Hi dmb, > Steve said to Dan, Matt, etc: > DMB ... insists that "truth" needs to be disentangled from the notion of > objectivity in favor of the pragmatic theory of truth which says that saying > something is true means no more nor less than that the belief is justified in > a particular time and place. Justification cannot be distinguished from > truth, he says. Otherwise, the only alternative is the SOM correspondence > notion of truth. Obviously I disagree. > > > dmb says: > Well, no. I don't insist that SOM's correspondence theory is the only > alternative to pragmatic truth. It just so happens that YOU invoked that > dualism in YOUR defense of the distinction between truth and justification. > Your example of the flat earth pushed back against pragmatism by contrasting > our beliefs with the actual shape of the planet. If you have a way to > maintain the distinction between truth and justification that doesn't invoke > the correspondence theory, the appearance/reality distinction or some other > form of Platonism, I'd be glad to hear it.
Steve: I did no such thing. I am _not_ pushing the actual shape of the earth against our beliefs about the shape of the earth. I am pushing our common sense belief that (I) the earth did not change shape when people developed ways of justifying that the earth is roundish rather than flat against your belief (II) that justified belief is all we ever ought to mean by truth. I am saying that one problem with (II) is that if we think of truth as "warranted assertibility" then you have a relativistic notion of truth since what one person at a given time is justified in believing about a given proposition is not the same as what a different person in a different time and place is justified in believing. You are in effect saying all the things that the people you cite as critical of Rorty are afraid that he is saying. Putnam of course has serious problems problems with the pragmatic theory of truth. Dennett ain't buying it either. They would certainly "balk" at what you are saying for the same reasons that they balk at "no non-conversational constraints" (the difference is that their fears would be justified with you). For example, I read up a bit on Susan Haack who is no Jamesian pragmatist. She seems to think that everyone who ever claimed the label after Peirce has done nothing but corrupt it (See Pragmatism Old and New from 2004). She sees the pragmatic maxim of Peirce rather than the pragmatic theory of truth of James as the true spirit of pragmatism. In Vulgar Rortyism, she pushes against Rorty and his claim to pragmatism with the following: "Peirce urged that philosophy be undertaken with the “scientific attitude,” from the “Will to Learn,” a genuine desire to discover the truth—which “is SO … whether you or I or anybody thinks it is so or not.” But Rorty tells us he does “not have much use for notions like … ‘objective truth’” See aslo "One Truth, Many Truths" where she argues against such a relativistic view of truth as yours (and, according to Ant, Pirsig's as well). Now, is your hero Haack necessarily an SOMer for defending Aristotle's "what is so" notion of truth over the Jamesian account? > Steve quoted Pirsig: > "what guarantees the objectivity of the world in which we live is that this > world is common to us with other thinking beings. Through the communications > that we have with other men we receive from them ready-made harmonious > reasonings. We know that these reasonings do not come from us and at the same > time we recognize in them, because of their harmony, the work of reasonable > beings like ourselves. And as these reasonings appear to fit the world of our > sensations, we think we may infer that these reasonable beings have seen the > same thing as we; thus it is that we know we haven't been dreaming. It is > this harmony, this quality if you will, that is the sole basis for the only > reality we can ever know." > > > Steve commented on the quote: > Apparently Pirsig didn't see any non-conversation constraints on knowledge, > either. I would add here when Pirsig says that the piles of analogues upon > analogues is the only reality "we can ever know," that that reality is all we > ever mean by "reality." We only get into SOM when we think of comparing that > reality to some more real reality. ... to say that the world was roundish > even before people were in any position to justify that belief, is _not_ to > backslide into SOM. It is merely to value some reasoning that harmonizes well > with our sensations and other valued sets of reasonings. It is not to assert > (nor to deny) a _real_ reality compared to which our conceptions are mere > shadows. > > > > dmb says: > Sensations are the non-conversational restraints. Sensations are among the > empirical, non-conversational restraints. This is the part you're breezing > over, as if it were among the valued sets of harmonious reasonings. As James > put it, the pragmatic truth is wedged and controlled by two factors, the > conceptual order and the empirical flux. In other words, pragmatic truth > includes the conversational constraints BUT it also says this is only half of > the story, that conversational constraints (intersubjectivity) are not the > ONLY kind. Not only that, the MOQ prioritized empirical reality over our > conceptual and intellectual reasonings. The MOQ wants to make ideas > subservient and secondary while Rorty says these secondary things are the > ONLY things. Steve: We already dealt with the fact that "the empirical flux" can't be thought of as handing us standards for what can and cannot be asserted (thought to be justified) since it is by definition pre-intellectual. Secondly, you are simply wrong to think that Rorty has ruled out such retail constraints as someone objecting to the claim that the cat is on the mat by saying, "no way, dude, I'm looking at the cat right now with my own two eyes, and the cat is most definitely NOT on the mat." Anyone can appeal to sensations to justify beliefs, and anyone who makes an assertion that is out of harmony with sensations will have a lot of 'splainin' to do. Rorty's "conversational constraints" do not rule out any of the everyday ways we go about justifying our beliefs. What he is ruling out is the idea that philosophy will someday come along and settle our disputes for us by, say, explaining how the "empirical flux" or "objective reality" or whatever needs to match up with our words in order to rightly call them true. dmb: > Isn't it clear by now that empiricism makes all the difference? That's what > James and Pirsig have that you don't have. James and Pirisg can be radically > empirical while Rorty isn't empirical at all. How is even plausible to deny a > difference like that, a difference that stark and epic? Steve: You haven't at all made clear how this supposed difference makes a difference in any relevant practice. Again, what sort of argument do you think that a Jamesian could make for to justify a belief that Rorty could not make? 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
