[MD] relative.

[david buchanan]

Somehow this post lost a crucial chunk in the middle so that it's impossible to see who said what. What follows is a restoration to the best of my recollection...


david buchanan posted this:
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)



Marsha replied:
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.


dmb says:
The paragraph I posted isn't just my understanding. It is a section of the Wikipedia article on pragmatism, one that quotes William James. The encyclopedia says that those who think any useful idea is pragmatically true are guilty of painting a caricature based on a few phrases taken out of context. James himself says such critics are silly and discreditable. I selected that paragraph and posted as a response to you because that paragraph describes your silly position. I happen to know that James goes on to suggest, in the very next paragraph, that such critics are guilty of "impudent slander". That's also what I'm saying about silly position. It's a silly, slanderous, caricature of the pragmatic theory of truth. Likewise, as previously mentioned, Pirsig described Plato's accusation of relativism as vicious slander and the Stanford Encyclopedia says relativism is generally seen by philosophers as a "kiss of death". Your position is really quite ludicrous.
 Pragmatism is a theory of truth. It rejects absolute and eternal truths but there are empirical and conceptual standards so that truths are "wedged and controlled" between the flux of experience and the conceptual order. In other words, the truth has to agree with experience and it has to make sense. This truth theory is not compatible with relativism because relativism denies that there can be any such standards of truth. Pragmatic truth is NOT "whatever works for me" or my culture. And to suggest otherwise really is vicious slander. James and Pirsig both deny it within their respective texts. (Andre and I already explained - several times - how you are misreading the quotes you constantly use.) Nobody is buying it. 


James wrote a kind of sequel to Pragmatism. It's called "The Meaning of Truth". I imagine that. In order to defend and extend his pragmatism, he wrote an entire book about truth. One of the most relevant chapters would be "Abstractionism and 'Relativismus'". I dare you to read it.