RE: MD Gardner on Pragmatism

From: Erin N. (enoonan@kent.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 14 2003 - 14:33:01 GMT

  • Next message: Matt the Enraged Endorphin: "Re: MD Gardner on Pragmatism"

    >To demonstrate this distinction, consider a shuffled deck of cards spread
    >face down. One is selected at random but is kept face down. What does it
    >mean to say that the statement "The selected card is the queen of hearts" is
    >true? An Aristotlean would say the statement is true if the card *is* indeed
    >the queen of hearts. A pragmatist would say that the truth of the statement
    is
    >the passing of a test (such as turning the card over) to determine if the
    card
    >is the queen of hearts. To an Aristotlean, there is a distinction between
    >truth and methods for deciding a truth. To a pragmatist, there is no
    >difference.

    I am not sure if I can't express it clear but something
    about the language-truth relation is bothering me here.
    It seems Aristotlean wants to say there is a literal
    truth (the card is the queen of hearts) to believe
    regardless of test but you have to interpret that
    statement nonliterally for it to be true.

    ----So of course you can argue just change the sentence
    that the "the picture on the other side of the card is
    of the queen of hearts".
    But this seems to be getting back to methods and such

    It just seems like the only "truth" is the card is a card and
    that any description of the truth has to noted with who and
    how it was described.

    erin

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