What is Metaphysics & Why Is It A Valid Means Of Describing Reality?

[azirtsed]

Can we consider “wind” as a pure act?

 

[Leela]

Hi Leela,

I’m a William James fan too - ‘pure experience’ - it’s pretty out there! Before commenting on him though, another question: if, by chance, you’ve read Plato’s Theaetetus (which I recommend to all as an absolutely seminal source for broaching the question ‘what is philosophy/metaphysics’) and have any clear recollection of the first section, the argument about ‘knowledge is perception,’ would you agree that Protagoras’ position (which Socrates argues against) is a substantially pragmatist position? (You’ll recall James’ subtitle to the Pragmatism essay: “a new name for some old ways of thinking.”)

Best,
Dave

Hi Dave,

That subtitle has always been a mystery to me. I don’t know what thinkers James is referring to.

I read Theaetetus yesterday to see what you were getting at. I’m not much of a philosophy student, so I can’t say whether Plato has Protagorus right in equating “man is the measure of all things” and “knowledge is perception” in Protagorus’s thought, but to me these sound like very different slogans. I think pragmatists would generally agree with the former but not the latter.

They would agree with “man is the measure…” because pragmatism takes us away from the notion of our ideas trying to get us in touch with something ahistorical, powerful, and nonhuman, undercutting both the theistic search for relationship with God and the atheistic post-Enlightenment replacement gods such as Reason, Truth, Reality, and Human Nature. But they would disagree with “knowledge is perception” in favor of Plato’s formulation of knowledge as justified true belief. Dewey called truth “warranted assertability” which basically equates truth with justification, but I prefer to keep these three terms (justification, truth, and belief) distinct in discussing knowledge, and take the classical pragmatists conflation of truth and justification to be a suggestion that we should keep truth but give up on the project of finding a theory of truth since no theory has every helped us say more true things or distinguish between true statements and false ones which is the whole reason someone would try to come up with a theory of truth to begin with.

So, anyway, pragmatists don’t think of knowledge as perception but rather as a sort of belief, the kind that happens to be true and that the believer is justified in believing. Pragmatists think of beliefs as “habits of action” rather than as mental states. To believe something is to be prepared to act in certain ways under certain circumstances. The most that pragmatists would want to say about the sort of belief that happens to be true is that those beliefs tend to lead us to successful action.

Best,
Leela

 

[jkiernan56]

So, anyway, pragmatists don’t think of knowledge as perception but rather as a sort of belief, the kind that happens to be true and that the believer is justified in believing. Pragmatists think of beliefs as “habits of action” rather than as mental states. To believe something is to be prepared to act in certain ways under certain circumstances. The most that pragmatists would want to say about the sort of belief that happens to be true is that those beliefs tend to lead us to successful action.

Best,
Leela

Leela, I found your words very interesting … in a good way … can i ask you a question without you feeling like I am going on the offense? if i understood you correctly, you said that “beliefs” are justified in believing because they are the “kind that happens to be true”.
The last part is what made me stop. Do you acknowledge the possibility that beliefs are based on what is really true … in and of itself … independent of whether some people acknowledge them or not? I am really just trying to understand you … and what you really mean in some of the things you say … without any intention to contend

 

[Leela]

Leela, I found your words very interesting … in a good way … can i ask you a question without you feeling like I am going on the offense? if i understood you correctly, you said that “beliefs” are justified in believing because they are the “kind that happens to be true”.

You’ve misunderstood. I’m not saying that we are justified in believing a sentence because it is true. I’m just saying that we can’t be said to know something based on Plato’s formulation unless we (1) believe it (2) are justified in believing it, and (3) it is true. The statement “some of the things you know are false,” only makes sense if we mean it ironically since we can’t know false things. Consider the statement, “I knew my lottery number was would get picked today, and it did.” Even though it turned out to be true, the person was just lucky. The belief that the number would come up was unjustified, so we can’t really say that the person knew. So we need all three terms: justification, truth, and belief.
jkiernan56;5572923:

The last part is what made me stop. Do you acknowledge the possibility that beliefs are based on what is really true … in and of itself … independent of whether some people acknowledge them or not?

The idea of truth is such that it is a wheel that spins independently of whether or not anyone believes it. The problem is that saying so doesn’t help us figure out which statements are true.

