[MD] David Hildebrand's Dewey

[Steve Peterson]

Hi DMB,

Thanks for your response. A few more questions...

I think what you are saying is that the pragmatists answer is simply to 
try to figure out what religion is supposed to do and see how well it 
does it. The tack that most people would like to take in conversations 
with theists is to argue that what theists believe just isn't true. I'm 
wondering if the pragmatist can argue in that vein or if he is 
constrained in such conversations by his use of the word "truth" or his 
denial of there being a way things really are. Though "the MOQ rejects 
beliefs based on faith, tradition and authority" it suggests that there 
is such a thing as intellectual quality that is independent of those 
things and has its own measures of goodness in terms of coherence with 
other beliefs, parsimony, and agreement with experience. Though 
pragmatists may agree that truth is what is good in terms of belief, 
pragmatists don't separate the terms by which beliefs should be 
evaluated from the terms by which social patterns should be evaluated 
(e.g. authority versus agreement with experience, coherence versus 
tradition). Could this explain James' and Dewey's ambivalence about 
religious dogma?

Regards,
Steve