[MD] Pirsig's theory of truth

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Ian,

Ian:
> No, I think I do get DMB, he said exactly what I said he'd say ...
> ie he "does NOT say truth is "whatever we feel justified in believing"."
> His emphasis not mine.


Steve:
He doesn't put it that way, but he does not distinguish between truth
and justification. Perhaps you can explain what you think DMBs
position is. The fact that you jumped in to say that the issue between
DMB and I with respect to truth is semantic strongly suggests to me
that you either don't know what what DMB was saying or you were siding
with me.

Ian:
> Back to what I'd said ... You said
>  "I don't see any difference between "Ian says that X is true" and
> "Ian says he believes that X."
>
> I believe you don't, but that's your problem. (Your's notice, not mine
> ... it's you that doesn't see any difference.)
>
> The first statement is low quality because it introduces the ambiguity
> (in whether Ian simply believes X to be a justifiable assertion or
> whether Ian understands X to be an objective fact independent of ....
> anything else, or maybe both ... ) ... like why would Ian even choose
> to insert the word true, rather that just assert X ? Short-hand (true
> is just four letters and one syllable long) for everyday conversation,
> where you don't really care about the difference, so you allow
> yourself to ignore or blur the ambiguity, because you understood we
> were trying to catch a bus, not having a metaphysical conversation. We
> deliberately blur the definition of true. Choosing to ignore the
> difefrence between two things is not the same as saying there is no
> difference between them, for ALL intents and purposes.
>
> The second says what it means, exactly what it says on the tin and no
> more. Any basis of why I believe it is not part of what is said ... it
> means the same whether we are trying to catch that bus or dawdle along
> having a metaphysical discourse ... a separate question, a separate
> assertion.

Steve:
I understand that there are differences to be made out the the two
assertions, but I think they are only differences of emphasis and
certainty. My point is that if you assent to (1)  "I believe X" you
ought to also assent to (2) "I think 'X' is true."  Maybe you can
think of some proposition to substitute for X where you wold assent to
(1) but not (2). I can't think of any such examples. If I say "I
believe that the cat is on the mat," then I would also assent to "I
think 'the cat is on the mat' is true."


Ian:
> Hopefully you could tell (from the Huh ?) that I couldn't quite
> believe the (invented) Pirsig quote ...

Steve:
But the issue is whether or not you agree and whether or not you think
Pirsig would agree with "'X' is true iff X is true."

DMB of course disagrees. Instead, DMB says "'X' is true if the belief
that 'X' is true can be ridden to successful action." What I keep
saying is that he has conflated true and justification toward no good
end. It would be better to say "We are justified in believing 'X' if
the belief that 'X' is true can be ridden to successful action."
Everything he says about truth ought to be said about justification
instead. We are better off leaving truth to semantics to avoid all the
"true for you, not for me" and "true then, false now" sort of
nonsense.

Best,
Steve