From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Fri Nov 14 2003 - 16:52:52 GMT
Platt,
> The fact that you've [Matt] been "around the pole" many times not only
with me
> but with DMB and Paul would suggest to a reasonable person that your
> ability to communicate leaves something to be desired. To blame the
> victim of your prose for lack of understanding is to reverse the
> responsibility from writer to reader.
I've had no problem understanding Matt (which isn't to say I agree with him
entirely), so another possibility is that you have locked yourself into a
set of presuppositions that prevent understanding. A case in point is your
accusations of self-contradiction when someone says things like "Truth will
always be a muddle." A statement like this is not intended to be a straight
true or false proposition. It can be interpreted in two ways. One is the
way you interpreted it: "Every declarative statement has a muddled truth
value". This is false, since the statement "It is raining" usually has a
clear truth value (what if it is "misting"?). But another way to interpret
it, and it should be obvious in the context that this is what Matt intended,
is "If one tries to establish criteria that will cover the determination of
truth value for all declarative sentences, one gets into a muddle." Thus you
miss the point when you give examples that are true by correspondence. Truth
by correspondence only works when the example consists of sense-perceptible
particulars, as is the case in your examples. But as soon as generalities
are involved, truth by correspondence doesn't work.
>
> One way to assure mutual understanding is to use words as commonly
> defined instead of insisting on your own definitions. Case in point:
>
> Matt
> > And no, as I said later, direct sensation does not provide
> > justification. "Justification" has to do with reasoning, not showing.
>
> You definition of "justification" is not the common one: From Merriam-
> Webster:
>
> 1 a : to prove or SHOW to be just, right, or reasonable (emphasis
> added)
The word "show" is often used to indicate an argument (i.e., a
justification) that is not necessarily a proof. Since proof only works in
mathematics, I would say that the dictionary is using the word "show" in
this sense, and not in the sense of directing someone's senses in a
particular direction.
>
> Another case in point of eliciting confusion:
>
> Matt
> > No justification of truth by direct sensation--only change in belief.
>
> Without explaining the difference as you see it between "truth" and
> "true belief," this reader is left wondering what you mean in making
> this distinction.
Matt is here giving the pragmatist view. He is trying to change
philosophical vocabulary, just as Pirsig does in Lila.
- Scott
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