Philosophical pragmatism comes from looking at the history of philosophy since Plato defined knowledge as “justified true belief” and noticing that we have come no closer since then of finding a foundation for our claims to knowledge. When can we say that our beliefs are justified in being true? We can’t overcome the extreme skepticism of the one who asks, “what if I am a brain in a vat? How can we say that we know anything at all?” Descartes was able to deduce his own existence from that degree of skepticism (“I think, therefore I am.”), but philosophers since then haven’t been able to agree on much beyond being pretty sure that they exist.

Pragmatists have lost hope in the philosophical project of finding a foundation for our truth claims. They have chosen to focus instead on how we come to update our existing beliefs. They note that Cartesian skepticism is not really the position we are in. Descartes could do a sort of thought experiment of supposing that he had no beliefs at all to see what he could deduce through reason alone, but our actual human situation is one where we already do have beliefs. The question we are faced with is whether any of our beliefs need to be revised because they have been shown to be false, or whether other beliefs should be adopted because they have proven to be true.

Pragmatists haven’t given up on the word “truth” at all. Truth is truth. We just doubt that philosophers will ever be able to say anything very interesting about truth without putting it in the context of what we are specifically arguing is true. Some philosophers argue that truth is so primitive that it is a prerequisite for having a language at all, which explains why all definitions of truth sound so unhelpful. We all know what it means to say that something is true, and I don’t think pragmatists mean anything different by the word.

Where a Catholic may find that he really parts company with the pragmatists is in his conception of “ultimate truth,” which he treats as an essence. Theists talk about capital-t Truth all the time, but pragmatists can’t make any sense of truth as an essence. Truth is just the property that all true sentences have in common. There is nothing to be said about big-t Truth. We only try to know small-t truths.

Pragmatists are often taken as having a theory of truth which defines truth as “that which works.” Though I can see how some pragmatists can be construed as saying that, and people are right to point out to anyone making such a claim that as a theory of
truth, “what works” doesn’t work, but the failed project of finding a theory of truth is exactly the issue that pragmatism was invented to address. Recall that pragmatists doubt that we will be able to say anything philosophically interesting about truth. No theory of truth has ever been able to help us say more true things. Pragmatists are saying, let’s give up on this project. We don’t need a theory of truth. We can go ahead and talk about the process of justification, anyway, which is what is always our concern in practice.

That’s where “that which works” comes in–not as a theory of truth but as an explanation of the verification process by which we justify our beliefs to ourselves and to others. I don’t read pragmatism as prescribing a definition of truth as “that which works.” I see it as describing how justification works. Beliefs are habits of action. If a belief leads us to what we want, i.e., if it works, we hold it to be true, at least provisionally. If not, we judge it to be false. As Richard Rorty said, “On this view, to say that a belief is, as far as we know, true, is to say that no alternative belief is, as far as we know, a better habit of acting.” Pragmatists don’t say that’s how it ought to be. They note that that’s just how justification functions. Where pragmatism becomes prescriptive is in recommending that we take a certain perspective on beliefs. Pragmatists suggest that if we want to understand what it means to believe something, much clarity of thought is gained if we consider the belief to be equal to the sum of all consequences of holding that belief in lived experience. That’s the only prescription pragmatists are making. They aren’t saying that you ought to hold something as true because it works, they are saying that if you believe something that works for your purposes, you will naturally continue to hold it as true whether or not it actually is, and if it fails to work for your purposes, you will recognize it as false.

Some classical pragmatists can be read to say that if to whatever extent a belief actually does help you achieve your purposes, then to exactly that extent the belief literally is true, but in making such statements, I think they are too smug in promoting a theory of truth as “what works” that we are right to say doesn’t work.

Best,
Leela

 

[jkiernan56]

jkiernan56;5572923:

Leela, I found your words very interesting … in a good way … can i ask you a question without you feeling like I am going on the offense? if i understood you correctly, you said that “beliefs” are justified in believing because they are the “kind that happens to be true”.

You’ve misunderstood. I’m not saying that we are justified in believing a sentence because it is true. I’m just saying that we can’t be said to know something based on Plato’s formulation unless we (1) believe it (2) are justified in believing it, and (3) it is true. The statement “some of the things you know are false,” only makes sense if we mean it ironically since we can’t know false things. Consider the statement, “I knew my lottery number was would get picked today, and it did.” Even though it turned out to be true, the person was just lucky. The belief that the number would come up was unjustified, so we can’t really say that the person knew. So we need all three terms: justification, truth, and belief.

