Pragmatism

[Leela]

Discussion continued from tangent to Demanding Evidence thread…

No, I am not saying that one’s belief is justified merely in virtue of the fact that it is true. I am saying one’s belief is justified with respect to what is true, what is actually the case. When I offer reasons in support of my beliefs, those are the kinds of reasons that lead one regularly to what is true. Those justifiying reasons wouldn’t be good reasons unless they were reasons pointing to what was true.

On the other hand, Pragmatism says one is justified with respect to what is useful, contextual, performative. When I offer reasons in support of my beliefs, those are the kinds of reasons that lead one regualrly to what is performative or useful. Those justifying reasons wouldn’t be good reasons unless they were performative or useful.

I don’t see what is so problematic here. This is precisely the distinction between most philosophers and Rorty.

I understand what you are saying now, but I see this as a misrepresentation of pragmatism, especially Rorty’s flavor. I can see how the classical pragmatists could be taken in certain of their claims to be holding the position that a belief that proves itself to be a good habit of action in practice is literally true–that assertions are in fact made true by such success. When James said such things, Pierce objected and started calling his philosphy pragmatacism because he thought James had bastardized his pragmatism. Dewey took the route of pretty much dropping all talk about truth in favor of discussion of justification.

Pragmatism is not an attempt to elevate “being pragmatic” in the sense of “being practical” as a philosphical virtue. As I use the term, pragmatism is not defined by a theory of truth but by the method of considerring the meaning of a belief in terms of its consequences in practice. Justification of beliefs is itself a practice. The question for Dewey was, how does this practice function? The practice of justification is not the concern for whether or not it would be useful to believe something but the concern for having beliefs that are true, but the only way we have found for deciding what beliefs are true is to see how they function in practice. Because we have no way to appeal directly to Truth, we can only justify our beliefs to one another by providing evidence in support of our assertion that a belief is true. At that point, I can’t see any difference between saying, “I offer this evidence with respect to the truth of this assertion” and “I offer this evidence with respect to how belief in the truth of this assertion cashes out in experiential terms.” In the practice of justification, these are the same thing. The question of whether or not the assertion is actually true is something about which we can only hope to reach the right beliefs through our practices of justification.

 

[Magnanimity]

Leela, you said, “Because we have no way to appeal directly to Truth, we can only justify our beliefs to one another by providing evidence in support of our assertion that a belief is true.”

This is one reason that I would regard the only functional pragmatism to be a realist one, like that of Peirce. Unless you have a realistic metaphysics that accounts for your everyday belief that your mind really does connect to the world, one ends up with odd positions like the opening clause above.

 

[Areopagite]

I think Magnanimity has a good point. Admittedly, I’m not too familiar with pragmaticism, so forgive me if I say something really ignorant.

As I use the term, pragmatism is not defined by a theory of truth but by the method of considerring the meaning of a belief in terms of its consequences in practice.

Isn’t pragmaticism’s “theory of truth” the idea that “the method of considering the meaning of a belief in terms of it consequences in practice” is … the right thing to do. If so, then pragmaticism IS defined by a theory of truth.

… the only way we have found for deciding what beliefs are true is to see how they function in practice.

It would seem to me that to determine whether what we see is “a belief functioning well” or “a belief functioning badly” that we would need a standard with which to judge them … a standard which we would consider true. Right?

Because we have no way to appeal directly to Truth, we can only justify our beliefs to one another by providing evidence in support of our assertion that a belief is true.

Once again, how do we judge the evidence? We would have to use already accepted “truths” to do that. Right?

And when you say, “We have no way to appeal directly to Truth” … are you saying that our senses don’t actually perceive reality as it is? I’m not sure how you’re defining “truth” in this instance.

The question of whether or not the assertion is actually true is something about which we can only hope to reach the right beliefs through our practices of justification.

This may work to some extent (I think) for inductive systems (like physics) … Is this pragmatic method also intended for deductive systems?

 

[Syntax]

I understand what you are saying now, but I see this as a misrepresentation of pragmatism, especially Rorty’s flavor. I can see how the classical pragmatists could be taken in certain of their claims to be holding the position that **a belief that proves itself to be a good habit of action in practice is literally true–that assertions are in fact made true by such success. **.

No, this is not what I am saying, nor is it my understanding of Rorty. This is the exact same misunderstanding about my claim you had days before, namely, that a belief that is justified (or performative) entails that that belief is true–but it clearly does not–this is James-style, not Rorty-style, pragmatism. I understand that. So I know Rorty doesn’t (but James might) think assertions are made true by performative success. And we are all unanimously denying this is the case, it seems.

