Pragmatism about Truth

Nature is complex, exceedingly so. A repercussion of this “complex world constraint” is that it is, in practice, impossible to connect words to the world in a foolproof manner. In this paper I explore the ways in which the complex world constraint makes vagueness, or more generally imprecision, in language in practice unavoidable, illuminates what vagueness comes to, and guides us to a sensible way of thinking about truth. Along the way we see that the problem of ceteris paribus laws (...) is exactly the problem of vagueness and susceptible to similar treatment. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe science does not or should not aim at the truth. Sometimes they say scientists do not really care much about truth. Sometimes they say truth is an outdated Enlightenment hand-me-down, full of confusion and rhetoric but empty of explanatory or normative importance. And sometimes they argue that it is irrational to pursue the truth. This last claim is the target of the present paper.

This paper presents a history of Bertrand Russell's evolving views on the nature of truth. It begins with his brief defense of a primitivist view of truth, followed by his critical accounts of both the coherence and pragmatic theories of truth. Then the paper discusses Russell's shift to the correspondence theory, and the variations of it he defended throughout his career.

Function-first approaches illuminate phenomena by investigating their functional roles. I first describe virtues of this approach. By foregrounding normal instances of knowledge, for example, function-first theorising offers a much-needed corrective to epistemology's counterexample-driven momentum towards increasingly byzantine, marginal cases. And epistemic practices are shaped by human limitations, needs, vices, and power relations. These non-ideal, naturalistic forces of embodied sociality form the roots of function-first theorising, which creates a fecund foundation for social epistemology. Secondly, I consider an objection to function-first theorising. (...) The objection holds that function-first approaches lack adjudicatory power. That is, function-first proposals are overly compatible with diverse claims about knowledge, which encourages “just so” speculation. In response to this concern, I advocate methodological pluralism in epistemological theorising. All methods have limitations; researchers must be mindful of those limits and fruitfully combine multiple methods. I illustrate with Hannon's function-first based arguments for “epistemic pragmatism”, which denies that the meaning of “knows” is determined by truth conditions. Finally, I argue that function-first theorising motivates staunch anti-skepticism about knowledge. Practical forces cannot chisel a sharp threshold for how much evidence is required for knowledge. But thinking this supports radical skepticism about knowledge conflates fuzzy thresholds and high ones. (shrink)

Deflationists about truth hold that the function of the truth predicate is to enable us to make certain assertions we could not otherwise make. Pragmatists claim that the utility of negation lies in its role in registering incompatibility. The pragmatist insight about negation has been successfully incorporated into bilateral theories of content, which take the meaning of negation to be inferentially explained in terms of the speech act of rejection. We implement the deflationist insight in a bilateral theory by taking (...) the meaning of the truth predicate to be explained by its inferential relation to assertion. We combine this account of the meaning of the truth predicate with a new diagnosis of the Liar Paradox: its derivation requires the truth rules to preserve evidence, but these rules only preserve commitment. The result is a novel inferential deflationist theory of truth, which solves the Liar Paradox in a principled manner. We end by showing that our theory and simple extensions thereof have the resources to axiomatize the internal logic of several supervaluational hierarchies, including Cantini’s. This solves open problems of Halbach (2011) and Horsten (2011). (shrink)

The chapter explores comparatively the attention to the practical dimension that—each in his own way—Michel Foucault, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the classic pragmatist thinker William James pay when confronted with the challenge of providing a non-skeptical response to the relativist stance on truth that arose in the post-Kantian age. Particular focus will be given to the extent to which these three authors conceived of the practical framework as the only one that allows us to meaningfully address and determine truth.

This volume provides a geographically and historically diverse overview of philosophical traditions that establish a deep connection between truth and practice, or even see truth itself as a kind of practice. Under the label "practices of truth" are subsumed disparate approaches that can be fruitfully brought together to explore the intersections between truth and practice in philosophy as well as to address a range of intriguing questions about truth that fall outside the domain of pure theory. The chapters in this (...) volume provide a variety of perspectives on key practices of truth in philosophy and in the history of philosophy, enriching our understanding of the different ways in which truth and practice may be connected, including the role of certain practices in enabling philosophical insight into truth; the ways in which truth may actually be embedded in some practices; and the impact of truth on practice. Practices of Truth in Philosophy will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in the history of philosophy, comparative philosophy, ethics, epistemology, and the metaphysics of truth. (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce has commonly been interpreted as a proponent of an epistemic theory of truth. Such a theory has the apparent advantage of directly undercutting radical skepticism, but the disadvantage of implausibly entailing that there are no truths concerning irretrievably lost facts. Recently Andrew Howat has defended Peirce’s epistemic constraint on truth by recasting Peirce’s claim that all truths would be believed following sufficient inquiry, not as constitutive of truth, but as a Wittgensteinian hinge proposition. I begin with a (...) twofold historical reply to Howat: first, Peirce can at least plausibly be read as claiming that the claim in question is analytic of the concept <truth>; and second, while Peirce did think we must accept without evidence the further claim that there are any truths (so characterized), he regarded this further claim not as a Wittgensteinian hinge but as a reasonable hope. I then substantively defend the latter Peircean proposal, arguing that hopes, as against beliefs, are chiefly warranted pragmatically, and so can be warranted even to a sufficient level to render them properly action-guiding in cases where belief in the same proposition would remain unjustified. I conclude by suggesting, first, that this proposal is superior to Wittgenstein’s own epistemology in evading psychologism, and second, that it attractively vindicates the reasonableness of inquiry on Peircean grounds that don’t require an appeal to an implausible epistemic theory of truth. (shrink)

