Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 08:32:15 -0400 From: Howie Chodos <howie-AT-magi.com> Subject: Re: BHA: Truth, a query Thanks to both Tobin and Ruth for the challenging questions. I will need to think about them and I will be away from e-mail for a few days. But Tobin's other post on how to defend the notion of alethia reminded me of RB's criticism of correspondence theories on p. 215 of DPF (just above the bit that Mervyn cited earlier). He writes: "The basic objection to the most influential correspondence theories -- the early Wittgenstein's picture theory, Tarski's semantic theory and Popper's theory of increasing verisimilitude or truth-likeness in the development of science -- applies to all alike: there seems no 'Archimedean' standpoint from which a comparison of the competing items can be made." I wonder if this remark also serves as a warning that there are limits to the extent to which we can generate a better account of "the conjunction between the logical/epistemological term ("truth") and the ontological term ("of things")." It seems to me that single 'Archimedean' standpoint is implied should we try to define a universal form of relationship between the two. I think it is right to say that we acquire truth about the world as a result of this conjunction, but I do not think that its form cannot be permanently delimited. In RB's terms I would argue, for example, that truth in the fiduciary sense does not reduce to alethic truth. The "conjunction between the logical/epistemological term ("truth") and the ontological term ("of things")" constitutes an open system. We cannot define the nature of truth prior to engaging in the ongoing pursuit of truth. This is what I mean by a deflationary approach to truth -- the recognition that we can never attain a single theory of truth that will forever underpin our pursuit of truth. Here is how Joseph Rouse defines deflationary: "A deflationary understanding of a concept treats it as lacking sufficient theoretical integrity or pretheoretical unity to support substantive generalizations about its instances. A deflationary account thus suggests that 'knowledge' is a useful and learnable term but that it demarcates only a nominal kind. [Elsewhere] I argued for a deflationary treatment of truth; there are many truths, but no nature of truth. Likewise, I now claim, there is much scientific knowledge but no nature of scientific knowledge. Such a deflationary conception affords ample opportunity to interpret or assess particular scientific claims and their justification but no grounds for the legitimation project, that is, for global interpretations and rationalizations or critiques of the scientific enterprise as such." Now Rouse is not a realist. Yet I find his notion of a deflationary account of truth to be seriously worth considering, and not necessarily in itself irrealist. All this leads me to think that what I am objecting to is not so much the term the "truth of things," as the implicit assumption that it is possible to have a universal theory of truth that often accompanies its use and defense. In this sense, my position would probably be more accurately stated as there can be no single theory of the truth of things. It does seem to me that RB's own claim that the notion of alethia holds the key to the resolution of philosophical debates about truth is problematic for that reason. Did I conflate the two in my paper? That is possible. Did my appropriation of the first half of Romer's example contribute to this conflation? That is also possible. This is what I want to think about some more. Howie --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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