Pragmatism is not an attempt to elevate “being pragmatic” in the sense of “being practical” as a philosphical virtue. As I use the term, pragmatism is not defined by a theory of truth but by the method of considerring the meaning of a belief in terms of its consequences in practice. Justification of beliefs is itself a practice. The question for Dewey was, how does this practice function? The practice of justification is not the concern for whether or not it would be useful to believe something but the concern for having beliefs that are true ***, *** but the only way we have found for deciding what beliefs are true is to see how they function in practice. ****** Because we have no way to appeal directly to Truth **, we can only justify our beliefs to one another by providing evidence in support of our assertion that a belief is true [yes].

I understand all of this, and I agree with most of it. However, I found the exact point of our meta-epistemological contention which I highlighted in blue which comes down to our **2nd-order **disagreement on how we come to know our beliefs are in fact justified beliefs. Rorty and I both agree on the **1st-order **JTB analysis of knowledge, and hence agree on 1st-order justification. So the following are each necessary and together jointly sufficient condtions for my knowing that P.

I believe that P
I am justified in believing that P
P is true.

That solves the 1st-order question. So the crucial 2nd-order question is this: how do I know that I am, in fact, justified in believing that P?

Rorty says, look at your justificatory practices.
I say, look at which beliefs we take to be true.

Each answer has radically different consequences for one’s philosophical perspective on the world, and neither answer can be given much outside support since they are equally arbitrary answers, so our main differences are going to spring from other ideological concerns. The distinction between the answers is this:

On Rorty:
If we merely look at which practices a community deems to be justificatory practices for deciding which is, in fact, a justified practice, then I am justified in believing that my belief that P is justified precisely because the community (and myself) says this 2nd-order belief about my beliefs is justified.

On Most Philosophers:
If we look at which beliefs are deemed true, on the other hand, as a guide for deciding which beliefs are justified, then I am justified in believing that my belief that P is justified precisely because I take my belief that P is justified to be true.

The first unties the notion of 1st-order justification from what we take to be true. The latter ties the notion of 1st-order justification to what we take to be true. The first collapses the original distinction between appearance and reality together. The latter maintains the separation.

Both are going to be equally arbitrary reasons for citing how I (2nd-order) know my beliefs are, in fact, (1st-order) justified–and neither reason will change our 1st-order justificatory practices more than the other. For if the community decides to switch what it takes to be a justificatory practice, then what it takes to be true will likewise follow. And if people decide to change what it takes to be true, then what it takes to be appropriate justificatory practice will likewise switch.

But I prefer the latter because it places our strict adherence to what we take to be true outside of our 1st-order justificatory practices and keeps “the true” as a normative constraint on which of these practices we decide are, in fact, justificatory. This is my central contention with Pragmatism.

This is only one disagreement I have, but this is enough for now.

 

[Syntax]

Isn’t pragmaticism’s “theory of truth” the idea that “the method of considering the meaning of a belief in terms of it consequences in practice” is … the right thing to do. If so, then pragmaticism IS defined by a theory of truth

Once again, how do we judge the evidence? We would have to use already accepted “truths” to do that. Right?.

Yes! The “true” is logically prior to the notion of “justification.” Axioms we take to be true independent of justified belief is evidence of this. Pragmatistism switches this logical dependency around, and I’ve been trying to demonstrate this over and over again to Leela.

 

[Leela]

Leela, you said, “Because we have no way to appeal directly to Truth, we can only justify our beliefs to one another by providing evidence in support of our assertion that a belief is true.”

This is one reason that I would regard the only functional pragmatism to be a realist one, like that of Peirce. Unless you have a realistic metaphysics that accounts for your everyday belief that your mind really does connect to the world, one ends up with odd positions like the opening clause above.

Can you explain what you think is odd about the quote above? Obviously I didn’t think it id odd or I wouldn’t have written it.

Best,
Leela

 

[Leela]

I understand all of this, and I agree with most of it. However, I found the exact point of our meta-epistemological contention which I highlighted in blue which comes down to our **2nd-order **disagreement on how we come to know our beliefs are in fact justified beliefs. Rorty and I both agree on the **1st-order **JTB analysis of knowledge, and hence agree on 1st-order justification. So the following are each necessary and together jointly sufficient condtions for my knowing that P.

I believe that P
I am justified in believing that P
P is true.