Post-truth politics comes forward as a challenge to the credibility of science through its association with skepticism and denialism about scientific approaches and findings. While debates over the nature of facts and the social character of scientific knowledge have mainly taken place in an academic setting, the current concerns about science skepticism have connected them to wider social issues. This chapter will examine this question with the focus on biomedical and physiological sciences and cast doubt on the claim that particular (...) strands of research from the ‘science wars’ period have enabled post-truth politics. Exploring the backdrop of controversies over the objectivity of science and relativism, I will show that the causes of the erosion of trust in science are better traced to socio-economic conditions that feed into legitimate distrust in science alongside other institutions. I will further argue that, quite paradoxically for the critics of relativism, construing science as social and sketching out ways of producing knowledge relevant to those who have good reasons for skepticism and distrust can help counter post-truth politics. (shrink)

John Dewey is a pragmatic and evolutionary philosopher who, with his instrumentalist philosophy, seeks to apply philosophy as well as to update philosophy based on new findings in the field of experimental science. He believed that with the introduction of the Darwinian origin scheme, a great event had taken place in the world of natural sciences and a revolution had taken place in the thinking and way of thinking of the time. Dewey enters his new philosophy by using the problem (...) of changing the types and concepts that are inferred from it. According to Dewey, epistemology and conventional ethics have come to an end, and we need to bring about a fundamental transformation and revision. Keywords such as the essence of objects, the fundamental principles, the invisible objects that regulate or control our lives and our world, are challenged by Darwin's theory. Dewey's philosophy of inquiry criticizes absolute principles. Dewey's philosophy of ethics and epistemology is realized in nature, along with natural selection and with the mechanism of the principles of adaptation of living beings. Individual and society, opinion and action, world and hereafter, right and wrong, are two parts that Dewey tries to unite. He considers man and society as a single, continuous, organ-like or organic matter. Dewey's evolutionary ethics and epistemology can be useful as a new tool for the philosophical society of Iran, with the consideration that its practical results in our society should be constantly evaluated. (shrink)

This paper contrasts two versions of a pragmatist critique of deflationism about truth. According to the critique, understanding the practice of factual discourse requires understanding a role played in that practice by speakers’ use of the concept of truth. Huw Price takes this role to lie in the expression of attitudes of approval and disapproval toward other speakers’ assertions. Proceeding from Robert Brandom’s analysis of assertion, I defend an alternative account of truth’s role in terms of the acknowledgement and disacknowledgement (...) of communicative authority. I explain why this account fails to yield Price’s key anti-deflationary conclusion, namely that engaging in factual discourse requires holding that false assertions are ipso facto normatively incorrect. (shrink)

Even in areas of philosophy of science that don’t involve formal treatments of truth, one’s background view of truth still centrally shapes views on other issues. I offer an informal way to think about truth as trueing, like trueing a bicycle wheel. This holist approach to truth provides a way to discuss knowledge products like models in terms of how well-trued they are to their target. Trueing emphasizes: the process by which models are brought into true; how the idealizations in (...) models are not false but rather like spokes in appropriate tension to achieve a better-trued fit to target; and that this process is not accomplished once and done forever, but instead requires upkeep and ongoing fine-tuning. I conclude by emphasizing the social importance of being a pragmatist about truth in order to accurately answer questions about science such as, “but do we really know that…”. (shrink)

Descartes held that it is impossible to make true statements about what we perceive, but I go over alleged cases of illusory experience to show why such a skeptical conclusion (and recourse to God) is overblown. The overreaction, I contend, stems from an insufficient awareness of the habitual expectations brought to any given experience. These expectations manifest themselves in motor terms, as perception constantly prompts and updates an embodied posture of readiness for what might come next. Such habitual anticipations work (...) best when they efface themselves, so it is easy to blame perception when our expectations get frustrated. I illustrate this misdirected blame with the example of a stick partially in water: it is only because we expect the stick to be straight that its appearance as bent is deemed problematic. I thus conclude that, if we factor in the habitual interpretations operative in perception and switch to a processual view that allows practical engagement, we can deflate the worries that led Descartes to rule out perceptual truths. Distancing myself from the naïve “sign” of folk semiotics, my critique draws inspiration from the triadic semiotic model developed in some late medieval schools of Portugal. (shrink)

Truth: What Do We Really Know? JTB Account of Knowledge & Gettier Problem Truth & Knowledge: What is Truth? Pragmatism Coherence Correspondence Semantic Relativism Postmodernism Feminist Epistemology Why Does Truth Matter? Science, Truth, & "Post-Truth" .

