[MD] Pirsig's theory of truth

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Craig,


>
> The Coherence Theory of Truth:  Truth is what coheres with what else we hold true.
> It is true that all truths cohere with each other, but this is just a necessary condition,
> not a sufficient one for truth.
> The Pragmatic Theory of Truth:  Truth is “the name of whatever proves itself to be
> good in the way of belief.”
> But there are many ways a belief may be good &  being true is but one of them.
> So being a good belief is not sufficient to distinguish truth.
> Pirsig argues against:  The Correspondence Theory of Truth:
> 1) Truth is what corresponds to the facts.
> 2) If truth is what corresponds to the facts, there is only one set of facts.
> 3) There is not only one set of facts.
>
> 4) :. Truth is not what corresponds to the facts.
> But this argument only defeats one version of the Correspondence Theory of Truth, not:
> i) Truth is what corresponds to a set of facts.
> ii) There can be more than one set of facts.
> iii) :.  Truth is not what corresponds to  only one set of facts.
> Pirsig furthermore claims that truth is "provisional".
> What's an example:
>
> At one time we date the fossil of a human as one that died in 6 - 7 million BC.
>
> Later we refine our procedure & date it as having died in 4 - 5 million BC.
> It can't be that it was ever true that the human died in 6 - 7 million BC &
> now be true that it died in 4 -5 million BC.  The only way that could be
> true is if the human died in 6 - 7 million BC, came back to life & died again
> in 4 -5 million BC.
> To avoid this absurd conclusion, we should say not that truth is provisonal,
> but that the body of our held beliefs or justifiable beliefs are provisonal/revisable.


Steve:
I agree with you, but I'd like to think that Pirsig does too. When
Pirsig said that truth is provisional, I hope he meant something like
you said, that "the body of our held beliefs or justifiable beliefs
are provisonal/revisable" rather than that the truth of a matter
changes as new evidence becomes available. I think "truth is
provisional" is advice that says what we hold as true ought to be held
provisionally (the pencil is mightier than the pen) and that DMB is
just taking him too literally. I don't see any evidence that Pirsig
followed James any further than saying that the true is a species of
the good in subscribing to the so-called pragmatic theory of truth.

Best,
Steve