Re: A pragmatic theory of truth (a response to recent discussions)
Gary Shank (P30GDS1 who-is-at MVS.CSO.NIU.EDU)
Mon, 15 Jan 96 11:50 CST
My friend Angel --
I read with interest your endorsement of James's version of the
pragmatic theory of truth. Let me say at the outset that I under-
stand that the main thrust of your point is the fact that people
suffer and struggle to achieve certain practical ends, and that
we as academicians need to be sensitive to those struggles and
sufferings and to do what we can to help alleviate them, not just
sit back and analyze them in abstract terms.
Having prefaced my remarks, I want to make two points. First,
people suffer and struggle in worlds that are constituted by
theoretical understandings, or more accurately, theoretical part-
and mis-understandings. For example, the man on the street in the
USA believes that his consciousness exists in some material way in
his head, and more exactly, in his brain. Therefore, people
are willing to pay $10K to freeze their heads for future thawing,
because they understand consciousness to be such that you only need
to keep the physical brain in order to potentially revive it. So
when we make theories, we make things that will eventually have
practical consequences if those theories are accepted. This was
one of the reasons that Peirce held fast, in his version of the
pragmatic method, to the notion that all inquiry is social, coll-
ective, and oriented to the future.
Second, I want to caution against taking James's version of the
nature of truth in relation to pragmatism. I take a back seat to
no one in my admiration of James, particularly James the psychol-
ogist. Several years ago, when I still taught Intro Psych, as an
experiment I used Principles of Psychology as my only textbook, and
after I made the requisite physiological updates to the early
chapters, it worked wonderfully. Anyway, James never really did
understand one point that Peirce understood totally in his forming
of the Pragmatic Maxim in the first place -- that meaning and truth
in no way can be reduced to one another. While they are most often
inextricably linked, it is a mistake of the first order to try ot
account for one in terms of the other.
Peirce meant for pragmatism to be about the accounting of meaning.
The pragmatic maxim says, in effect, that if we have to things, thei
their meanings are different to the extent that those two things
have differences in their practical consequences. This works in
two directions -- to collapse terms and to separate terms. For
instance, if the terms 'couch' and 'sofa' are indistingusihable
in terms of their referent consequenses, so that they can be used
interchangabley, then they mean the same thing. However, if their
are real practical differences in terms of using either 'mind' or
'brain' then these two terms mean different things.
Peirce was very reluctant to extend the pragmatic maxim to issues
of testing truth. He saw the establishment of meaning claims and
the testing of truth claims to be quite different. He always held
that at least some truths are independent of the knower, and that
the only real way to deal with truth was through the correction
priovided by experience when we make errors. The idea of a con-
sensus model of truth was abhorrent to Peirce, and in my opinion
rightfully so. It is a very short step from everyone agreeing to
the truth of something to the 'cooking' of circumstances to allow
for the privileging of that view, leading to what Peirce called the
method of tenacity for fixing beliefs.
What happens when a pragmatic theorist collapes meaning and truth?
One of two kinds of errors can be made. The positivist error occurs
when we try to reduce all meaning claims to truth claims -- this is
the operationalist error which most of us can understand leads to
some serious errors in terms of practical consequences. The other
error, to reduce truth claims to meaning claims, is one with some
current fascination. We can call this the Consensus error. In the
consensus error, put forth I think inadvertantly by James but with
purpose by Goodman and Rorty and others, the argument is in effect
that we dont have truth at all, but we only have meaning. So, the
truthe becomes a matter of conventional agreement. If people cnat
find any space to agree, then we come up with the notion of the
incommensurablity of truth claims and thereby worldviews. This
ultimately leads us into settling issues of inquiry by an appeal
to power. In academic circles, the exercise of power is usually
disguised to look like 'we need to take care of those poor people
who have been victimized and marginalized by the current set of
meanings disguised as truth (just give us the power and we will
put in our own disguise of the truth, since its all about meaning
anyway)' or 'i'm just trying to make a simple point, and there is
nothing in the way of gain for me.' In other words, if we make
the Consensus error, then we remove the natural and independent
corrective of true states of affair from the equation, and make
the process of inquiry a matter of whose meaning frame, or world
view, will prevail.
The answer, in my opinion? To quit trying to reduce truth to
meaning or meaning to truth. Take both concepts seriously. Allow
for inquiry that can target either meaning or truth, and then stop
there. Explore how they are related as concepts, while accepting
that they are irreducible.
I've gone on too much here, and made lots of typos....
gary shank
gshank who-is-at niu.edu