Truth pluralists say that there are many ways to be true. Aaron Cotnoir (“Pluralism and Paradox” in: Pedersen and Wright (eds) Truth and pluralism: current debates, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) has suggested a “uniquely pluralist response to the liar”. The basic idea is to maintain that, if a sentence says of itself that it is not true in a certain way, then that sentence is not apt to be true in that way, but is instead apt to be true (...) in a different way. While this is consistent with the basic tenets of truth pluralism, it is an open question whether or not it is amenable to any actual pluralist theory. The primary goal of this paper is to argue that Cotnoir's proposal is amenable to form-based pluralism, rather than domain-based pluralism. In particular, in Section 1, I argue that there are several serious obstacles in the way of the domain-based pluralist who wishes to endorse Cotnoir's proposal; in Section 2, I show how the form-based pluralist can overcome these difficulties. The secondary goal of the paper is to argue that most, if not all, substantivists about truth should find form-based pluralism independently attractive. As such, the possibility of a form-based pluralist solution to the liar is not merely a technical curiosity, but something in which substantivists about truth have a vested interest. (shrink)

Pragmatists are usually very antagonistic toward the correspondence theory of truth. They contend that the evidence-transcendent standard entailed by the theory is antithetical to the pragmatist methodology of elucidating concepts by exposing their practical bearings. What use could truth be to us if it offers a target we cannot even see? After judging the correspondence theory to be in violation of the Pragmatic Maxim, the pragmatist is prone to banishing it to the wastelands of empty metaphysics, where nothing of practical (...) importance could ever grow. This article makes the case that this unjust condemnation must be appealed and overturned. The ground for my case is an argument to the effect that the correspondence conception of truth can be practically advantageous, which provides proof of the fact that, contrary to popular pragmatist belief, the correspondence theory does comply with the Pragmatic Maxim. (shrink)

Deflationists believe that the question “What is truth?” should be answered not by means of a metaphysical inquiry into the nature of truth, but by figuring out what use we make of the concept of truth, and the word ‘true’, in practice. This article accepts this methodology, and it thereby rejects pluralism about truth that is driven by ontological considerations. However, it shows that there are practical considerations for a pluralism about truth, formulated at the level of use. The theory (...) expounded by this article states that truth is a dual-purpose tool; it can be used as a device for transferring justificatory burdens and, for select areas of discourse, it can also be used as a standard, a norm. This contrast in how truth is used introduces a bifurcation in our discourse that is reminiscent of metaphysical divides traced by more traditional versions of alethic pluralism. However, my pluralism “at the level of use” states that truth is plural solely at the level of use. It is unified at both the conceptual as well as the metaphysical level. At those levels, the theory takes its cue from deflationism. As such, this theory is offered as a midway point and as a potential way forward in the debate between deflationism and pluralism. (shrink)

Mercedes Valmisa turns our attention to the relations between truth and practice in classical Chinese philosophy. In this tradition, truth is conceived of, in a pragmatic-like spirit, as a series of embodied beliefs and perspectives that lead to fitting dispositions, emotions, and actions (regardless of whether they accurately describe the world, or whether there are other competing beliefs and perspectives that equally accurately or inaccurately describe the world). This means that we should care about truth because of its normative power (...) to guide our behavior in the most fitting way, not because of a theoretical interest in accurately describing reality. Valmisa Oviedo traces the development of this conception of truth in the Mohists and Zhuangists, leading to two radically different sociopolitical and ethical positions: the Mohists used single-truth discourses to enforce ideological monopolies that could not allow pluralism in values, norms, beliefs, and practices, while the Zhuangists warned us against the dangers of such dogmatism. (shrink)

Pragmatism and the correspondence theory of truth are longtime foes. Nevertheless, there is an argument to be made that pragmatists must embrace truth as correspondence. I show that there is a distinctive pragmatic utility to taking truth to be correspondence, and I argue that it would be inconsistent for pragmatists to accept the utility of the belief that truth is correspondence while resisting the premise that this belief is correct. -/- In order to show how pragmatists can embrace truth as (...) correspondence, I develop a kind of alethic pluralism, which treats pragmatist truth as theoretically fundamental to truth as correspondence. This theoretical fundamentality of pragmatist truth allows the pragmatist to conditionally accept truth as correspondence for certain discourses without falling prey to the typical pragmatist objections to correspondence. This pluralist account of truth thus allows pragmatists to concede that, for certain domains of discourse, truth is correspondence, without thereby betraying their pragmatist principles. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically approach the essence of Dewey’s philosophy: his method. In particular, it is what Dewey termed as denotative method is at the center of my attention. I approach Dewey’s denotative method via what I call the “genealogical deconstruction” that is followed by the “pragmatic reconstruction.” This meta-approach is not alien to Dewey’s philosophy, and in fact was employed by Dewey himself in Experience and Nature. The paper consists of two parts. In Part 1, I genealogically deconstruct (...) the philosophical foundation of the denotative method: the doctrine of immediate empiricism. The latter was originally stated in Dewey’s 1905 seminal “The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism” article, and fully developed twenty years later in his Experience and Nature. I claim that Dewey’s immediate empiricism is essentially incompatible with his pragmatism (instrumentalism) and with pragmatism overall. In Part 2, I pragmatically reconstruct Dewey’s denotative method from the perspective of what I term as the “hermeneutic empiricism” which is grounded in Dewey’s 1896 “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology” article. As opposed to the immediate empiricism’s main thesis “things are what they are experienced as,” the motto of the hermeneutic empiricism would be “things are what they are interpreted as”/“things are experienced what they are interpreted as.” The above-mentioned pragmatic reconstruction also leads to the transformation of the notion of “common sense” which is vital to Dewey’s method, into the notion of sound reason. (shrink)