What do you think of Gettier’s criticism of JTB?

ditext.com/gettier/gettier.html

That solves the 1st-order question. So the crucial 2nd-order question is this: how do I know that I am, in fact, justified in believing that P?

Rorty says, look at your justificatory practices.
I say, look at which beliefs we take to be true.

I think I better understand the issue you are getting at. You want to know what it means when we claim to know that we know something. Is that right?

When we say we know something, we both take that to mean that we believe that we are justified in believing something true. But how can we claim to know that we are justified? I think Rorty would say that there are no nonconversational limits to making such claims, but I think in saying so he would take it for a given that in making such a claim we really believe that we are justified in claiming to know that we know something. So maybe there isn’t such a big difference between yours and Rorty’s views given that assumption.

In evaluating people’s claims that they know something, we apply socially agreed upon standards for what ought to count as good justification. But in personally making such claims, we may claim to know that we know something and also recognize that we have no way to convince others of our claim. It is possible to be justified in believing something while having no way to convince others that the belief is justified.

Each answer has radically different consequences for one’s philosophical perspective on the world,…

Let’s not puff up these differences too much. Keep in mind that such issues rarely have much effect on people’s lives. No liberal turns into a political conservative by becoming convinced in the coherence theory over the correspondence theory of truth or becomes more generous or less sadistic.

…and neither answer can be given much outside support since they are equally arbitrary answers, so our main differences are going to spring from other ideological concerns. The distinction between the answers is this:

On Rorty:
If we merely look at which practices a community deems to be justificatory practices for deciding which is, in fact, a justified practice, then I am justified in believing that my belief that P is justified precisely because the community (and myself) says this 2nd-order belief about my beliefs is justified.

I can see how Rorty could be read that way. He was never careful enough about such things. But I don’t think that he felt justified in believing what he believed because of social rules for what ought to count as justification. I think he thought what he was saying was actually true.

On Most Philosophers:
If we look at which beliefs are deemed true, on the other hand, as a guide for deciding which beliefs are justified, then I am justified in believing that my belief that P is justified precisely because I take my belief that P is justified to be true.

The first unties the notion of 1st-order justification from what we take to be true. The latter ties the notion of 1st-order justification to what we take to be true. The first collapses the original distinction between appearance and reality together. The latter maintains the separation.

The appearance-reality for Rorty I think is a different sort of problem. That problem arises when we start thinking of truth as something that floats free from human concerns rather than as somethig we pursue because we have the concerns that we do.

Both are going to be equally arbitrary reasons for citing how I (2nd-order) know my beliefs are, in fact, (1st-order) justified–and neither reason will change our 1st-order justificatory practices more than the other. For if the community decides to switch what it takes to be a justificatory practice, then what it takes to be true will likewise follow. And if people decide to change what it takes to be true, then what it takes to be appropriate justificatory practice will likewise switch.

But I prefer the latter because it places our strict adherence to what we take to be true outside of our 1st-order justificatory practices and keeps “the true” as a normative constraint on which of these practices we decide are, in fact, justificatory. This is my central contention with Pragmatism.

This is only one disagreement I have, but this is enough for now.

If all you mean by taking “the true” to be a normative constraint is to say that we ought to try to believe things that are true, then I think we agree. Where I suppose we disagree is where this demand that we ought to try to have true beliefs originates. For Rorty, this is a pressure that we put on ourselves and one another because we have the sorts of other concerns we have. It is not a concern that floats free of other concerns.

Best,
Leela

 

[Magnanimity]

Can you explain what you think is odd about the quote above? Obviously I didn’t think it id odd or I wouldn’t have written it.

Sure. What I’m getting at is that you’re more likely to be successful in incorporating pragmatism into your discussions here if it’s of a realist underpinning. The quote from before, “Because we have no way to appeal directly to Truth, we can only justify our beliefs to one another by providing evidence in support of our assertion that a belief is true,” seems as if it’s reduced itself finally to an idealism/nominalism, which is cut off from reality. I’m assuming that’s what you mean by capital T, Truth. CS Peirce’s pragmatism was realist, in many ways a variation of Aristotle and Scotus’ metaphysics. That’s one thing, among quite a few, that distinguishes Peirce from the subsequent pragmatists.

The point I’m trying to make though is that, since nearly every Catholic here that you’re engaging is going to be some variation of a realist in his metaphysics, and yet you being drawn to pragmatism, those two facts put together should make the philosophy of a realistic pragmatist like Peirce more of a plausible springboard for you to have discussions with us here.