The idea of truth is such that it is a wheel that spins independently of whether or not anyone believes it. The problem is that saying so doesn’t help us figure out which statements are true.

Philosophical pragmatism comes from looking at the history of philosophy since Plato defined knowledge as “justified true belief” and noticing that we have come no closer since then of finding a foundation for our claims to knowledge. When can we say that our beliefs are justified in being true? We can’t overcome the extreme skepticism of the one who asks, “what if I am a brain in a vat? How can we say that we know anything at all?” Descartes was able to deduce his own existence from that degree of skepticism (“I think, therefore I am.”), but philosophers since then haven’t been able to agree on much beyond being pretty sure that they exist.

Pragmatists have lost hope in the philosophical project of finding a foundation for our truth claims. They have chosen to focus instead on how we come to update our existing beliefs. They note that Cartesian skepticism is not really the position we are in. Descartes could do a sort of thought experiment of supposing that he had no beliefs at all to see what he could deduce through reason alone, but our actual human situation is one where we already do have beliefs. The question we are faced with is whether any of our beliefs need to be revised because they have been shown to be false, or whether other beliefs should be adopted because they have proven to be true.

Pragmatists haven’t given up on the word “truth” at all. Truth is truth. We just doubt that philosophers will ever be able to say anything very interesting about truth without putting it in the context of what we are specifically arguing is true. Some philosophers argue that truth is so primitive that it is a prerequisite for having a language at all, which explains why all definitions of truth sound so unhelpful. We all know what it means to say that something is true, and I don’t think pragmatists mean anything different by the word.

Where a Catholic may find that he really parts company with the pragmatists is in his conception of “ultimate truth,” which he treats as an essence. Theists talk about capital-t Truth all the time, but pragmatists can’t make any sense of truth as an essence. Truth is just the property that all true sentences have in common. There is nothing to be said about big-t Truth. We only try to know small-t truths.

Pragmatists are often taken as having a theory of truth which defines truth as “that which works.” Though I can see how some pragmatists can be construed as saying that, and people are right to point out to anyone making such a claim that as a theory of
truth, “what works” doesn’t work, but the failed project of finding a theory of truth is exactly the issue that pragmatism was invented to address. Recall that pragmatists doubt that we will be able to say anything philosophically interesting about truth. No theory of truth has ever been able to help us say more true things. Pragmatists are saying, let’s give up on this project. We don’t need a theory of truth. We can go ahead and talk about the process of justification, anyway, which is what is always our concern in practice.

That’s where “that which works” comes in–not as a theory of truth but as an explanation of the verification process by which we justify our beliefs to ourselves and to others. I don’t read pragmatism as prescribing a definition of truth as “that which works.” I see it as describing how justification works. Beliefs are habits of action. If a belief leads us to what we want, i.e., if it works, we hold it to be true, at least provisionally. If not, we judge it to be false. As Richard Rorty said, “On this view, to say that a belief is, as far as we know, true, is to say that no alternative belief is, as far as we know, a better habit of acting.” Pragmatists don’t say that’s how it ought to be. They note that that’s just how justification functions. Where pragmatism becomes prescriptive is in recommending that we take a certain perspective on beliefs. Pragmatists suggest that if we want to understand what it means to believe something, much clarity of thought is gained if we consider the belief to be equal to the sum of all consequences of holding that belief in lived experience. That’s the only prescription pragmatists are making. They aren’t saying that you ought to hold something as true because it works, they are saying that if you believe something that works for your purposes, you will naturally continue to hold it as true whether or not it actually is, and if it fails to work for your purposes, you will recognize it as false.

Some classical pragmatists can be read to say that if to whatever extent a belief actually does help you achieve your purposes, then to exactly that extent the belief literally is true, but in making such statements, I think they are too smug in promoting a theory of truth as “what works” that we are right to say doesn’t work.

Best,
Leela

Thank you for expounding what you meant. I misundersood and appreciate you setting me straight. I do acknowledge and I’m sure you well know that I do espouse to “ultimate truth” - a reality that is completely independent of you and me - completely OTHER. But I know you know where I stand on this subject. I appreciate you engaging me.