I defend a novel pragmatist account of truth that I call ‘truth from the agent point of view’ or ‘agential truth’, drawing on insights from Hilary Putnam. According to the agential view, as inquirers, when we take something to be truth-apt, we are taking ourselves and all other thinkers to be accountable to getting right a shared target that is independent of any individual's or community's view of that target. That we have this relationship to truth is what enables our (...) practices of disagreement and agreement, even when subject to the glare of self-conscious reflection, and represents a crucial ingredient in our capacity for rational thought. The resulting account shares elements with Huw Price's and Cheryl Misak's views, but also has important advantages over both. It also yields a surprising conclusion—that our best pragmatist account of truth may well be a version of the correspondence theory of truth. (shrink)

I argue in this chapter that we should not be quick to dismiss Hilary Putnam’s account of truth as (idealized) rational acceptability. Putnam defends the view that the role values play in facts and vice versa. What I argue for here does not amount to a full-blooded defense of Putnam’s account, but of an important component of a pragmatist theory of truth more generally. I defend the value of usability as particularly important and show how Jane Addams and subsequent feminist (...) philosophers argue for an emphasis on implementation. In this, I adopt the pragmatist tradition of seeing what is true as tied to our epistemic aims. My defense of the value of usability provides a defense against objections like those raised by Hartry Field and reveals a startling claim: on some pragmatist theories of truth, a theory can be true despite having counterexamples! (shrink)

Pragmatic theories of truth need to pass the pragmatic test: they need to make a difference. Unfortunately, defenders of the pragmatic theory have rarely applied this test. I argue that a Deweyan pragmatic account of truth passes the test by identifying the political and epistemic dangers of certain types of social networks that create a durable consensus around false beliefs. To better understand Dewey’s account of truth I propose an excursion through Wittgenstein’s later views on knowledge and certainty.

Increasingly artists have become political activists. Their work has taken on the shape of a criminal investigator. Where does this turn toward forensics come from? How do we understand it as a aesthetic practice? The words investigative and aesthetics seem like an uneasy match. But this book claims that expanded aesthetic practices can powerfully reshape our approach to the question of truth. Shifts in technology and new ways of thinking together offer a means of searching for facts and understanding them (...) anew. This book proposes that the current period is defined by new forms of "aesthetic power" composed both by sensing, detection and prediction and the torrential proliferation of images and data. To evade and oppose this form of state-corporate domination we can learn to join the dots between traces within our interwoven digital, built and natural environments. Investigative aesthetics can also enable new collaborative forms of verification. Rather than rely on official expertise it calls for an open process that combines the perspectives of communities exposed to state or corporate violence with those of artists, activists and scientists. This new practice takes place equally in the field, the art studio as in the scientific laboratory, online and in the streets, as it strives towards the construction of a new "common sensing". (shrink)

While historians of pragmatism often present William James as the founder of the “subjectivist” wing of pragmatism that came back into prominence with the writings of Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam has argued that James’s views are actually much closer to Peirce’s (and Putnam’s own). Putnam does so by noting that James distinguishes two sorts of truth: “temporary truth,” which is closer to a subjective notion of warranted assertibility, and “absolute truth,” which is closer to Peirce’s own comparatively objective notion of (...) truth as what would be believed at some idealized end of inquiry. Putnam then argues that the temptation to read James as a precursor to Rorty requires privileging his talk of temporary truth, when, in fact, it was always absolute truth that was the primary sense of the term for James. This paper will argue that James’s views on truth are, in fact, much less tied to the absolute notion than Putnam suggests, and, indeed, that James’s account of the relations between our concepts and reality leave open the possibility that no claim of ours could ever be “absolutely” true, and thus that “temporary” truth would be all we could ever expect to have. (shrink)

The concept of truth and competing philosophical theories on what truth amounts to have an important place in contemporary philosophy. The aim of this chapter is to give a synopsis of different theories of truth and the particular philosophical issues related to the concept of truth. The literature on this topic is vast, and we must necessarily be rather selective and very brief about complex questions of interpretation of various philosophers. The focus of the chapter is mainly on selected systematic (...) issues and the most influential and well-established philosophical theories and key concepts. (shrink)

