[MD] MOQ and Gödel's incompleteness theorems

[Tuukka Virtaperko]

David:

"Pirsig's pragmatic theory of truth"? What is this?

As for rational truth and empirical truth, the camps are not seriously 
rival. If a sworn defendant of rational truth would rely only on 
rational truth, well, as a child, he would probably not have even 
learned to walk. And if a sworn defendant of empiric truth would rely 
only on empiric truth, he could not have a career as a logician. What 
even are these "camps" that, apparently, contain sworn defendants of 
this kind? Who belong to these camps? I'm quite sure that no one in 
their right mind does.

"But the pragmatist says if they all work well, then we can rightly say 
they are all true, if even they seem to describe different realities or 
different conceptions of reality."

They don't describe anything. For example, the claim, that non-Euclidean 
geometry is a description of a certain empirically observable 
phenomenon, is not a part of the axioms of non-Euclidean geometry. Of 
course, formalizing such a statment so that it even could be an axiom, 
is quite impossible. They are only logical systems, and their notion of 
truth would remain their notion of truth even if the system would 
describe no empirically observable phenomenon, which, of course, is 
rather unlikely.

You seem to be claiming that pragmatists require a meta-system, which 
would dictate, which systems have a "true" notion of truth, and which 
systems have a "false" notion of truth. But if pragmatists did this, 
they would only be begging the question - for what is the notion of 
truth, that the meta-system uses, based on? On "working well"? What does 
that mean? That "true" notions of truth have Quality?

Your argument seems to be founded on the notion that there are analytic 
and synthetic propositions, as you speak of "rational truth" and 
"empirical truth", which correspond to the former pair, respectively. 
I'd like to point out that Quine found the notion of analytic truths and 
synthetic truths untenable. If you wish, you may see Logic and Ontology: 
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-ontology/#4.4

-Tuukka




10.3.2011 3:42, david buchanan kirjoitti:
> Tuukka said:
>
> What happens if you change "true" and "false" into "good" and "evil"? A "logical system" turns into an intellectual static value pattern, and an unprovable statement turns into an act whose moral value cannot be determined from within the system. And if the act is good, it is Dynamic Quality. This is MOQ. Right?
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> dmb says:
> It seems to me that Pirsig's pragmatic theory of truth is very different from the kind of truth that logicians and mathematicians pursue. The latter is almost entirely rational and the former is almost entirely empirical. They have very different accounts of truth. These are the two rival camps that have existed throughout the history of philosophy.
> I don't know about their completeness, but in Zen and the Art Pirsig talks about "truth" in relation to the emergence of alternative geometries, as you might recall. I guess it was quite earth-shattering at the time, the way relativity overthrew Newton's static and mechanical universe. Suddenly, there was a second and a third system of geometry and they were not only logically consistent but they "worked" as geometric systems. Suddenly, Euclid's geometry was not the only kind and Euclid's was supposed to describe our common sense notions of real space. Yikes!
> But the pragmatist says if they all work well, then we can rightly say they are all true, if even they seem to describe different realities or different conceptions of reality. The pragmatic truth is not tied to any ontology because those claims are treated the same pragmatic way. If your notion of what reality really is actually "works" when it's tried out, acted upon or otherwise tested in experience, then that ontological notion can be counted as true.
> I think that's what it means to say "truth is a species of the good", the pragmatic slogan that Pirsig takes from James. Like health is a biological good and wealth is a social good, truth is a name for intellectual quality. Coherence and logical consistency are part of it, of course. But this notion is very empirical, but it's not the narrow sensory empiricism of the positivists. Instead, ideas are tested in experience in a very broad sense. What happens when you take that idea out for a serious test drive? What happens over the long haul?
> You could have a perfectly complete and logical system that is also useless or even disastrous when applied. In that sense, logic and pragmatic truth are two completely different things. Or maybe it would be better to say that logic is true only to the extent that it's useful.
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