sense in our > space-age context might not make any sense to them. Even if they understood > it and believed it and want to help spread the word, she might burned at the > stake or crucified. Habits of action (by which i suppose you mean conceptual > habits, verbal habits) are ghosts. Steve: Since you can "almost go along" save for these objections I am hopeful that we can get there. Your objection that "people probably believe what works until it doesn't work anymore" is agreed but not seen as an objection if I can get you to agree that what people believe to be true is not always true. Habits of action are not what Pirsig means by "ghosts." "Ghosts" are the "life of their own" that thoughts are sometimes thought to have. "Habit of action" is the tool that Pierce invented and James used to have a way of talking about belief without the subjective mental realm of SOM. Have you read Pierce's "The Fixation of Belief" and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" which so inspired James? http://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html I highly recommend Fixation especially if you haven't already gotten to it. You ought to know what James means by a belief, and James always refers to Pierce when saying what it means to believe something. In "How to Make Our Ideas Clear," Pierce says: "And what, then, is belief?...We have seen that it has just three properties: First, it is something that we are aware of; second, it appeases the irritation of doubt; and, third, it involves the establishment in our nature of a rule of action, or, say for short, a habit. As it appeases the irritation of doubt, which is the motive for thinking, thought relaxes, and comes to rest for a moment when belief is reached. But, since belief is a rule for action, the application of which involves further doubt and further thought, at the same time that it is a stopping-place, it is also a new starting-place for thought. That is why I have permitted myself to call it thought at rest, although thought is essentially an action. The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking. The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit; and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise. If beliefs do not differ in this respect, if they appease the same doubt by producing the same rule of action, then no mere differences in the manner of consciousness of them can make them different beliefs, any more than playing a tune in different keys is playing different tunes." He later writes that bit that James liked to quote to explain the pragmatic method: "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object." In Fixation. Pierce considers inquiry, doubt, and belief. "The Fixation of Belief: is about how we come to rest on various beliefs. He writes about some alternative ways that people do so, but endorses scientific fallibilism above these others. What might be especially interesting to you for your purposes is the way Pierce's ideas harmonize with the MOQ with its concepts of dynamic and static quality and intellectual patterns of value. Consider this bit on rationality. I think this is exactly what Pirsig means by static intellectual patterns: "That which determines us, from given premisses, to draw one inference rather than another, is some habit of mind, whether it be constitutional or acquired. The habit is good or otherwise, according as it produces true conclusions from true premisses or not; and an inference is regarded as valid or not, without reference to the truth or falsity of its conclusion specially, but according as the habit which determines it is such as to produce true conclusions in general or not. The particular habit of mind which governs this or that inference may be formulated in a proposition whose truth depends on the validity of the inferences which the habit determines; and such a formula is called a guiding principle of inference." These "habits of mind" and "guiding principles" are intellectual patterns of value. Some of our patterns are far more simple static patterns of preference for a given conclusion rather than intellectual patterns governing the WAYS we draw conclusions. These are the beliefs we hold. For James as well as Pierce, to believe something is to be prepared to act in certain ways under certain circumstances. But resting on beliefs is only the static side of inquiry and well-understood for any Jamesian. What is interesting about the Fixation essay is Pierce's unpacking of the dynamic aspect of inquiry--doubt. Pierce: "We generally know when we wish to ask a question and when we wish to pronounce a judgment, for there is a dissimilarity between the sensation of doubting and that of believing. But this is not all which distinguishes doubt from belief. There is a practical difference. Our beliefs guide our desires and shape our actions. The Assassins, or followers of the Old Man of the Mountain, used to rush into death at his least command, because they believed that obedience to him would insure everlasting felicity. Had they doubted this, they would not have acted as they did. So it is with every belief, according to its degree. The feeling of believing is a more or less sure indication of there being established in our nature some habit which will determine our actions. Doubt never has such an effect. Nor must we overlook a third point of difference. Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief; while the latter is a calm and satisfactory state which we do not wish to avoid, or to change to a belief in anything else. On the contrary, we cling tenaciously, not merely to believing, but to believing just what we do believe. Thus, both doubt and belief have positive effects upon us, though very different ones. Belief does not make us act at once, but puts us into such a condition that we shall behave in some certain way, when the occasion arises. Doubt has not the least such active effect, but stimulates us to inquiry until it is destroyed. This reminds us of the irritation of a nerve and the reflex action produced thereby; while for the analogue of belief, in the nervous system, we must look to what are called nervous associations -- for example, to that habit of the nerves in consequence of which the smell of a peach will make the mouth water. The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief. I shall term this struggle inquiry, though it must be admitted that this is sometimes not a very apt designation. The irritation of doubt is the only immediate motive for the struggle to attain belief. It is certainly best for us that our beliefs should be such as may truly guide our actions so as to satisfy our desires; and this reflection will make us reject