Jordan Peterson’s remarks on the nature of truth are voluminous. Despite this, widespread confusion persists on Peterson’s understanding of truth. One reason for this is that Peterson’s treatment of this notion is scattered and unsystematic. Another reason is that the scholarly work on Peterson’s truth is lacking. It is the goal of this paper to clarify Peterson’s views by deploying instruments of analysis from contemporary philosophical literature. After critically discussing Peterson’s views, I conclude that his truth is best understood as (...) an anti-realist notion. Finally, I propose certain developments to Peterson's views by emphasizing his remarks on the value and mind-dependence of truth. (shrink)

Truth is a fundamental philosophical concept that, despite its common and everyday use, has resisted common-sense formulations. At this point, one may legitimately wonder if there even is a common-sense notion of truth or what it could look like. In response, I propose here a common-sense account of truth based on four “truisms” that set a baseline for how to go about building an account of truth. Drawing on both ordinary language philosophy and contemporary pragmatic approaches to truth, I defend (...) a pragmatic, common-sense theory of truth. The result is a theory that focuses the use and function of truth while also emphasizing its “subject-independence.”. (shrink)

In texts such as “Richard Rorty’s Pragmatic Turn” Jürgen Habermas defends a theory that associates, on the one hand, the truth-claim raised by a speaker for a proposition p with, on the other hand, the requirement that p be “defendable on the basis of good reasons […] at any time and against anybody”. This, as is known, has been the target of criticisms by Rorty, who−in spite of agreeing with Habermas on the central tenet that the way of evaluating our (...) beliefs must be argumentative practice−declares that the only “ideal presupposed by discourse” is “that of being able to justify your beliefs to a competent audience”. We will consider two texts from 1971, -surprisingly neglected in most approaches to the debate-, in which Habermas did include such a “competence condition” to elucidate the notion of truth. We will discuss whether there are good reasons to relinquish such a condition and to refer, instead, only to the formal or procedural properties of argumentative exchanges, as Habermas does in presenting the notion of “ideal speech situation”. As we will try to argue, there are no such good reasons. (shrink)

Truth pluralists say that the nature of truth varies between domains of discourse: while ordinary descriptive claims or those of the hard sciences might be true in virtue of corresponding to reality, those concerning ethics, mathematics, institutions might be true in some non-representational or “anti-realist” sense. Despite pluralism attracting increasing amounts of attention, the motivations for the view remain underdeveloped. This paper investigates whether pluralism is well-motivated on ontological grounds: that is, on the basis that different discourses are concerned with (...) different kinds of entities. Arguments that draw on six different ontological contrasts are examined: concrete versus abstract entities; mind-independent versus mind-dependent entities; sparse versus merely abundant properties; objective versus projected entities; natural versus non-natural entities; and ontological pluralism. I argue that the additional premises needed to move from such contrasts to truth pluralism are either implausible or unmotivated, often doing little more than to bifurcate the nature of truth when a more theoretically conservative option is available. If there is a compelling motivation for pluralism, I suggest, it’s likely to lie elsewhere. (shrink)

It is commonplace to describe the pragmatist conception of truth as incompatible with correspondence theory. This popular description relies on a deflationary reading of Peirce and James’s many apparent endorsements of correspondence. This reading says they regarded it as a mere platitude or truism, not as a substantive piece of philosophical theorizing. There are two main reasons typically offered in support of this platitude narrative – its consonance with Peirce’s original formulation of PT from 1878, and the objections that pragmatists (...) frequently raised against various notions traditionally associated with CT. I argue that neither reason is compelling and that PT and CT are compatible conceptions of truth. (shrink)

Post-truth has become a commonplace strategy. No longer are objective facts viewed as having evidentiary value; scientific knowledge is on a par with emotions or personal beliefs. We intend to show that in the context of post-truth, those proffering and receiving an assertion do not care about the truth-value of the assertion or about the best way to gather evidence concerning it. Such attitudes raise several questions about how relativism can be a corrupting influence in contemporary democracies. We will analyse (...) Steve Fuller’s use of the term «post-truth» – especially, the political connotations about epistemic democracy that he highlights. Instead, we offer a pragmatist defence of the truth and an alternative meaning of epistemic democracy. (shrink)

Kwasi Wiredu argues that the correspondence theory of truth is tautologous and thus not a genuine theory of truth. After contrasting his pragmatist theory of truth with what I call Peirce's pragmaticist theory of truth, in his terminology the realist conception of reality, I argue Wiredu's pragmatist theory of truth is not a theory of the sort of truth which correspondence theory is talking about because correspondence theory is a theory of truth full-stop, while Wiredu instead offers a theory of (...) perspective-indexed truth. If we take the pragmaticist theory of truth as pointing us towards the criteria for truth which we seem to use in everyday life and in our scientific endeavors, the correspondence theory can be seen to have explanatory power, even granting that it is in some sense tautologous. While the correspondence theory alone might only give what we already mean when we say "is true," allied with the pragmaticist theory of truth as a starting point, correspondence theory then constitutes a theory in the full sense that includes the idea of possessing explanatory power. (shrink)