If your attachment to later strands of pragmatism keeps getting you back to a fundamentally idealistic position where you’re cut off from reality, or Truth, then it’ll be that much harder for us all to get past those basic metaphysical questions and engage on the level you seem to want to engage in.

 

[Leela]

Isn’t pragmaticism’s “theory of truth” the idea that “the method of considering the meaning of a belief in terms of it consequences in practice” is … the right thing to do. If so, then pragmaticism IS defined by a theory of truth.

I suppose the issue depends on what we both mean by “theory of truth.”

It would seem to me that to determine whether what we see is “a belief functioning well” or “a belief functioning badly” that we would need a standard with which to judge them … a standard which we would consider true. Right?

Right. And the criteria for different sorts of assertions may have different sorts of criteria which depend on the sorts of functions a given belief is mean to serve.

Once again, how do we judge the evidence? We would have to use already accepted “truths” to do that. Right?

Yes. Part of the criteria for judging new candidates for beliefs is how well it coheres with existing beliefs that we hold as true.

And when you say, “We have no way to appeal directly to Truth” … are you saying that our senses don’t actually perceive reality as it is? I’m not sure how you’re defining “truth” in this instance.

No, I’m just saying that in justifying a belief, we have no way of directly comparing an assertion to “the truth of the matter” or to the Truth as the essence of true-ness or to a theory of truth that decides for us what is true and false in a practical way.

Best,
Leela

 

[Syntax]

What do you think of Gettier’s criticism of JTB?

ditext.com/gettier/gettier.html

I already know about Gettier’s criticism of the analysis of knowledge, Leela, along with Keith Lehrer, Goldman, and other’s subsequent responses to this. And I’ve already studied this. But how is this relevant to our topic? Are you just showing off?

I think I better understand the issue you are getting at. You want to know what it means when we claim to know that we know something. Is that right?
When we say we know something, we both take that to mean that we believe that we are justified in believing something true. But how can we claim to know that we are justified? I think Rorty would say that there are no nonconversational limits to making such claims, but I think in saying so he would take it for a given that in making such a claim we really believe that we are justified in claiming to know that we know something.

But this doesn’t say anything new. It just amounts to saying, “I think I am justified.” Nothing is illuminating here.

So maybe there isn’t such a big difference between yours and Rorty’s views given that assumption.

In evaluating people’s claims that they know something, we apply socially agreed upon standards for what ought to count as good justification. But in personally making such claims, we may claim to know that we know something and also recognize that we have no way to convince others of our claim. It is possible to be justified in believing something while having no way to convince others that the belief is justified.

So? I agree. Again, nothing illuminating.

Let’s not puff up these differences too much. Keep in mind that such issues rarely have much effect on people’s lives. No liberal turns into a political conservative by becoming convinced in the coherence theory over the correspondence theory of truth or becomes more generous or less sadistic.

No, we HAVE to"puff up" these differences because these differences illuminate the distinction between pragmatism and regular philosophy. And the issue in my last post had nothing to do with the explicit distinctions between correspondance and coherence theories of truth but rather with the question of how we are going to ground our 2nd order belief that our 1st-order beliefs are justified.

I can see how Rorty could be read that way. He was never careful enough about such things. But I don’t think that he felt justified in believing what he believed because of social rules for what ought to count as justification. I think he thought what he was saying was actually true.

That’s precisely the point. What an individual thinks is true will influence which methods he takes to justifactory methods.

The appearance-reality for Rorty I think is a different sort of problem. That problem arises when we start thinking of truth as something that floats free from human concerns rather than as somethig we pursue because we have the concerns that we do.

Yes, but his rejection of the appearance vs. reality distinction also comes from his rejection of the idea that “truth is intrinsically unattainable.” But how does Rorty know this?

If all you mean by taking “the true” to be a normative constraint is to say that we ought to try to believe things that are true, then I think we agree.

It’s not merely this. “the true is a normative constraint” also means that what we take to be true will, in fact, influence which methods we choose to be justificatory, and will restrict us from choosing just any ordinary methods as we please. What we take to be true is action-guiding after all, in fact, in our very own choices of which methods we take to be justificatory methods.

Where I suppose we disagree is where this demand that we ought to try to have true beliefs originates. For Rorty, this is a pressure that we put on ourselves and one another because we have the sorts of other concerns we have. It is not a concern that floats free of other concerns.

