« Quicksilver | Main | Telling the Difference » What Is Truth?03 May 2007 03:42 pm Ross wants to know. Fortunately, while I got a C+ in my one class on American politics and public policy, this is actually something I know about thanks to the tireless labors of Richard Heck. My advice (though not, I think, Professor Heck's) would be to read Michael Dummett's Truth and Other Enigmas. I think Ross won't be thrilled with the somewhat relativistic conclusions, but the good news from his point of view is that my understanding is that Dummett is a practicing Catholic. Comments (39)
Richard Heck needs a hoodie. 
Rorty's another strong choice. I was going for something unreadable and obscure.
Rorty's another strong choice. I was going for something unreadable and obscure. Ah. Whereas I actually agree with Rorty. Oh well.
Also on the good, but readable side of things is:
(a) FPL is WAAAAAAAY more important than Truth and Other Enigmas. (b) Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is one of the 3 most important philosophical works of the last 100 years (Kuhn and Quine having the other two). (c) Prosentential is the way to go.
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is one of the 3 most important philosophical works of the last 100 years (Kuhn and Quine having the other two). No Being and Time? No Philosophical Investigations?
Prosententialism is just an overly-complicated form of minimalism so I don't really see the advantage over that. And both A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism will be read long after anyone reads Quine, Kuhn, or Rorty.
The poseur Rorty is the worst of all possible choices, at least on the subject of truth. Scott Soames has a very nice, careful and comprehensive book on truth. And Bernard Williams's Truth and Truthfulness is an extremely interesting read which treats truth and the human interest in truth in a broader philosophical context. Dummett is an intuitionist and anti-realist, so his views on the nest of issues related to truth, logical consequence, etc. are rather unorthodox. For someone making a first crack at the subject, I would start elsewhere. Bertrand Russell has a couple of fine essays on the topic of truth, and the major competing conceptions thereof, in his collection Philosophical Essays. For a good second course following the basics, Tim Maudlin's recent Truth and Paradox is a very cool, well-argued and interesting treatment of truth in the context of the liar paradox, and with some intriguing applications of Godel's theorem thrown in. (Don't fear this is more of the usual half-baked, impressionistic, pseudo-philosophical Godelmania. Maudlin is a top-drawer, logically competent and sophisticated philosopher who knows his stuff.)
And both A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism will be read long after anyone reads Quine, Kuhn, or Rorty. Yes, and a lot more people read The Bridges of Madison County than read Ulysess.
Since all of you are Jewish and/or atheists you probably didn't realize that Ross wasn't actually asking "What is Truth", he was just quoting Pontius Pilate, because he was preparing to crucify CHRISTopher Hitchens.
The poseur Rorty is the worst of all possible choices, at least on the subject of truth. As is typical for critiques of anti-foundationalism (or postmodernism, if we must), you've made that claim without argument or evidence.
William James is the man for understanding what we humans mean by "truth". "Pragmatism" is an excellent book on the subject, or for a shorter read his best known essay "The Will to Believe" is a good place to start. Both readily available on the web.
My advice is to worry about (1) what things are true, and forget about (2) defining "truth." (2) doesn't help you answer (1).
Harvard students get C+'s? Did you just blow off the class to work on the Independent or what?
Yeah MY, what Christopher said. I know Harvard Gov classes. You had to actively NOT turn in MULTIPLE assignments to get a C+. What the hell?
There is also Jonathan Barnes' new book - Truth, etc.
"As is typical for critiques of anti-foundationalism (or postmodernism, if we must), you've made that claim without argument or evidence." Arguments or evidence only work against somewhat well-defined positions. No one has, as far as I can tell, been able to define "postmodernism" as anything that isn't obviously false or triviallly true, with the postmodernist hopping from one foot to the other. Kirkham's textbook on truth is good, as is the Oxford collection of writings (which include Russell, Quine, James, Field, Horwich, etc). Rorty is irrelevant in semantics, used more as a whipping boy or an example of how not to do it than anything else. A Theory of Justice has been far more influential outside of philosophy than Quine (and probably Kuhn, who would be disgusted at the way his work has been misused), and I doubt you could overstate Rawls' significance within both ethics and political philosophy. If by "more important" you mean "better philosophy," then I am afraid that that claim has been made without evidence or argument. Rawls=Bridges of Madison County doesn't strike me as a valid argument, but I'd have to go look at my 101 textbook to be sure.
