Michael Patrick Lynch, a thoughtful scholar with an intense devotion to democracy and a clear desire to do all he can for both its preservation and enlargement, has recently written a wide-ranging book on the nature and relationships of truth (along with the desire to find it) and deliberative democracy. My new review of his book, however, focuses mostly on how his understandings of both truth and democracy differ from my own. While I stand by my criticisms, I admit that my piece now seems to me come off as a bit harsh and know-it-ally.
FWIW, I attribute my emphasis on disagreements of this type with my being something of a "hollaback girl" at heart#--(though I suppose I may credit myself for not being what Lynch calls a "Twitbookian"). I want to stress the fact, however, that no one should think I am hollaingback specifically at Lynch! Maybe it's just at the philosophical world at large? Though if it is, it's definitely not because one of my besties told me that it was talking about me. This, I think, is an unattractive characteristic I share with Samuel Butler, the thinker from whom I stole the name of this blog.
------------------
#As we know from her song, Gwen Stefani ain't no hollaback girl herself.
8 comments:
Walter: “FWIW, my own view is that the best response to all such theories is to recommend spending a moment to consider whether it is possible that some proposition that seems true even at the very end of human inquiry, after applying all manner of expert science, epistemology, and all other modes of human understanding to their fullest, is nevertheless just NOT TRUE. All who join me in thinking that this is a legitimate possibility, should believe that pragmatism is false.”
Which pragmatists are you referring to? All the ones I am familiar with believe it is always possible that any one of our propositions \ claims \ asserts may turn out to be false. Your description sounds like the philosophical principle of fallibilism. If so, then AFAIK it’s actually a foundational principle of pragmatism. So I don’t understand your suggestion that “All who join me in [embracing fallibilism], should believe that pragmatism is false.”
Walter: “I don’t believe that any important improvements can be made to Tarski’s definition of truth, which I take to reflect a simple correspondence theory. According to that theory, a statement (or belief, etc.) is true if and only if it corresponds with the real world.”
You are not alone in taking Tarski’s Theory-T to be a correspondence theory of truth, but nonetheless, it is still seriously debated whether it should be understood this way:
“Whether Tarski’s own definition of truth can be regarded as a correspondence definition, even in this modified sense, is under debate (cf. Popper 1972; Field 1972, 1986; Kirkham 1992, chaps. 5-6; Soames 1999; Künne 2003, chap. 4; Patterson 2008.)”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/#3:~:text=Whether%20Tarski%E2%80%99s%20own%20definition%20of%20truth%20can%20be%20regarded%20as%20a%20correspondence%20definition%2C%20even%20in%20this%20modified%20sense%2C%20is%20under%20debate%20(cf.%20Popper%201972%3B%20Field%201972%2C%201986%3B%20Kirkham%201992%2C%20chaps.%205%2D6%3B%20Soames%201999%3B%20K%C3%BCnne%202003%2C%20chap.%204%3B%20Patterson%202008.)
I discussed with Grok Patterson’s views on whether Tarski endorsed a correspondence theory of truth. Here is an excerpt:
“Patterson contends that Tarski deliberately steers clear of "correspondence" language in his core 1933 work, Pojęcie prawdy w językach nauk dedukcyjnych ("The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages"). Tarski later *expressed regret over using "correspondence"* in his 1944 essay "The Semantic Conception of Truth," viewing it as imprecise and potentially misleading. For Patterson, this reflects Tarski's intent to define truth materially (via satisfaction in models) rather than as a substantive world-to-language mapping.”
https://x.com/i/grok/share/cyuAAFvTnRrmo8HT32WdWU6RT
Going forward, you’d be better off citing Moore and Russell than Tarski in support of simple correspondence theory.
Thanks. As I said I my piece, I wouldn't expect to convince anybody with other views to discard their pragmatic theory and adopt a correspondence view. But I will say here that fallabilism is an epistemic view and shoving it into a theory of truth is exactly what I think is confused about pragmatism.
Also, the belief that Tarski's position can be correctly described as a correspondence theory is the orthodox position. I understand that it can be described in other ways, but they seem to me misleading and unnecessarily complicating.