I partially agree. The demand also floats free of other concerns too. Call that “pragmatic,” I don’t care. It doesn’t change what I’ve already said.

 

[Leela]

I already know about Gettier’s criticism of the analysis of knowledge, Leela, along with Keith Lehrer, Goldman, and other’s subsequent responses to this. And I’ve already studied this. But how is this relevant to our topic? Are you just showing off?

No. There really isn’t much ego-involvement in all this for me–not that I am aware of anyway.

I asked because I had never heard of this criticism until someone mentioned it on this forum recently. I was curious about what the response has been to Gettier. I never read Rorty mentioning him anywhere though Rorty must have been aware of Gettier’s challenge. Do you have an idea of what Rorty’s response would have been?

This is not meant as a challenge to your credibility to speak about philosophy or any “showing off” on my part. I only asked because I don’t know much about how such questions are viewed in academia. If you are not interested there is, as always, no obligation to respond.

Best,
Leela

 

[Syntax]

No. There really isn’t much ego-involvement in all this for me–not that I am aware of anyway.

I asked because I had never heard of this criticism until someone mentioned it on this forum recently. I was curious about what the response has been to Gettier. I never read Rorty mentioning him anywhere though Rorty must have been aware of Gettier’s challenge. Do you have an idea of what Rorty’s response would have been?

This is not meant as a challenge to your credibility to speak about philosophy or any “showing off” on my part. I only asked because I don’t know much about how such questions are viewed in academia. If you are not interested there is, as always, no obligation to respond.

Best,
Leela

“The Gettier problem” certainly hit the news in epistemology a few decades ago, and this short article probably had the most influential impact in such a short more than any other article. But it only concerns our analysis of the concept of knowledge, as JTB, that philosophers have been taking for granted for centuries since Plato. His cute little examples, (which are deeply problematic) simply provide counterexamples to the JTB conditions for knowledge, such that all these conditions are satisfied, but our intuitions still judge that these individuals in the examples don’t know that P. So a person can believe that P, be justified in believing that P, and P is true, even though he still doesn’t know that it P is true. So the conclusion is that even though all these conditions are still necessary, they are together not sufficient for knowledge…so we need to search for an additional condition to supplement the ones already there. This is what others like Goldman tried to do after Gettier.

But the Gettier problem doesn’t have anything to do with the more pressing questions with which epistemologists regularly deal, such as the limits and extent of knowledge, theories of truth, and theories of justification–that is, the basic question of “how do I know that P”?

 

[Leela]

“The Gettier problem” certainly hit the news in epistemology a few decades ago, and this short article probably had the most influential impact in such a short more than any other article. But it only concerns our analysis of the concept of knowledge, as JTB, that philosophers have been taking for granted for centuries since Plato. His cute little examples, (which are deeply problematic) simply provide counterexamples to the JTB conditions for knowledge, such that all these conditions are satisfied, but our intuitions still judge that these individuals in the examples don’t know that P. So a person can believe that P, be justified in believing that P, and P is true, even though he still doesn’t know that it P is true. So the conclusion is that even though all these conditions are still necessary, they are together not sufficient for knowledge…so we need to search for an additional condition to supplement the ones already there. This is what others like Goldman tried to do after Gettier.

I suppose some clarification of what counts as justification would be necessary to argue against Gettier. Does it make sense to say that the justification must be true to count as justification? I’m not sure though what it means to say that a justification is true.

 

[Leela]

Sure. What I’m getting at is that you’re more likely to be successful in incorporating pragmatism into your discussions here if it’s of a realist underpinning. The quote from before, “Because we have no way to appeal directly to Truth, we can only justify our beliefs to one another by providing evidence in support of our assertion that a belief is true,” seems as if it’s reduced itself finally to an idealism/nominalism, which is cut off from reality. I’m assuming that’s what you mean by capital T, Truth. CS Peirce’s pragmatism was realist, in many ways a variation of Aristotle and Scotus’ metaphysics. That’s one thing, among quite a few, that distinguishes Peirce from the subsequent pragmatists.

The point I’m trying to make though is that, since nearly every Catholic here that you’re engaging is going to be some variation of a realist in his metaphysics, and yet you being drawn to pragmatism, those two facts put together should make the philosophy of a realistic pragmatist like Peirce more of a plausible springboard for you to have discussions with us here.

If your attachment to later strands of pragmatism keeps getting you back to a fundamentally idealistic position where you’re cut off from reality, or Truth, then it’ll be that much harder for us all to get past those basic metaphysical questions and engage on the level you seem to want to engage in.