The following essay begins by outlining the pragmatist link between truth claims and democratic deliberations. To this end, special attention will be paid to Jeffrey Stout’s pragmatist enfranchisement of religious citizens. Stout defends a deliberative notion of democracy that fulfills stringent criteria of inclusion and security against domination. While mitigating secular exclusivity, Stout nonetheless acknowledges the new visibility of religion in populist attempts to dominate political life through mass rule and charismatic authorities. In response, I evaluate recent innovations in deliberative (...) democratic systems theory (DDST). By adding a pragmatist inflection to DDST, I aim to apprehend the complex religious interactions between partisan interest groups as well as the trust-building capacities of minipublics. (shrink)

Prima di commentare in dettaglio su making il mondo sociale (MSW) offrirò prima alcuni commenti sulla filosofia (psicologia descrittiva) e il suo rapporto con la ricerca psicologica contemporanea come esemplificato nelle opere di Searle (S) e Wittgenstein (W), dal momento che sento che questo è il modo migliore per posizionare Searle o qualsiasi comportamento commentatore, nella giusta prospettiva. Aiuterà molto vedere le mie recensioni di PNC, TLP, PI, OC, TARW e altri libri di questi due geni della psicologia descrittiva. S (...) non fa alcun riferimento alla presciente dichiarazione d'animo di W come meccanismo in TLP, e la sua sua distruzione nel suo lavoro successivo. Dal momento che W, S è diventato il principale decostruttore di queste visioni meccaniche del comportamento, e il più importante psicologo descrittivo (filosofo), ma non si rende conto di come W lo abbia anticipato completamente né, in generale, fare altri (ma vedere i molti articoli e libri di Proudfoot e Copeland su W, Turing e AI). Il lavoro di S è molto più facile da seguire di quello di W, e anche se c'è qualche gergo, è per lo più spettacolare chiaro se ti avvicini dalla giusta direzione. Vedi le mie recensioni su W S e altri libri per maggiori dettagli. Nel complesso, MSW è una buona sintesi dei molti progressi sostanziali su Wittgenstein derivanti dal mezzo secolo di lavoro di S, ma a mio parere, W è ancora ineguagliabile per la psicologia di base una volta compreso quello che sta dicendo (vedi le mie recensioni). Idealmente, dovrebbero essere letti insieme: Searle per la chiara prosa coerente e generalizzazioni sul funzionamento di S2/S3, illustrate con esempi perspicaci di W del funzionamento di S1/S2, e i suoi brillanti aforismi. Se fossi molto più giovane scriverei un libro facendo esattamente questo. Coloro che desiderano un quadro aggiornato completo per il comportamento umano dalla moderna vista a due systems possono consultare il mio libro 'La struttura logica dellafilosofia, psicologia, Mind e il linguaggio in Ludwig Wittgenstein e John Searle' 2nd ed (2019). Coloro che sono interessati a più dei miei scritti possono vedere 'TalkingMonkeys--Filosofia, Psicologia, Scienza, Religione e Politica su un Pianeta Condannato--Articoli e Recensioni 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) e Suicidal Utopian Delusions nel 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)

I challenge the assumption that the pragmatist-, coherence-, identity- and deflationary theories of truth are essentially incompatible and rival views to the correspondence theory, without endorsing pluralism. With the exception of some versions of the identity theory, the alternative theories only appear to genuinely contradict the correspondence theory, either when they are wedded to a rejection of an objective reality, or when it is assumed that a ‘theory of truth’ is a theory of the function of the truth-predicate. I argue (...) that the correspondence theory should not be understood as a theory about the function of the truth-predicate, and that the core ideas of the alternative views, once separated from any anti-realist convictions, are best understood as complementary views about different aspects of a fairly complex phenomenon, notably of how our beliefs relate to their subject matter and how we reason and talk about that relation. (shrink)

In their recent paper, “Epistemology for Beginners: Two to Five-Year-Old Children’s Representation of Falsity,” Olivier Mascaro and Olivier Morin study the ontogeny of a naïve understanding of truth in humans. Their paper is fascinating for several reasons, but most striking is their claim (given a rather optimistic reading of epistemology) that toddlers as young as two can, at times, recognize false from true assertions. Their Optimistic Epistemology Hypothesis holds that children seem to have an innate capacity to represent a state (...) of affairs truthfully. In the following paper, I investigate the problems this research poses for deflationist theories of truth. Richard Rorty and Huw Price hold that the best way to understand truth or “the truth” is to understand the necessary conditions required for assertoric practice. Both philosophers present unique and very different deflationary theories when it comes to construing truth. I argue that neither philosopher’s approach is successful because they focus on truth and fail to recognize truthfulness as a norm of assertoric practice. I show that truthfulness is the elusive third norm of claim-based discourse and is consistent with Mascaro and Morin’s findings. (shrink)