 

[Leela]

So here’s a thesis: Pragmatism avoids bugbears only insofar as it encourages superficial treatment of questions. Insofar as it remains committed to exoteric doctrines that are subject to public examination (this is key in the Theaetetus), it’s substance/essence has not changed, it is metaphysics by another name. And as Shakespeare might have put it: What’s in a name? that which we call metaphysics, by any other name would be as bugbearish.

Hi Dave,

I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you are asking me. I take it that you don’t like the way I’ve characterized metaphysics as trying to find the language in which the universe itself demands to be spoken about and to find the correct sentences that the universe demands be said about it. Could you explain how you prefer to use the term metaphysics?

Best,
Leela

 

[Betterave]

Hi Dave,

I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you are asking me. I take it that you don’t like the way I’ve characterized metaphysics as trying to find the language in which the universe itself demands to be spoken about and to find the correct sentences that the universe demands be said about it. Could you explain how you prefer to use the term metaphysics?

Best,
Leela

Dear Leela,

Maybe I’ll start with a story about Richard Rorty to illustrate what metaphysics (and philosophy) is not. The story is Elijah Millgram’s, related following a talk he gave, and passed on to the best of my recollection: M was a faculty member at Princeton when R was interviewing for a job there. All of the faculty members were excited to meet him and ply him with questions about his thought. When the interview took place the faculty members had lots of questions, making lots of references to R’s work, offering criticisms, asking for clarifications, etc. R seemed like he was hungover or exhausted and his replies consisted more or less of inarticulate grunts. The interested faculty members were nonplussed and went away wondering what had been wrong with him. Later when R met with the chair of the dept and was asked how the meeting had gone, he said that it was the most interesting, stimulating dialogue he’d had in years.

It was an unkind, but funny story. Millgram’s point though: those who don’t listen to others (or ‘the universe’ if you prefer - the universe, by definition, includes others, doesn’t it?) don’t deserve to be listened to, they get lost in their own little ‘universes’ (etymologically: turned towards the one, in this case, themselves).

That said, I think your characterization of metaphysics is a tissue of ambiguities, to use a lovely phrase that I think Hans Jonas coined. I think that what defines metaphysics is very much the kind of thing you see displayed in a Platonic dialogue like the Theaetetus. It is a sustained reflection on the way things are in the most general way that we can think about it. All epistemology implies a metaphysical view about the general nature of being and all metaphysics is intrinsically related to an epistemology. The two are inextricable. For Protagoras (at least as the Socrates character in the Theaetetus presents him), what is is what is perceived, the object of perception is invariably truth, perception thus invariably constitutes knowledge, man is the perceiver, so man is the measure of all things, of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not. That is a general reflection about what is, therefore it is a metaphysical view.

So far so good?

 

[jkiernan56]

Pragmatists like myself who have dropped the correspondence theory of truth can’t imagine how anyone could ever be out of touch with reality./QU

Is that a rhetorical statement?

 

[Betterave]

Leela wrote:
“Theists talk about capital-t Truth all the time, but pragmatists can’t make any sense of truth as an essence. Truth is just the property that all true sentences have in common. There is nothing to be said about big-t Truth. We only try to know small-t truths.”

Leela, you seem to say that we can’t make any sense of truth as an essence, then you immediately do make sense of it by telling us the essence of truth: “Truth is just the property that all true sentences have in common… [etc.].” Same goes when you say: “We don’t need a theory of truth. We can go ahead and talk about the process of justification, anyway, which is what is always our concern in practice… [etc.]” You proceed to give a theory of truth, here, do you not?

Contradictions aside, Leela also wrote:
“That’s where “that which works” comes in–not as a theory of truth but as an explanation of the verification process by which we justify our beliefs to ourselves and to others. I don’t read pragmatism as prescribing a definition of truth as “that which works.” I see it as describing how justification works. Beliefs are habits of action. If a belief leads us to what we want, i.e., if it works, we hold it to be true, at least provisionally. If not, we judge it to be false. As Richard Rorty said, “On this view, to say that a belief is, as far as we know, true, is to say that no alternative belief is, as far as we know, a better habit of acting.” Pragmatists don’t say that’s how it ought to be. They note that that’s just how justification functions. Where pragmatism becomes prescriptive is in recommending that we take a certain perspective on beliefs. Pragmatists suggest that if we want to understand what it means to believe something, much clarity of thought is gained if we consider the belief to be equal to the sum of all consequences of holding that belief in lived experience. That’s the only prescription pragmatists are making. They aren’t saying that you ought to hold something as true because it works, they are saying that if you believe something that works for your purposes, you will naturally continue to hold it as true whether or not it actually is, and if it fails to work for your purposes, you will recognize it as false.”

