ROG TO ELEPHANT ON JAMES AND TRUTH
ROG WROTE:
According to James "The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be
good
in the way of belief, and good too for definite, assignable reasons." He
goes on to state that if believing truth led inevitably to terrible outcomes
that we would learn to shun the truth. But in general, it doesn't.....
ELEPHANT:
I want to challenge James here. Is "in general" enough - or even at all
relevant? What about the (the all too familiar) cases where tact or fear
defeat truth, sometimes completely? This does actually happen you know,
it's perhaps a definition of a totalitarian state.
ROG:
He is talking about believing in the truth, not speaking it in inappropriate
situations. But, I don't get your point. Is it that people can be
brainwashed? OK. His point is that truth is of value for definite reasons.
For example, Bermuda is surrounded by coral reefs. This is a truth. A
sailor without good maps traveling into Bermuda should acknowledge this, or
he risks sinking and death. The truth works well , even for Cuban sailors.
EL:
In order to analyse real
goodness (in the Republic), Plato imagines a man who is actually crucified,
but remains good. Can't we allow that beleiving the truth can also, even
when it is the pragmatic truth, sometimes or even generally "led inevitably
to terrible outcomes"? If we can't then it looks like we don't have a
pragmatic conception of truth, so much as an Orwellian one, where truth is
what is most conveinient, according to the wim of the most powerful, for us
to believe.
ROG:
Huh? It may keep you alive to believe communist propaganda, but if it is
untrue it lacks quality. Orwell is a perfect point of a quality-less and
untrue world.
EL:
There can be martyrs in the cause of DQ, can't there? - those
who stood out for what made real practical sense, and against the merely
conveinient (the consensus of the day, the moral majority, Dogma, academic
fashion, whathaveyou)?
ROG:
I think James would have little respect for martyrs. He very much was
against dogma, and very much for critical evaluation for the truth. A martyr
is often just another dogmatist. I think James, though much respecting
Plato's contributions to philosophy, would have little use for Plato's
eternal ideas or forms. I could be wrong though. Read James.
Rog
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