Anaphoric deflationism is a kind of prosententialist account of the use of “true.” It holds that “true” is an expressive operator and not a predicate. In particular, “is true” is explained as a “prosentence.” Prosentences are, for sentences, the equivalent of what pronouns are for nouns: As pronouns refer to previously introduced nouns, so prosentences like “that’s true” inherit their semantic content from previously introduced sentences. So, if Jim says, “The candidate is going to win the election,” and Bill replies (...) “that’s true,” the real meaning of Bill’s statement is “It is true that the candidate is going to win the election.” This kind of prosententialist deflationism around the use of “true,” especially in Robert Brandom’s version, is an explanation given in terms of anaphora. The prosentence is an anaphoric dependent of the sentence providing its content. Båve (Philosophical Studies, 145, 297-310. 2009) argued that the anaphoric account is not as general as prosententialists claim, and that the analogy between prosentences and pronouns is explanatorily idle because it does not do any real explanatory work. The two criticisms are connected: The lack of unity within the anaphoric theory can be used to show its poor explanatory value. The plurality of uses of “is true” exceeds the anaphoric account indeed. Therefore, prosententialism is just a superficial re-description and the real work is done by means of more general semantic terms, namely “semantic equivalence and consequence” between “p” and ““p” is true.” I analyze Båve’s arguments and highlight that he fails to acknowledge the importance of a pragmatic and expressive dimension explained by the anaphoric account, a dimension that semantic “equivalence” and “consequence” are not capable of explaining. I then show that the anaphoric account can actually explain semantic equivalence and consequence, and this is crucial because equivalence and consequence do not explain anaphoric dependence. This reverses the allegation of generality: The anaphoric account is more general. Again, the cases typically used to defend prosententialism, if correctly described, show a unitary structure: They are all versions of lazy anaphoric dependence. Therefore, the unifying principle performing the explanation here is lazy anaphora. (shrink)

The book through with pragmatism glasses written by Saber Seyedi first explains what the school of pragmatism is and then studies and examines the benefits of Dewey's method of philosophy. If you look at nature and the world through the lens of John Dewey's pragmatism, instead of being fascinated by a certain philosophy, you will step into a platform where you will be encouraged to think and methodically. Saber Seyedi, who is a veterinarian doctor and pH.D western philosophy, tries to (...) approach the functions of pragmatism in the form of several articles. The first chapter of this book is dedicated to getting to know Darwin. The second chapter will review the philosophy of John Dewey, which will be the focus of the entire book. This chapter also includes the philosophical biography of John Dewey. The third chapter is an article published in Afaq Journal of Human Sciences, in which John Dewey's meta ethics and the relationship he finds with the components of Darwin's evolutionary theory are specifically discussed. In the fourth chapter, we come to John Dewey's reading of Plato's Republic, a different interpretation and reading of John Dewey's view of Plato, which will have more of an approach in the form of philosophy of art. The fifth chapter of the book with the glasses of pragmatism deals with the moral principles that are believed by William Clifford. The proposal of this problem has been influential in John Dewey's thought, and Dewey clearly got ideas from Clifford. The sixth chapter is also an article in which the issue of "existence" is investigated from the point of view of Mulla-Sadra, Ibn-Arabi and Darwin. A fundamentall problem in philosophy, of course, with a modernized approach, according to the changes that have been achieved in the world of knowledge and new science around the life and communication of beings. -/- Selected sentences of the book "with pragmatism glasses": -/- - Man lives in the world of guesses, riddles and possibilities. Animals suffer and rejoice like humans. They feel happiness. - It is not the strongest or the most intelligent species that survive, but the organism that is most adapted to change remains. - Life is too complicated and variable to prepare a list of rules for it, we must learn how to choose wisely. - A little reflection shows us that if we consider every belief as a complete guidebook for our actions, we have left it outside of experience and review. -/- In a part of the book with pragmatism glasses we read: -/- The ideas of every philosopher about the nature of the world, human nature, the nature, essence and validity of knowledge (human knowledge) ultimately result from the theory he has about the nature of good and right in personal and social life. If our actions were embodied in the form of good and evil, then there would be no place for reflection and thought, doubt and wonder regarding moral choice. When we are in a situation and the moral question is formed and we ask: "What should I do?" This question is related to the ends of our actions, not the means and necessities with which we want to do our actions. When one good is placed against another good and one right against another right, a conflict arises for a person which one to choose. Dewey's moral philosophy does not claim to provide solutions to all ethical problems and challenges. Basically, he is alien to absolutism. There are no moral rules that are valid for all times, places and all conditions or situations. Human standards and ideals have been formed in various societies, different and distinct from each other. After social creative action, they have been achieved. Moral issues have been resolved by collective reason in specific conditions of society. Society is also layered and groups of groups, so the results as well as principles and value rules will have different levels. Those who think that the moral principles are final, stable and definite with them, they determine good and bad with their own principles, they are dogmatic, bigoted and have a closed mind. Ethics is dynamic and changeable, not a priori and predetermined, or in other words, ethics is a posteriori and experiential, not a priori and pre-experimental like Platonic ethics. (shrink)

The classic approaches -- Correspondence -- Coherence -- Pragmatism -- Deflationism -- Tarski and the semantic theory of truth -- Summary of part I -- Varieties of enquiry -- Truths of taste; truth in art -- Truth in ethics -- Reason -- Religion and truth -- Interpretations.