"Fallibilism is an epistemic view and shoving it into a theory of truth is exactly what I think is confused about pragmatism."
I'm not seeing how your comment is a response to mine. I was quoting your post where you seem to claim that IF someone believes [A] "it is possible that some proposition that seems true...is nevertheless just NOT TRUE" THEN they "should believe that pragmatism is false". This seems false to me, regardless of how one categorizes fallibilism as a theory. Someone can believe [A] and nonetheless believe that pragmatism is true. What am I misunderstanding?
I think it's that you left out the beginning of my remark, the part about being about being at the "end of inquiry." The question is--can any level or state of inquiry require that something be true or can it not (without begging the question). A good fallaballist should say "It can't: we could always be wrong, regardless." The pragmatic theory of truth says it does. On that view, being true is a matter of being believed at the end of inquiry, of having "ultimate warrant."
It seems to me a fairly serious confusion, and one that is actually inconsistent with fallabilism.
I left it out because I didn't think it made a difference. But let's work with your recasted version of the question: "Can any level or state of inquiry require that something be true or can it not (without begging the question)?"
Even when put this way, all the pragmatists I'm aware of would answer, "It can't: we could always be wrong, regardless", just like good fallibilists. Even Peirce, who spoke of the "end of inquiry", would say it can't (ie he would agree that no "level or state of inquiry [can] require that something be true"). I am constantly reminded by an avid, and deeply knowledgeable, Peircian on Twitter, that Peirce's concept of the "end of inquiry" is merely a *regulatory ideal*, ie we should act as if we could approach the end of inquiry asymptotically. But he was quite clear that error was forever possible.
In fact, I just looked up whether Peirce is considered a fabillist, only to discover that he is credited with coining the term and introduced the concept(!): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallibilism . Peirce is arguably not just a good fallibist, but its modern founder! The SEP entry on Peirce also clearly considers him to be a fallibilist. And the SEP entry on pragmatism quotes Putnam's key characteristics of pragmatism:
"Putnam identifies four key characteristics of pragmatism as: i) rejection of skepticism, ii) *willingness to embrace fallibilism*, iii) rejection of dichotomies such as fact/value, mind/body, analytic/synthetic, iv) what he calls ‘the primacy of practice’ (Putnam 1993; 1994)."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/
So again, I don't understand your apparent claim that pragmatists, including Peirce, aren't "good fallibists". Everything I've ever read or heard says otherwise. I'm sincerely hoping to get to the bottom of this misunderstanding, eg, We discover that I've been misunderstanding what you're claiming or you're misunderstanding the relationship between pragmatism and fallibilism.
Sure you can be a pragmatist and a fallibilist. There have been lots of them, including Peirce and Putnam. What you can't consistently be is a fallibilist and hold that a proposition is true just in case it is believed at the "end of inquiry." As both Putnam sometimes and Peirce (always) seem to have believed both, I think they were inconsistent. It may seem easy to drop truth as a basic, non-epistemic concept for the obviously epistemic "what works," but it actually isn't. I don't think the commonsense idea of truth can be dropped at all...for anything.
However, as Russell was unable to convince James, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to convince you!
Yay, progress (dare I say resolution?)! So pragmatism (generally) is not inconsistent with fallibilism, only specific pragmatists, such as Peirce and Putnam held inconsistent points of view. Given that I'm not a fan of attempts to tie the concept of truth to inquiry, I won't address whether Peirce's views are inconsistent (and I don't know enough about Putnam to offer an opinion).
I'm content with knowing that as neopragmatist in the mold of Rorty/Davidson, I can proudly claim to be a pragmatist and a fallibilist without inconsistency.
BTW, Thanks for the interaction. It prompted me to read the SEP entry "The Pragmatic Theory of Truth", which I found to be immensely clarifying: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-pragmatic/ . In particular, the framework of three separate “projects” (essence, justification, and speech-act) that examine different dimensions of the concept of truth very clarifying. It helped me see why proponents of a correspondence theory of truth and proponents of a justification theory of truth usually talk past one another.
👍👍
Post a Comment