As I understand the issues here, I think pragmatism is supposed to be an alternative to realism and idealism, but Syntax could answer better than I could.

 

[Leela]

That’s precisely the point. What an individual thinks is true will influence which methods he takes to justifactory methods.

Yes, there is a feedback loop there.

Yes, but his rejection of the appearance vs. reality distinction also comes from his rejection of the idea that “truth is intrinsically unattainable.” But how does Rorty know this?

Is that a direct quote? I don’t think Rorty would say that we can never know the truth. He says that truth can’t function as the standard by which we measure progress in inquiry, because we could never know how much closer we have moved toward the truth without already knowing what the truth is. Arguing that we have made progress because “we used to belief X, and X turned out to be false, while we now believe Y, and Y is actually true” is problematic. We are left to wonder, if we were wrong before about X, how do we know that we are not wrong now about Y? If we actually knew for sure what the truth was and didn’t actually still have such doubts about our current beliefs, we wouldn’t need to encourage ourselves about our efforts to inquire with stories about the progress we have made so far. We would just be content in knowing the truth.

Rorty’s notion of progress avoids the problem of having to answer such skeptics and gives us a way of telling stories about our progress without begging the very question that caused us to want to tell such stories to begin with–our doubts about our current beliefs in light of having been wrong in the past. Rorty’s notion of progress lies in assuaging our doubts about a belief and justifying a belief to wider audiences. These things can be talked about without knowing what the truth of the matter actually is.

It’s not merely this. “the true is a normative constraint” also means that what we take to be true will, in fact, influence which methods we choose to be justificatory, and will restrict us from choosing just any ordinary methods as we please. What we take to be true is action-guiding after all, in fact, in our very own choices of which methods we take to be justificatory methods.

It sounds like you are saying that “what we now hold to be true is a normative contraint” rather than “the truth itself is a normative constraint.” If so I agree.

Best,
Leela

 

[Magnanimity]

As I understand the issues here, I think pragmatism is supposed to be an alternative to realism and idealism, but Syntax could answer better than I could.

Ah, it was just a suggestion that you read from a pragmatist with more natural overlap with the group here at CAF that you’re trying to engage. No, Peirce didn’t take his position to have sidestepped the realism/idealism issue, though maybe to have offered a more viable alternative to idealism than had previously been suggested. His, what might be called “scientific realism” is at its core another realistic position. Anyway, no biggie, but if you ever find that James, Dewey and Rorty aren’t really getting you anywhere, it might be more beneficial to backtrack to the source–C.S. Peirce.

 

[Syntax]

As I understand the issues here, I think pragmatism is supposed to be an alternative to realism and idealism, but Syntax could answer better than I could.

I “think” that sounds right. I just don’t read pragmatism much because most other philosophers will say very similar things in much greater detail, depth, and exposition than pragmatists do anyway. That’s why I don’t think pragmatism says much at all that is very interesting, since it just seems to emphasize certain areas of empistemology over others that philosophers have already talked about. So pragmatism as an ideology just sounds weird to me because philosophers have already discussed these ideas, incorporated them, and then continue to move beyond them. For instance, I can think of anti-realist instrumentalism with respect to scientific theory proposed by the famous van Fraassen, who happens to be a Catholic, but who also thinks scientific theories are representative of James-style pragmatism thinking through and through!

Some pragmatists, it seems to me, would either just deny the distinction between idealism and realism even existed since it is meaningless, or just refuse to pass any judgment about the matter if there were such a distinction since there isn’t enough evidence.

But I don’t see any sensible reason for believing the distinction does not exist. Nor do I see how, if the distinction does exist, that one can just bury one’s head in the sand about it. Even if it is difficult to determine whether idealism or realism were true, the question is till very pressing, and just because we haven’t found an answer to it doesn’t entail there isn’t fact of the matter about it.

In many respects I find pragmatism very similar in epistemology to what logical positivism said about all metaphysics–that “metaphysics is impossible because it is meaningless from the start.” Positivism rested on a very dubious and sulf-undermining assumption which philosophers have unanimously rejected. I suspect that something very similar is going on with ideology of pragmatism, too, since I am skeptical of these “big” answers philosophers propose to try to clear the threshing floor of past mistakes. Invariably these sweeping answers always end up deeply flawed in some respect.

There is a philosopher who shows that pragmatism is self-undermining by its own standards–I just can’t think of his name. I can look it up.