Despite increased interest in pragmatic theories of truth, Dewey’s approach has not received the same degree of attention as other pragmatists such as Peirce and James. This may seem rather surprising given the sheer quantity Dewey published in his lifetime, much of it focused on issues of epistemology and scientific inquiry. On the other hand, this might seem not surprising at all, since Dewey often went to some effort, especially near the end of his career, to avoid the concept of (...) truth and its associated baggage.1A natural question to ask is whether Dewey even had a theory of truth: that is, a well worked-out position on this crucial philosophical concept. Here, the usual answers—where we can find them—are not... (shrink)

Good book. See this review's final paragraph for my conspiracy theory defending reflectance physicalism.

A team of 36 leading experts present the definitive guide to philosophical issues to do with truth. They survey how the concept of truth has been understood from antiquity to the present; offer critical assessments of the standard theories of truth; and explore the role of truth in logic, language, metaphysics, ethics, science, and mathematics.

Dossier sobre Pragmatismo. Los trabajos que se incluyen en este dossier tienen como hilo conductor el discutir una noción de verdad provisional y débil, en oposición a una concepción de verdad entendida como una fundamentación fuerte, objetiva y universal de las creencias.

In this paper, I defend an epistemological pluralism that moves away from universal and absolute rationality, as well as from a radical and arbitrary relativism, where any criterion is valid for decision making. Such epistemological pluralism maintains that subjects know the world in which they live according to different conceptual schemes. We posit a notion of truth linked to the justification process and practical effectiveness. Then we present the importance of traditional knowledge in the socio-ecological field and relative to complex (...) systems. Finally, we explain the relevance of epistemic equity between traditional and scientific knowledges in order to anticipate consequences and to make decisions less uncertain. (shrink)

In his influential book Truth, Paul Horwich deploys a philosophical method focused on linguistic usage, that is, on the function(s) the concept of truth serves in actual discourse. In doing so Horwich eschews abstract metaphysics, arguing that metaphysical or ontological conceptions of truth rest on basic misconceptions. From this description, one might reasonably expect Horwich's book to have drawn inspiration from, or even embodied philosophical pragmatism of some kind. Unfortunately Horwich relies upon Russell's tired caricature of pragmatism about truth (''p' (...) is true if and only if it is useful to believe p' (Ibid., p. 34, p. 47)), and as a result underestimates the challenge it poses to Minimalism. This paper develops a pragmatist critique of minimalism that focuses on the seemingly central, plausibly constitutive role played by the concept of truth in the speech-act of assertion. The critique suggests that Horwich's Minimalism does not and cannot accomplish its stated goal of explaining all of the facts involving truth. Indeed, the kind of thorough-going deflationism sought by Horwich and others (including pragmatist sympathizer Bob Brandom) is incompatible with an adequate account of assertion, and perhaps other concepts (like belief, judgement and inquiry) as well. (shrink)

... I was many years ago led to define "real" as meaning being such as it is, no matter how you, or, I, or any man or definite collection of men may think it to be; where I use the long and awkward phrase in order to avoid all appearance of meaning independently of human thought. For obviously, nothing that I or anybody ever can mean can be independent of human thought. That is real which men would eventually and finally (...) come to think to be absolutely necessary to be thought in order to understand the truth, supposing the existence and advance in knowledge of the human race to be continued without any limitation, though I cannot pretend that I have as distinct an idea of exactly what that means as I could wish.... (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In this chapter I argue that Sellars’s philosophy was deeply pragmatist both in its motivation and in its content, whether considered conceptually, historically, or in his own estimation, and that this is the case even in the important respects in which his views differ from most pragmatists. However, this assessment has been rejected by many recent pragmatists, with “classicalist” pragmatists frequently objecting to Sellars’s analytic-pragmatist privileging of language at the alleged expense of experience, while many analytic pragmatists themselves emphasize (...) that Sellars’s philosophy arguably runs against the grain of pragmatism in central respects, with Brandom for instance recently remarking that “Sellars never explicitly identified himself with pragmatism.” Part I explores the classical pragmatist influences on the development of Sellars’s philosophy, with reference to aspects of the intellectual background in which those views formed. Part II then outlines more abstractly some of the enduring pragmatist themes in Sellars’s philosophy, including his conceptions of the myth of the given, the space of reasons, and his normative-inferentialist theory of meaning. I conclude in Part III with Sellars’s views on truth and “picturing,” which present a complex case for the question of “how pragmatist” Sellars’s views both were and ought to be. (shrink)