My question for jkiernan is:
Are you saying you disagree with the preceding? If so, where and why? When you say you espouse to “ultimate truth,” what does that mean, what difference does it make? (Do you have something more constructive to offer in reply to Leela’s rejection of such talk?)

 

[johngh]

I find metaphysics to be a very interesting subject (I’ve learned a bit about it before, and am taking a class on this semester), however I have yet to see any real benefit or use of metaphysics. Hopefully my mind will be changed by the class i’m taking, but thus far it just seems like an interesting mind game and nothing more. Though I suppose people could say the same thing about all Philosophy.

 

[Leela]

I think that what defines metaphysics is very much the kind of thing you see displayed in a Platonic dialogue like the Theaetetus. It is a sustained reflection on the way things are in the most general way that we can think about it. All epistemology implies a metaphysical view about the general nature of being and all metaphysics is intrinsically related to an epistemology.

I agree that that is what metaphysics is generally understood to mean. My comments have been to critique the view that by reflecting on the The-Way-Things-Really-Are you will be able to solve your problems of epistemology.

I am okay with thinking of metaphysics as the branch of philosophy where one considers views of what there is, but I don’t know how to personally engage productively in reflecting on The-Way-Things-Really-Are. I have characterized this practice as trying to get past appearances to reality as it really is which presupposes that we are already OUT of touch with reality but may be able to get IN touch with reality by thinking about it.

Best,
Leela

 

[jkiernan56]

You’ve misunderstood. I’m not saying that we are justified in believing a sentence because it is true.

I’m just saying that we can’t be said to know something based on Plato’s formulation unless we (1) believe it (2) are justified in believing it, and (3) it is true.

The statement “some of the things you know are false,” only makes sense if we mean it ironically since we can’t know false things.

Only real/true things are worthy of my acceptance. Belief does not make things real/true. Yes you can know some things people know are false, if they are in direct contradiction to what is true. If you espouse to the idea that you can’t know anything is really true, you contradict yourself to even say this true. One who says “there is no truth” or we can’t know what is true is making a statement they believe is true and self contradictory.

 

[jkiernan56]

The idea of truth is such that it is a wheel that spins independently of whether or not anyone believes it. The problem is that saying so doesn’t help us figure out which statements are true.

Philosophical pragmatism comes from looking at the history of philosophy since Plato defined knowledge as “justified true belief” and noticing that we have come no closer since then of finding a foundation for our claims to knowledge. When can we say that our beliefs are justified in being true?

Pragmatists have lost hope in the philosophical project of finding a foundation for our truth claims.

Pragmatists haven’t given up on the word “truth” at all. Truth is truth.

… pragmatists can’t make any sense of truth as an essence. Truth is just the property that all true sentences have in common.

Where a Catholic may find that he really parts company with the pragmatists is in his conception of “ultimate truth,” which he treats as an essence. Theists talk about capital-t Truth all the time, but pragmatists can’t make any sense of truth as an essence. Truth is just the property that all true sentences have in common. There is nothing to be said about big-t Truth. We only try to know small-t truths.

There is nothing to be said about big-t Truth. We only try to know small-t truths.

Philosophical pragmatism is another form of Bill Clintonism - pragmatic bologni to me.

A person who espouses “ultimate truth” does so through inductive and deductive reasoning. Common sense tells me either that “Ultimate Truth” does exist or doesn’t exist. My knowledge and experience tells me Ultimate Truth does exist.

 

[Leela]

Leela wrote:
“Theists talk about capital-t Truth all the time, but pragmatists can’t make any sense of truth as an essence. Truth is just the property that all true sentences have in common. There is nothing to be said about big-t Truth. We only try to know small-t truths.”

Leela, you seem to say that we can’t make any sense of truth as an essence, then you immediately do make sense of it by telling us the essence of truth: “Truth is just the property that all true sentences have in common… [etc.].”

