File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1998/bhaskar.9810, message 54


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                                            



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