[MD] Pirsig's theory of truth

[Steven Peterson]

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