every belief which does not seem to have been so formed as to insure this result. But it will only do so by creating a doubt in the place of that belief. With the doubt, therefore, the struggle begins, and with the cessation of doubt it ends. Hence, the sole object of inquiry is the settlement of opinion. We may fancy that this is not enough for us, and that we seek, not merely an opinion, but a true opinion. But put this fancy to the test, and it proves groundless; for as soon as a firm belief is reached we are entirely satisfied, whether the belief be true or false. And it is clear that nothing out of the sphere of our knowledge can be our object, for nothing which does not affect the mind can be the motive for mental effort. The most that can be maintained is, that we seek for a belief that we shall think to be true. But we think each one of our beliefs to be true, and, indeed, it is mere tautology to say so. That the settlement of opinion is the sole end of inquiry is a very important proposition. It sweeps away, at once, various vague and erroneous conceptions of proof. A few of these may be noticed here. 1. Some philosophers have imagined that to start an inquiry it was only necessary to utter a question whether orally or by setting it down upon paper, and have even recommended us to begin our studies with questioning everything! But the mere putting of a proposition into the interrogative form does not stimulate the mind to any struggle after belief. There must be a real and living doubt, and without this all discussion is idle. 2. It is a very common idea that a demonstration must rest on some ultimate and absolutely indubitable propositions. These, according to one school, are first principles of a general nature; according to another, are first sensations. But, in point of fact, an inquiry, to have that completely satisfactory result called demonstration, has only to start with propositions perfectly free from all actual doubt. If the premisses are not in fact doubted at all, they cannot be more satisfactory than they are. 3. Some people seem to love to argue a point after all the world is fully convinced of it. But no further advance can be made. When doubt ceases, mental action on the subject comes to an end; and, if it did go on, it would be without a purpose." If sex is what DQ looks like from the vantage point of biological patterns, then doubt is what it looks like from the intellectual standpoint. It is the continuing stimulus that makes us have better beliefs than we currently hold. It is always ready to give us a push when our existing static intellectual patterns of value aren't earning their keep. But doubt is no where to rest. Doubt, real doubt--not that fake skepticism--must get resolved in belief, some static pattern, because the dynamic stimulus of doubt is an irritation. It is an itch that must be scratched. Since you were concerned previously about keeping science, here's Pierce again: "To satisfy our doubts, therefore, it is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency -- by something upon which our thinking has no effect. Some mystics imagine that they have such a method in a private inspiration from on high. But that is only a form of the method of tenacity, in which the conception of truth as something public is not yet developed. Our external permanency would not be external, in our sense, if it was restricted in its influence to one individual. It must be something which affects, or might affect, every man. And, though these affections are necessarily as various as are individual conditions, yet the method must be such that the ultimate conclusion of every man shall be the same. Such is the method of science. Its fundamental hypothesis, restated in more familiar language, is this: There are Real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those Reals affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as are our relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really and truly are; and any man, if he have sufficient experience and he reason enough about it, will be led to the one True conclusion. The new conception here involved is that of Reality. It may be asked how I know that there are any Reals. If this hypothesis is the sole support of my method of inquiry, my method of inquiry must not be used to support my hypothesis. The reply is this: 1. If investigation cannot be regarded as proving that there are Real things, it at least does not lead to a contrary conclusion; but the method and the conception on which it is based remain ever in harmony. No doubts of the method, therefore, necessarily arise from its practice, as is the case with all the others. 2. The feeling which gives rise to any method of fixing belief is a dissatisfaction at two repugnant propositions. But here already is a vague concession that there is some one thing which a proposition should represent. Nobody, therefore, can really doubt that there are Reals, for, if he did, doubt would not be a source of dissatisfaction. The hypothesis, therefore, is one which every mind admits. So that the social impulse does not cause men to doubt it. 3. Everybody uses the scientific method about a great many things, and only ceases to use it when he does not know how to apply it. 4. Experience of the method has not led us to doubt it, but, on the contrary, scientific investigation has had the most wonderful triumphs in the way of settling opinion. These afford the explanation of my not doubting the method or the hypothesis which it supposes; and not having any doubt, nor believing that anybody else whom I could influence has, it would be the merest babble for me to say more about it. If there be anybody with a living doubt upon the subject, let him consider it. ... The person who confesses that there is such a thing as truth, which is distinguished from falsehood simply by this, that if acted on it should, on full consideration, carry us to the point we aim at and not astray, and then, though convinced of this, dares not know the truth and seeks to avoid it, is in a sorry state of mind indeed." James of course took Pierce's ideas about beliefs and truth in a new direction and said that a beliefe literally is true to whatever extent it leads to successful action. He would have done well to distinguish as Pierce does between "holding a belief as true" and the belief actually being true. If we don't make that simple distinction, we can't even say that the world was roundish before even though everyone thought it was flat. We can't even say that slavery was always wrong wherever and whenever it was practiced even though it was not always believed to be so. 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