 

[Leela]

Some pragmatists, it seems to me, would either just deny the distinction between idealism and realism even existed since it is meaningless, or just refuse to pass any judgment about the matter if there were such a distinction since there isn’t enough evidence.

This does sound like part of the nest and brood of dualisms that Dewey talked about–the sort of thing that James would try to paint as a difference that makes no difference.

Can you offer some definitions for these two positions?

How about…?
Realism: the position that external reality exists independently of perception.
Idealism: the position that perception plays a role in creating reality and that talk about a source of perceptions independent of all perceptions may be incoherent.

Is there a chicken-and-egg sort of thing going on with them? Matter produces ideas (realism) which produce other ideas such as “matter” (idealism)? The notion that matter produces ideas rather than the other way around is a good idea! Should this idea be held provisionally or must it be insisted upon as something more than an idea–as the bedrock upon which all our ideas are grounded? Is anything lost by not claiming such grounding?

Question!
If a tree falls down in the middle of the woods and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?
Realist: Yes, absolutely. Whether or not anyone is around is irrelevent.
Idealist: Hmmm. Well the hypothetical tree you’ve asked me to suppose is indeed making a sound; however, I can’t get rid of myself there listening to it as it falls. As I’m the one who is hypothesizing this forest, there I am looking at the hypothetical forest and listening. The “no one around to hear it” makes this question itself incoherent.

Is that the two positions as you understand them?

But I don’t see any sensible reason for believing the distinction does not exist. Nor do I see how, if the distinction does exist, that one can just bury one’s head in the sand about it. Even if it is difficult to determine whether idealism or realism were true, the question is till very pressing, and just because we haven’t found an answer to it doesn’t entail there isn’t fact of the matter about it.

Why do you see it as pressing? What do you see as the consequences of believing each position?

In many respects I find pragmatism very similar in epistemology to what logical positivism said about all metaphysics–that “metaphysics is impossible because it is meaningless from the start.” Positivism rested on a very dubious and sulf-undermining assumption which philosophers have unanimously rejected. I suspect that something very similar is going on with ideology of pragmatism, too, since I am skeptical of these “big” answers philosophers propose to try to clear the threshing floor of past mistakes. Invariably these sweeping answers always end up deeply flawed in some respect.

As a method that boils down to a suggestion that we try thinking about the consequences of holding different beliefs as a way of sorting out what we may mean when we assert one position or another, I don’t see any possibility of dubious assumptions. If a pragmatist asserts that “habits of action” is the only or best way to make sense of the meaning of assertions, she may be vulnerable to some sort of attack as was levelled against positivism.

There is a philosopher who shows that pragmatism is self-undermining by its own standards–I just can’t think of his name. I can look it up.

Some enjoy pointing out that as a theory of truth “what works” just doesn’t work, and think that pointing this out is enough to dismiss all pragmatists, but we’ve been over that already.

Best,
Leela

 

[Syntax]

This does sound like part of the nest and brood of dualisms that Dewey talked about–the sort of thing that James would try to paint as a difference that makes no difference.

Can you offer some definitions for these two positions?

How about…?
Realism: the position that external reality exists independently of perception.
Idealism: the position that perception plays a role in creating reality and that talk about a source of perceptions independent of all perceptions may be incoherent.

Is there a chicken-and-egg sort of thing going on with them? Matter produces ideas (realism) which produce other ideas such as “matter” (idealism)? The notion that matter produces ideas rather than the other way around is a good idea! Should this idea be held provisionally or must it be insisted upon as something more than an idea–as the bedrock upon which all our ideas are grounded? Is anything lost by not claiming such grounding?

Question!
If a tree falls down in the middle of the woods and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?
Realist: Yes, absolutely. Whether or not anyone is around is irrelevent.
Idealist: Hmmm. Well the hypothetical tree you’ve asked me to suppose is indeed making a sound; however, I can’t get rid of myself there listening to it as it falls. As I’m the one who is hypothesizing this forest, there I am looking at the hypothetical forest and listening. The “no one around to hear it” makes this question itself incoherent.
Is that the two positions as you understand them?

Something like that, but you can do your own reading about it since there are going to be many different takes on each position with respect to an ontological criterion about what it is that really exists. For instance, I believe that ideas exist, but I am still a realist about the world. I believe that numbers, concepts, and propositions all exist independently of the human mind, but some of these things have their origin in the Mind, just not in any particular minds.