All I mean is that once you’ve learned what there is to know about how the word “truth” is used in sentences such as “‘slavery is evil’ if and only if slavery is evil”, there probably isn’t anything else to know about truth. This isn’t a theory of truth because it doesn’t say anything about how to tell if a sentence is true or how to make a true sentence. It does commit to the is idea that truth is a word that we use to describe sentences, so trying to know Truth in and of itself without saying what sentence is to be determined to be either true or false doesn’t make any sense.

Same goes when you say: “We don’t need a theory of truth. We can go ahead and talk about the process of justification, anyway, which is what is always our concern in practice… [etc.]” You proceed to give a theory of truth, here, do you not?

I don’t see how. I’m just saying to be careful to distinguish the three terms of issue in Plato’s formulation of knowledge as “justified true belief.”

If you take X to be some such proposition, do you see any of the following to be problematic?
(1) Bob is justified in believing X given his context, but X is not true.
(2) X is true for Bob but not true for Rich
(3) I used to be justified in believing X, but X is not true and never was true.
(4) I am now justified in believing X, but X may turn out to be false

I think only (2) doesn’t work and is what characterizes relativism.

 

[Leela]

Only real/true things are worthy of my acceptance. Belief does not make things real/true. Yes you can know some things people know are false, if they are in direct contradiction to what is true. If you espouse to the idea that you can’t know anything is really true, you contradict yourself to even say this true. One who says “there is no truth” or we can’t know what is true is making a statement they believe is true and self contradictory.

I guess I’m still not making myself clear. Belief, justification, and truth are terms we need to be clear about. A person can believe something that is not true but cannot know something that is not true because to know something means you belief it, you are justified in believing it, and it’s true.

Philosophical pragmatism is another form of Bill Clintonism - pragmatic bologni to me.

I never heard of such an ism. It sounds nothing like pragmatism.

A person who espouses “ultimate truth” does so through inductive and deductive reasoning. Common sense tells me either that “Ultimate Truth” does exist or doesn’t exist. My knowledge and experience tells me Ultimate Truth does exist.

Since truth is something we say about sentences, you’ve asserted that some sentence is ultimately true. What is ultimate truth as compared to truth? What sentence are you suggesting is not merely true but ultimately true?

 

[jkiernan56]

I guess I’m still not making myself clear. Belief, justification, and truth are terms we need to be clear about. A person can believe something that is not true but cannot know something that is not true because to know something means you belief it, you are justified in believing it, and it’s true.

I agree a person can believe something that is not true. We are on the same page here.

I don’t know if we are on the same page when you stated "a person cannot know something that is not true. You gave us YOUR basis for understanding this in the context of another one of your statements "because to know something means you believe it, are justified in believing it, and it’s true.

To know something does not necessarily mean to believe it. There are many different kinds of knowledge. I don’t believe that gravity exists, I know that gravity exists. It is a fact. I do not believe in facts. Facts are facts. Belief begins when you accept there is knowledge beyond our human ability to fully comprehend and in the context of accepting our limitations, to know and realize there is reality and truth that REALLY IS TRUE and worthy of belief. Belief reaches beyond human understanding to acknowledge there is truth and reality outside our limitations - but nevertheless REALLY IS REAL and because of that is worthy of our belief. Belief begins with humility in my opinion - realizing and accepting our limitations, and acknowledging there is REALITY/TRUTH that the human mind will never be able to fully grasp.

I love Hellen Keller … she was very wise and humble. She said “The more I know, the less I understand”.

Aristotle’s famous quote is “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” I would add to the words of Aristotle “that to know your limitations is the beginning of humility”. It takes humility to have faith - to believe in things that exist beyond the human mind’s ability to fully comprehend and know - to accept that they really are true - because they really are true. And only things that really are true are worthy of my belief. Anything untrue, is not worthy of my belief. There is knowledge that I can know is untrue. When I know what is true, I can know what is untrue as well. If I know that 1+1=2, then I can also know that 2+1 DOES NOT EQUAL 2. Real truth is what allows us to also know what is not true. You are correct to say that some people can believe in things that are not true. But I would like you to consider the idea or possibility that people can believe in things that REALLY ARE TRUE. Belief should not automatically discount or disquality the reality or truth of the things that are believed in.

