From: Glenn Bradford (gmbbradford@netscape.net)
Date: Wed Jan 15 2003 - 05:00:32 GMT
Matt,
MATT:
"... here is where I think Gardner has misinterpreted James.
When James says, "It becomes true, is *made* true by events,"
he's making the point, in contemporary philosophical parlance,
that "truth" is a property of sentences and, rather than
discovering the Truth of what the world is really like..."
This is what Rorty thinks, perhaps, but according to Gardner,
not James. The point of Gardner's essay is that the debate
between pragmatists and realists was merely a confusion over
the pragmatist's use of language, and not some genuine gulf in
belief. James redefined truth as the passing of a test. So
when James says, "Truth *happens* to an idea. It becomes true,
is *made* true by events", he is just describing truth under the
new definition where passing a test is involved.
MATT:
"Pragmatists want us to discard the entire notion that there is
anything philosophically interesting about 'correspondence with
the world' that will eventually lead us to 'Truth'."
Rorty wants us to discard this notion, but according to Gardner,
not James. James essentially agreed with the correspondence theory
of truth. There is instead a lateral shift in the pragmatist
*description* of the correspondence theory. James believed all along
that the card had a number and suit that was fixed "out there" before
it was turned over, it's just that after his re-definition of "truth"
it became cumbersome for him to say this.
MATT:
One of Gardner's last statements is why I think he's recontextualizing to
make it look like James is on his side (which is entirely possible, James
was notoriously wish-washy; a good biography of all the early pragmatists
that I recommend is The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand): "The notion
that a statement can have an absolute, timeless correspondence with the
world, whether verified or not, is too useful a notion."
This is just Gardner's way of saying that if you redefine truth so
that it is not timeless but only pops into existence after a test,
then you have lost an important notion that needs recovering.
His very next line is:
"Abandon it and at once you have to invent another way to say
the same thing."
MATT:
"Gardner wants to cast doubt on contemporary pragmatism by showing that
James wouldn't have even followed it. The pragmatists, on the other hand,
want to update the Founding Father Pragmatists to a changed intellectual
landscape (an idea taken from Dewey)."
Gardner makes a good case that James wouldn't follow neo-pragmatist
ideas, and although I didn't mention it, his essay claims that Dewey
wouldn't either. Many philosophers misunderstood what James was up to,
and I suspect Rorty was one of them. Rorty probably now acknowledges the
misreading but likes the consequences of that misreading (somehow).
Glenn
__________________________________________________________________
The NEW Netscape 7.0 browser is now available. Upgrade now! http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/download.jsp
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape Mail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com/
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 15 2003 - 05:14:45 GMT