Hi Ant, I wonder if you have any thoughts on Pirsig's "theory of truth." Does he have one? In Lila, Pirsig said, "The tests of truth are logical consistency, agreement with experience, and economy of explanation." This is a list of ways we verify beliefs. It is how we test for truth but it is not a definition of truth. Nowhere in Pirsig's books do I find a definition of truth. I suspect if he had been asked around the LC days he would have been annoyed at the question and said something like, "In Lila I never defined ["truth" in the context] of the MOQ, since everyone who is up to reading Lila already knows what [truth] means. For purposes of MOQ precision let’s say that [the assertion "X is true" is true if and only if X is true."]" This answer would fit his desire to stay with the usual dictionary definitions wherever possible, and also have that grumpy edge we might expect in response to such a question.
What do you think? Does Pirsig subscribe to a Jamesian theory of truth as DMB would like to think? Or do you think he sees truth as a semantic rather than an epistemic notion? 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