The standard of truth is absolute self-evident certainty. If understanding what truth is that strictly is important to anyone, I recommend Spinoza and Descartes, though I admit, the subject is so difficult, even Spinoza didn't completely succeed in explaining it clearly.
Ah, I have a chance to disagree with Dan Kervick (the other Dan K for those of you that keep score)! Rorty is not as poseur, he is an aggregator. He has probably not have had one original thought in his life - a very common condition - but he is right. The problem with truth is not that it is rare, the problem is that it is too common. We have to choose between many truths. That is is the human condition. Only lazy people and the Bush administration - but I repeat myself - lie habitually.
Arguments or evidence only work against somewhat well-defined positions. No one has, as far as I can tell, been able to define "postmodernism" as anything that isn't obviously false or triviallly true, with the postmodernist hopping from one foot to the other. This is, of course, an incredibly transparent dodge. You are unable to formulate an argument against something you don't like, so you say that the thing you don't like is so bad that it can't be argued against. The onus is on you to create the argument. But since you've invoked the postmodern boogie man (look! He put postmodern in scare quotes! How droll!), you're clearly more interested in lazy caricature and stereotype. Which is easy but not, unfortunately, any good for anyone. All of this is perfectly typical. Which is funny-- because it's precisely the people arguing for "good old fashion bedrock logic and reason" who can't get around to making an argument using those same principals. You're always left with another pile of ad hominems, straw men, and non sequiturs. I mean, " 'postmodernism' as anything that isn't obviously false or triviallly true"? Wow, arguing against something by saying that it's obviously wrong? You're on great logical footing there. What a coup. It's obvious to you that's it's wrong, so therefore it's wrong. That's the case cracker.
No Being and Time? No Philosophical Investigations? Posted by Freddie | May 3, 2007 4:23 PM You're right on PI, but SZ is silly (unless your name is Haugeland, perhaps.) I didn't include PI mostly because it's included in the Rorty I mentioned. That's the great thing about PMN - it includes close to *everything* that's good.
If you're looking for a good discussion of the term "postmodernism" I recommend Lyotard's "The Postmodern Condition" - he actually uses the term (Derrida and most others rejected it). He addresses head on the kind of positivism that seems to be the common fare over here.
Y'all would be much better off reading Michael Devitt's Realism And Truth. Seriously. And I recommend laying off that postmodern stuff. It rots your brain.
"Shortly after dawn, or what would have been dawn in a normal sky, Mr. Artur Sammler with his bushy eye took in the books and papers of his West Side bedroom and suspected strongly that they were the wrong books, the wrong papers." [312.7 pagers later] "Sammler in a mental whisper said, 'Well, Elya. Well, well, Elya.' And then in the same way he said, 'Remember, God, the soul of Elya Gruner, who as willingly as possible and as well as he was able, and even to an intolerable point, and even in suffocation and even as death was coming was eager, even childishly perhaps (may I be forgiven for this), even with a certain servility, to do what was required of him. At his best this man was much kinder than at my very best I have ever been or could ever be. He was aware that he must meet, and he did meet -- through all the delusion and degraded clowning of this life through which we are speeding -- he did meet the terms of his contract. The terms of which, in his inmost heart, each man knows. As I know mine. As all know. For that is the truth of it -- that we all know, God, that we know, that we know, we know, we know.'" -- Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow, a non-practicing Jew
Awesome frankness about the C+ . I'd say, that some professor has got to figure out why he messed up so bad. However, I'm glad to see that grade inflation has been less extreme than I thought (I did receive 3 C's myself back in the day :-().
If you're not really interested in ontology this might seem more relevant if you're talking about "truth" in ethics and politics: http://caae.phil.cmu.edu/Cavalier/Forum/meta/background/Putnam2.html it seems a reasonable position to me because (a) the limits of human knowledge
Putnam is like the second coming of Bertrand Russell: the smartest guy ever, who barely got a single thing right.
As is typical for critiques of anti-foundationalism (or postmodernism, if we must), you've made that claim without argument or evidence. This should read: "As is typical for blog comments..."
