[MD] Pragmatic truth is neither nor

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB,

On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 5:12 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Steve asked dmb:
> Can you give me an example of a constraint on knowledge claims that is "practice-transcending"--one that isn't merely conversational?
>
> dmb replied:
> No, Steve. That's the false dilemma again and that's the point of Rockwell's analogy. James's pragmatic theory of truth is NEITHER practice-transcending NOR merely conversational.
>
>
> Steve asked dmb:
> If there is a false dilemma here (an excluded middle?), then you must be able to provide an example of a justificatory practice that is NEITHER conversational NOR practice-transcending.
>
> dmb says:
> Can I provide an example? James's pragmatic theory of truth does not count as an example? For the purposes of our discussion, I'd say it is THEE example. Against the merely conversational approach, I'm asserting pragmatic truth as a form of empiricism wherein our truths are tested by their performance in experience. Conversation is not excluded from experience, of course, but it's important to understand that language is only half of the equation, the static half.


Steve:
Of course conversation is not excluded from experience, but what you
fail to get is that nothing is excluded from conversation.


DMB:
As Seigfried points out, Rorty understands language to be
free-floating and he ascribes this view to James.

Steve:
Rorty understands language to be something that human beings do. How
is that free-floating?


DMB:
> Basically, she's saying that Rorty has taken the empiricism out of James's theory of truth and replaced it with mere conversation.

Steve:
Ok, but why the "mere"?  If conversation doesn't rule anything out in
being used as justification, what exactly is the problem?

DMB:
As the Stanford article points out, the notion that there are no
constraints on truth outside of language is a bit shocking even to
Rorty's friendliest critics and they can't follow him quite that far.

Steve:
Rorty's position is that there are no constraints on _justification_
outside of the practice of trying to convince one another of our
claims (conversation). Since you conflate truth and justification, I
guess you can't see the difference, but then you can't hope to
understand what Rorty means when you are unwilling to use the
distinction between a good belief and a good justification for a
belief.


DMB quotes a bunch of James:
> "Beliefs at any time are so much experience FUNDED. But the beliefs are themselves parts of the sum total of the world's experience, and become matter, therefore, for the next day's funding operations. So far as reality means experienceable reality, both it and the truths men gain about it are everlastingly in process of mutation - mutations toward a definite goal, it may be, - but still a mutation." (Emphasis is James's)
>
> "True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth can be known-as."
>
> "The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth HAPPENS to an idea. It BECOMES true, is MADE true by events. Its verity IS in fact an event, a process, the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-FICATION. Its validity is the process of its valid-ATION" (emphasis is James's)

Steve:
I have read these and similar writings of James and understand the
view of truth that he endorsed. Are you putting this view forth here
as the truth about what truth is?


DMB:
> This is what I mean by saying that pragmatic truth is not something over and above a justified belief. I think James is saying that justified beliefs are all we mean by the word truth. As a practical matter, that's all you're going to get. To say that truth can never mean anything more than that is to give up on the Platonic ideal of Truth altogether and instead present a human-sized theory about the kind of actual truths we can and do have.

Steve:
What if justified belief is NOT what we mean by truth in some cases?
For example, I might wonder whether a belief I am justified in
believing is actually true. Doesn't that in itself say that James was
wrong in asserting that justified belief is "all we mean by truth"? It
may usually be true that that is what we mean, but there are cases
where that is NOT what I and others mean when we use the word "true."
There is a cautionary use of the word that James does not take into
account.

Best,
Steve