It is Pride that thinks only given enough time, the human mind will be able to know all things. It is Humility to know that there is REALITY outside of the human mind’s ability to know and that given all eternity WILL NEVER COME TO FULLY KNOW. Philosophical Pragmatism is nothing more than an idea rooted in pride that is unable to unwilling to accept there are things beyond the human mind to fully know. Pantheism is also rooted in Pride in my opinion as well. The idea that I will only acknowledge truth and reality to the degree that I can see, touch, hear, taste, or feel. If only I had enough time I would understand it all - nonsense.

But I do again want to reiterate, it takes humility to accept that there is TRUTH/REALITY beyond the human’s mind or ability to fully comprehend. It is called Mystery. Mystery does not mean we are in total darkness, but rather that we understand very very little and are pushing back Mystery.

Believe is not intellectual assassination or mind control (as other people seem to equate with belief in dogma).

 

[Leela]

I agree a person can believe something that is not true. We are on the same page here.

I don’t know if we are on the same page when you stated "a person cannot know something that is not true. You gave us YOUR basis for understanding this in the context of another one of your statements "because to know something means you believe it, are justified in believing it, and it’s true.

Though there is no consensus on the definition of knowledge in philosophy (and no consensus on pretty much anything) philophical discussions of knowledge generally begin with Plato’s formulation of knowledge requiring three criteria. To say that one knows something she must believe it, be justified in believing it, and it must be true. I’m not just giving you my idiosyncratic usage of the term. This is how the word is generally used in philosophical discussions. You should look it up. Alternative theories of knowledge often add additional criiteria to these three, but these three are as standard as we are going to get right now.

To know something does not necessarily mean to believe it.

How could someone know that something is true without believing that it is true?

There are many different kinds of knowledge. I don’t believe that gravity exists, I know that gravity exists. It is a fact. I do not believe in facts. Facts are facts. Belief begins when you accept there is knowledge beyond our human ability to fully comprehend and in the context of accepting our limitations, to know and realize there is reality and truth that REALLY IS TRUE and worthy of belief. Belief reaches beyond human understanding to acknowledge there is truth and reality outside our limitations - but nevertheless REALLY IS REAL and because of that is worthy of our belief. Belief begins with humility in my opinion - realizing and accepting our limitations, and acknowledging there is REALITY/TRUTH that the human mind will never be able to fully grasp.

You seem to be confusing religious use of “believe in” as in “to have faith in” with “believe that.” You are correct that we never believe in facts but we certainly do believe that facts are true.

There is no problem with "he believes it but it isn’t true, but it would be a missuse of language to say “he knows it but it isn’t true.”

Also, we can say “he believes in it” but we can’t say “he believes that it.”

Aristotle’s famous quote is “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” I would add to the words of Aristotle “that to know your limitations is the beginning of humility”. It takes humility to have faith - to believe in things that exist beyond the human mind’s ability to fully comprehend and know - to accept that they really are true - because they really are true. And only things that really are true are worthy of my belief. Anything untrue, is not worthy of my belief. There is knowledge that I can know is untrue. When I know what is true, I can know what is untrue as well. If I know that 1+1=2, then I can also know that 2+1 DOES NOT EQUAL 2. Real truth is what allows us to also know what is not true. You are correct to say that some people can believe in things that are not true. But I would like you to consider the idea or possibility that people can believe in things that REALLY ARE TRUE. Belief should not automatically discount or disquality the reality or truth of the things that are believed in.

I agree that you can know that a sentence is not true.

It is Pride that thinks only given enough time, the human mind will be able to know all things. It is Humility to know that there is REALITY outside of the human mind’s ability to know and that given all eternity WILL NEVER COME TO FULLY KNOW. Philosophical Pragmatism is nothing more than an idea rooted in pride that is unable to unwilling to accept there are things beyond the human mind to fully know. Pantheism is also rooted in Pride in my opinion as well. The idea that I will only acknowledge truth and reality to the degree that I can see, touch, hear, taste, or feel. If only I had enough time I would understand it all - nonsense.

I don’t follow you at all. Truth is something we say about sentences. It has a function in language. It isn’t anything that applies to odors or sounds or other sensations. We would never say “that rose is true” but we would say that the sentence ‘that rose smells sweet’ is true (if and only if that rose actually smells sweet).

But I do again want to reiterate, it takes humility to accept that there is TRUTH/REALITY beyond the human’s mind or ability to fully comprehend. It is called Mystery. Mystery does not mean we are in total darkness, but rather that we understand very very little and are pushing back Mystery.