"Putnam is like the second coming of Bertrand Russell: the smartest guy ever, who barely got a single thing right." Hah. The wonderful thing about discussions is that people usually aren't convinced by mere dismissal. That is assuming you were even addressing the 1983 piece, which I linked because I found it apt in a sense not at all related to the various turns his philosophy of science. But then it was probably stupid of me to think there could be a semi serious discussion here about said topic.
Early-to-middle Putnam was great but then he went off the rails.
"This is, of course, an incredibly transparent dodge. You are unable to formulate an argument against something you don't like, so you say that the thing you don't like is so bad that it can't be argued against. The onus is on you to create the argument." No, it is saying that I have no idea what the target is. What is "post-modernism" as compared to other positions in the history of philosophy? You equate it with "anti-foundationalism" but this is a position that has been adopted by many critics of post-modernism. Bernard Williams, for example, criticizes Rorty in chapter 9 of Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy from non-foundationalist grounds. And clearly, the onus is on the postmodernist to, at least, create a coherent position. You tell me what "anti-foundationalism" is, and how it is different from people like Quine who also rejected epistemic foundationlism but have no truck with postmodernism, and then maybe we can have a discussion. How can I argue against an undefined position? Anyway, I think this post from Keith Derose (an epistemologist) is quite apropos:
Patrick: just to reiterate, the thinkers who are grouped together under the banner of postmodernism explicitly refrain from proclaiming a common theory or method - much less "age". This is just a handle - it is not a movement like logical positivism. There are common themes, concerns, and questions but there is certainly no one position or thesis that can be singled out (and reified).
No, it is saying that I have no idea what the target is. And yet, you have no compunction against weighing in as though you know what you're talking about. I did not equate anti-foundationalism and postmodernism with each other. I said that the criticism against them is usually similar-- that is, filled with straw men. And frankly, you've proved my point. Even with the bar set as low as it is in the comments of a blog, what your saying is astounding. You rip into a school of philosophy, then when you're confronted with the fact that you don't know what you're talking about, you admit as much, and then blame it on the school of philosophy you're attacking. That's beyond strange. The onus is on the postmodern philosophers to make their own arguments, sure. But they've already created those arguments. You're now attacking them because, I guess, you haven't read them? How is that their fault? And, again-- you made the initial attack. So who's job is it really to prove the point? It's depressing to say that this is precisely the condition of most arguments about the subject: people who admittedly no nothing about the philosophy but are still perfectly willing to condemn it. The lazy stereotypes about it aren't accurate, if you take the time to actually investigate the specific claims of its individual thinkers. I'm so tired of defending the ideas from attacks on the supposed culture around it (It's relativist! It's just jargon! It's just trendy! There's no content there! It's French!) I would love to have an honest discussion about its faults and merits, but you can't do that with people who refuse to educate themselves. I could write out a capsule summary of Rorty's stuff, or even of postmodernism as it's usually understood. But I've got work, and I frankly don't want to. For a good summary of Rorty's work, I would check out the section about it in Michael Berube's latest book, What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts? As far as postmodernism, theres a litany of summaries and guides out there. I would probably start with post-structuralism and go from there. Of course, you seem to already have your mind made up.
What is truth? It's a property of a sentence such that "Snow is white" is true iff snow is white. It ain't that complicated people. It's only complicated for those who have a vested interest in making the truth seem complicated.
What is truth? It's a property of a sentence such that "Snow is white" is true iff snow is white. It ain't that complicated people. It's only complicated for those who have a vested interest in making the truth seem complicated. Except that no one is interested in questioning those kind of statements. (No, not even faggy French relativist sissy intellectuals.) The questions of truth that actual preoccupy people-- Reagan won the Cold War, abortion is murder, there were no WMDs, induction is a valid form of reasoning, democracy is an absolute good-- are unfortunately deeply complicated.
the smartest guy ever, who barely got a single thing right Putnam has fundamentally revised his position regarding realism/antirealism about three or four times now, so that can't be true. Since there are barely that many essential positions in this debate, the probability of him having been right at one time is actually very high. But I do see your point.
Comments closed May 17, 2007. |
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Heads in the Sand
Much better to read than Dummett would be Paul Horwich's _Truth_- it's shorter, easier to read and understand and more likely to be correct. (Plus, minimalism about truth is pretty cool.)
Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | May 3, 2007 3:47 PM