[MD] relative.

[MarshaV]

On Jan 13, 2012, at 1:49 PM, david buchanan wrote:

> 
> Many of James' best-turned phrases—truth's cash value (James 1907, p. 200) and the true is only the expedient in our way of thinking (James 1907, p. 222)— were taken out of context and caricatured in contemporary literature as representing the view where any idea with practical utility is true. William James wrote:It is high time to urge the use of a little imagination in philosophy. The unwillingness of some of our critics to read any but the silliest of possible meanings into our statements is as discreditable to their imaginations as anything I know in recent philosophic history. Schiller says the truth is that which 'works.' Thereupon he is treated as one who limits verification to the lowest material utilities. Dewey says truth is what gives 'satisfaction'! He is treated as one who believes in calling everything true which, if it were true, would be pleasant. (James 1907, p. 90)

Hi dmb,

Maybe that's how you understand it.  Maybe that is truth relative to your study and understanding.  RMP's MoQ "improves on James’ (relativistic) pragmatism"; that's my understanding.  


Marsha 
 
 
 


>> From: dmbuchanan at hotmail.com
>> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>> Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:27:55 -0700
>> Subject: Re: [MD] relative.
>> 
>> 
>> Marsha said to Mark:
>> Tell me why you think relativism is destructiveness?  In its most general (Philosophy) dictionary definition it is presented as quite benign? 
>> 
>> 
>> dmb says:
>> Plato said the Sophists were relativists. Pirsig described Plato's accusation as vicious slander. The Stanford Encyclopedia does NOT describe it as "quite benign". Stanford says relativism is generally seen by philosophers as a "kiss of death".
>> 
>> "Relativism also often sounds better in the abstract than it does when we get down to actual cases, which often turn out to be rather trivial, on the one hand, or quite implausible, on the other. But it is also true that most academic philosophers in the English-speaking world see the label ‘relativist’ as the kiss of death, so few have been willing to defend any version of the doctrine (there is less reluctance in some other disciplines)."
>> 
>>  		 	   		  


 
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