Dear Elephant,
I think I can't answer on James and Dewey, as I still have to deepen my
knowledge about them. The words about truth you mention are not mine, but
Roger's. I was responding to him and I hope he can answer to your
observations.
Ciao.
Marco.
"Indus elephas culices non timet"
(The Indian elephant does not fear mosquitos)
It is the mot of the medieval sirs of my town (Cesena, Italy). They used to
have an elephant as insignia of the clan.
-----Messaggio Originale-----
Da: "PzEph" <etinarcardia@lineone.net>
A: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Data invio: sabato 2 dicembre 2000 3.00
Oggetto: Re: MD Intellectual Level Definition
> PUZZLED ELEPHANT TO MARCO:
>
> MARCO WROTE:
> >
> > TRUTH -- Another feature of a quality pattern that is widely recognized
in
> > all intellectual patterns is TRUTH. This is covered extensively in the
> > writings of James and Pirsig. In SOM, truth often means objective laws
that
> > float out there like some idealistic platonic form. In the MOQ, we know
> > that truth "is one species of good" that involves a pattern's
correlation
> > with
> > experience and other patterns. In the famous words of James: "Realities
are
> > not true, they ARE; and beliefs are true of them."
>
> ELEPHANT:
> One thing floating here is a vanishingly recognisable view about what a
> Platonic form is. (The law of gravity, one of Plato's forms? Pull the
> other one!) Be that as it may, your quote from James has not been
> understood either, if you think that Jamesian Truth is "a pattern's
> correlation with experience". Because for James, experience is always of
> realities, but not all realities can have beleifs about them that are true
> in the Jamesian sense, because not all experienced realities are good
> realities, and good realities are what we need as referents for truth.
> Truths, therefore, do correspond with some experiences, but only with
> experiences of good realities, which are not the only realities, and not
the
> only realities experienced. The experienced world of the psychologically
> disturbed is existentially real, it's just that the disturbed man's
beleifs
> about that world don't do him much good and so don't constitute the truth.
> Hence, the test of truth is emphatically not correlation with experience
at
> large (that would simply be empiricism, not radical empiricism). If that
> seems puzzling, this is Dewey's neat summary of the Pragmatist position
(The
> Practical Character of Reality):
>
> "A reality which is taken in organic response so as to lead to subsequent
> reactions which are off the track and aside from the mark, while it is,
> existentially speaking, perfectly real, is not a good reality. It lacks
> the hallmark of value. Since it is a certain kind of object which we
want,
> one which will be as favourable as possible to a consistent and liberal or
> growing functioning, it is this kind, the true kind, which for us
> monopolises the title of reality..... Since it is only genuine or sincere
> things, things which are good for what they lay claim to in the way of
> consequences, which we want or are after, morally they alone are 'real'."
>
> That make sense?
>
>
> Pzeph
>
>
>
>
>
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