Hi dmb,
> Steve said: > 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 ... > > > dmb says: > Sigh. > > Do you REALLY think that you can weasel out of your own notion of objective > truth by putting the phrase "common sense" in front of it? > > I don't. In fact, I don't see how any self-respecting conversationalist could > stoop to such a transparently bogus retraction. Steve: I haven't retracted anything, and my point stands with or without the words "common sense" which are just there to remind you that pretty much everyone thinks that the world was roundish before people showed up to assert that the world is roundish. We have a lot of good reasons to think so and no good reasons to doubt it. It seems to me that it ought to be about as uncontroversial a claim as anyone could make. It is absurd to think that to avoid SOM we have to think that the shape of the world is a function of what beliefs people at given places and times are able to justify. Let me try again. I am not pressing your claim against the "real" shape of the earth with any metaphysical overtones. (Recall that my thoughts about truth are limited to semantics. I don't think there is anything important philosophically to say about it once we take into account the ways in which the word "truth" is used in everyday language.) I am pressing one belief against another belief rather than one belief against "reality." I am pressing the belief that things like the shape of the world are unaffected by our ideas about them against your belief that truth ought to only ever be understood as justified belief. I am saying that to assert that truth is indistinguishable from justified belief is to accept a bunch of problems and to contradict a whole bunch of our beliefs. One of those problems is that we would be forced to think that when people in an earlier epistemic context were justified in asserting "the earth is flat," then at that time and that place "the earth is flat" was true. But now that we are justified in asserting "the earth is roundish," that claim is true. It would seem that we must also then believe that the earth changed shape at some time and it did so in response to the justifiability of human beliefs about it. Another problem that you (and James) have is that many people at different points in history were able to ride their belief in the moral acceptability of slavery to successful action. If truth is "what works," certainly for some people belief in the morality of enslaving others "worked." What we seem to have here is quite an extreme version of relativism, the exact problem that you thought Rorty had. But Rorty (like Haack) could never go for that sort of "true for me/false for you" relativism about truth that you are defending. dmb: The way James personally decided to believe in free will, for example. How does it work out if you act as if you had free will? This is not the sort of thing that can simply be observed like snow or cats can. And yet it is an empirical test. Put the idea to work in your life and see what happens. Pragmatism means practice and so the pragmatic truth is what works in actual practice. Interestingly, researchers recently conducted a test to see what effect it would make on moral behavior to believe that free will is an illusion. One group was given scientific literature that denied the existence of free will and the other group was given equally difficult reading material on consciousness in general, material that did not discuss the existence of free will at all. Long story short, those who read the denials of free will were more likely to cheat on the tests and more likely to say nasty things about the other participants. Steve: Again, you are saying all the sorts of things that people who balk at Rorty's pragmatism are afraid that he is saying, except with you their fears would be justified. I wonder if you would take the same attitude with a woman who says, "I just couldn't live in a world where Jesus didn't die for my sins." Is that supposed to count as justification that Jesus is the lord and savior of all mankind? Is the divinity of Jesus then true? Or maybe, "true for her"? 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