BTW, Idealists don’t think we “create” reality. It is just that ideas are the only things that objectively exist. Berkeley did, however, have a hard time accounting for the phenomenon of error.

Berkely said the question of the external world is incoherent due to his definition that “to exists” means “to be perceived.” But Berkely made many invalid blunders in his arguments. Besides, there is no reason for thinking his definition of “to exist” is true anyway. So the debate between realism and idealism is satisfactorily resolved for me and for just about everyone else that I can think of who have seriously dealt with the question. So for pragmatism to dismiss the problem outright is just lazy. Of course we don’t have all the answers to our skeptical questions, such as the BIV hypothesis, but we DO know which arguments for idealism are false. This is the very progress other philosophers continue to make while Pragmatists are left in the lurch.

Why do you see it as pressing? What do you see as the consequences of believing each position?
As a method that boils down to a suggestion that we try thinking about the consequences of holding different beliefs as a way of sorting out what we may mean when we assert one position or another, I don’t see any possibility of dubious assumptions.

Wait a minute: are you just denying these questions are presssing because you don’t think they have any further consequences? That’s very presumptuous. Of course they have consequences. If Idealism is true and other people don’t really exist, how does that not entail the short step of giving myself the license to do anything I want to what I “perceive” as a person.? After all, people don’t really exist, they are just ideas, so why not just kill the ones who obstruct my desires or hurt the ones who threaten my pursuits? Of course it is unlikely an idealist would actually think this, but the point is that the person holding such a view has the potential to infer these further beliefs about what it is permissible for him to do. So of course these beliefs have potential consequences…

If a pragmatist asserts that “habits of action” is the only or best way to make sense of the meaning of assertions, she may be vulnerable to some sort of attack as was levelled against positivism.

Like I said, I am not sure what is so novel about pragmatism, but if it did say this, then it would be in big trouble.

Some enjoy pointing out that as a theory of truth “what works” just doesn’t work, and think that pointing this out is enough to dismiss all pragmatists, but we’ve been over that already.

No, the objection wouldn’t work this way. It wouldn’t be “a particular belief x doesn’t work, therefore, no beliefs work.” Rather, the objection would be something along the lines that, if what works is our only guide to what is true, then what works would not, in principle, work, since *nothing *works without also presupposing first that what is, in fact, the case is also true.

Like I said over and over again, and in my previous post, what is true has to be presupposed first as a guide for deciding which methods we decide to be justificatory, otherwise, we cannot guarantee those actions which we take to be justificatory are, in fact, justified. So the concept of truth logically presupposes the concept of justification and performance. What is, in fact, the case is what makes the latter practices possible. And the concept of truth is what makes the concepts of justification and performance meaningful.

 

[Betterave]

Leela’s position:
Pragmatism is not an attempt to elevate “being pragmatic” in the sense of “being practical” [meaning…??] as a philosphical virtue. As I use the term, pragmatism is not defined by a theory of truth [should therefore be neutral, in principle, towards various theories of truth?] but by the method of considering the meaning of a belief in terms of its consequences in practice [which means…something? nothing? whatever you want it to mean?? - is this a difference that doesn’t make a difference? an intentionally ironic claim?]. Justification of beliefs is itself a practice. The question for Dewey was, how does this practice function? The practice of justification -]is not/-] does not function relative to the concern for whether or not it would be useful to believe something but relative to the concern for having beliefs that are true, but the only way we have found for deciding what beliefs are true is to see how they function in practice. [Therefore the practice of justification requires, as a necessary but not sufficient condition, **our seeing how various beliefs function in practice - this is by no means a trivial task (despite the pragmatist’s often cavalier attitude towards it)!] Because we have no way to appeal directly to Truth, we can only justify our beliefs to one another by providing evidence in support of our assertion that a belief is true. [And this is obvious, something we knew all along, not something that pragmatism has gifted to us.] At that point, I can’t see any difference between saying, “I offer this evidence with respect to the truth of this assertion” and “I offer this evidence with respect to how belief in the truth of this assertion cashes out in experiential terms.” [This seems to be because the notion of “cashing out an assertion in experiential terms” spells out a difference that doesn’t make a difference - this “cashing out” was already implicit in the simple “assertion of truth” practice of justification. Ergo…] In the practice of justification, these are the same thing. The question of whether or not the assertion is actually true is something about which we can only hope to reach the right beliefs through our practices of justification [and pragmatism is a justificatory free-wheel in this regard - it turns by itself without giving us any guidance for improving our practices of justification].

And so: why pragmatism?