Believe is not intellectual assassination or mind control (as other people seem to equate with belief in dogma).

You’ve gone on quite a bit about humility, but I don’t see the point. Pragmatists like myself believe that there are things that we don’t know and things that we will never know just like everyone else. In fact we pragmatists don’t even know what we don’t know, and by definition we can never know the things that we can’t know. Is that enough humility for you?

It would seem nonsensical to me to think that not knowing something is evidence for the existence of that thing. Is that what you are arguing?

Best,
Leela

 

[Betterave]

I find metaphysics to be a very interesting subject (I’ve learned a bit about it before, and am taking a class on this semester), however I have yet to see any real benefit or use of metaphysics. Hopefully my mind will be changed by the class i’m taking, but thus far it just seems like an interesting mind game and nothing more. Though I suppose people could say the same thing about all Philosophy.

Yeah, people say stuff, that’s for sure!

Something to think about though: “…we must ascend again towards the Good, the desired of every Soul. Anyone that has seen This [the primal source of beauty], knows what I intend when I say that it is beautiful. Even the desire of it is to be desired as a Good.” (Plotinus, Ennead I.6.6) Now that’s some heavy metaphysics, word?

A basic point for Plato: we can come to know the Good (the most True) only if we are ‘friendly’ towards it. This is a classical basic requirement for metaphysics/ philosophy (love of wisdom and friendliness towards the good belong together in classical metaphysics). Many students in (and probably teachers of) metaphysics classes have no idea that this is so. They think their ‘unfriendliness’ towards truth/goodness/thinking has nothing to do with their negative assessment of thinking about truth and goodness, i.e., philosophy.

Insofar as pragmatists are interested in things being ‘better’ (i.e., ‘more good’) in the future, they are interested in the Good (I think this is obvious in a pragmatist like James, at least) and in practice do recognize that the very ‘desire for the Good’ is itself desirable/good. It is possible, then, for pragmatism to have a constructive role in conforming metaphysics to its own true ‘self.’

 

[Betterave]

I agree that that is what metaphysics is generally understood to mean. My comments have been to critique the view that by reflecting on the The-Way-Things-Really-Are you will be able to solve your problems of epistemology.

I am okay with thinking of metaphysics as the branch of philosophy where one considers views of what there is, but I don’t know how to personally engage productively in reflecting on The-Way-Things-Really-Are. I have characterized this practice as trying to get past appearances to reality as it really is which presupposes that we are already OUT of touch with reality but may be able to get IN touch with reality by thinking about it.

Best,
Leela

Well obviously (I think) you’re offering a metaphysical thesis here, are you not? You don’t think that metaphysics is the assertion that “we must get past appearances to the-way-things-really-are,” do you? And that any other general reflection on the nature of being is not metaphysics?

Or is it just that you object to thinking about reality altogether? That certainly wouldn’t qualify as pragmatism, unless you choose to force some problematic meaning on the word ‘reality’ which doesn’t belong to it in general usage, in which case we’re arguing about words instead of ta pragmata (very unpragmatic!).

Anyway, I’m not clear what you’re trying to say here: are you now granting legitimacy to certain forms of metaphysics (but that would just mean: to certain metaphysical theses, would it not?), but not to others?

 

[Betterave]

All I mean is that once you’ve learned what there is to know about how the word “truth” is used in sentences such as “‘slavery is evil’ if and only if slavery is evil”, there probably isn’t anything else to know about truth. This isn’t a theory of truth because it doesn’t say anything about how to tell if a sentence is true or how to make a true sentence. It does commit to the is idea that truth is a word that we use to describe sentences, so trying to know Truth in and of itself without saying what sentence is to be determined to be either true or false doesn’t make any sense.

I think it would be interesting to discuss your contention about Truth and what use it has, but I wonder if it might be helpful if you dropped the label pragmatism and adopted the label atheism or at least atheistic pragmatism. When theists use the term Truth they use it to refer to God and have perfectly good reasons for doing so - they are justified in doing so, given their context, even if it turns out that their belief that Truth is, is not true. There is no reason, then, for pragmatists to not believe in Truth, just because they are pragmatists.

B.t.w.: are you suggesting that what are commonly referred to as ‘deflationary (or minimalist) theories of truth’ are not theories of truth? You certainly seem to be!