From: steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2003 17:05:54 -0000 (GMT) Subject: RE: BHA: Putnam's realism Ruth no no - i don't ever have time to do justice to this as it is...brevity is better for me laughs steve > Hi Doug, Howard, > > It kills me that I have no time, none at all, when we are talking about > such interesting things. Can we come back to this next week, so I can > go on and on and on? > > Doug, I'm glad that you've moved on the definition of truth, but Putnam > (Hilary Putnam) isn't as good as Alston (sorry everyone; it's just that > I made him read Alston too). > > Here are some of the places where I part ways with Hilary Putnam, not > just on the definition of truth: > > (1) metatheoretically, as I've said, I disagree with running together > ontological realism (which Putnam calls "metaphysical realism") and the > correspondence theory of truth. > > (2) ontologically, I read Putnam as being an anti-realist about > causality and as holding that there are no natural kinds. I think > that he is interesting because you can see so clearly in his very > honest work that the ontological position amounts to saying "I have a > dogmatic belief in the existence of pre-conceptual material `stuff,' > but whatever it is, it has no intrinsic form." The position is > recognizably Kantian, but it is also different from Kant. I can't > figure out how to make it work, though. I am, as I've said, a realist > about causality, as well as about the properties of kinds to which such > a realism commits me. > > (3) epistemologically, Putnam goes for what he calls an idealized > consensus theory of truth, or idealized warrented assent. What the > concept of truth refers to, from this perspective, are propositions > that an ideal group of knowers WOULD consent to. It's a lot like > Habermas, from what I can tell about Habermas. And I think that there > is some connection back to Pierce (do you know, Tobin?). My view is > that the concept of ideal warrented assent might tell us something > about what we mean when we say that a proposition is JUSTIFIED, but for > a definition of truth, I stay with a minimalist version of the > correspondence theory. (And one that includes a meta-theoretical rider > saying that the concept of truth is a regulative ideal, not a norm that > can be known with certainty to have been met). My view is that the > concept of truth refers to the idea of a proposition being a statement > of what is the case, not to the idea of "that to which a specified > group of knowers would consent." (I'm happy to hold out hope that an > ideal group of knowers would consent to true propositions, even if they > couldn't know for sure that they were true, but that's not what would > make the propositions be true, if they were.) > > So don't be distressed. The concept of truth can refer to something > other than Being and also be something other than > what-ideal-knowers-would-consent-to! > > I have to run right now. > Ruth > > > --- StripMime Warning -- MIME attachments removed --- > This message may have contained attachments which were removed. > > Sorry, we do not allow attachments on this list. > > --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- > multipart/mixed > text/plain (text body -- kept) > application/ms-tnef > --- > > > --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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