Combining Philosophers

Ideas for H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim, Robert Nozick and Carrie Jenkins

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3 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 3. Value of Truth
I do not care if my trivial beliefs are false, and I have no interest in many truths [Nozick]
     Full Idea: I find that I do not mind at all the thought that I have some false beliefs (of US state capitals), and there are many truths I do not care to know at all (total grains of sand on the beach).
     From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.67)
     A reaction: A useful corrective to anyone who blindly asserts that truth is the supreme human value. I would still be annoyed if someone taught me lies about these two types of truth.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 2. Correspondence to Facts
Instead of correspondence of proposition to fact, look at correspondence of its parts [Jenkins]
     Full Idea: Instead of considering only a proposition's 'correspondence to the facts', we should also consider the correspondence between parts of the proposition and parts of the world (a 'correspondence-as-congruence' view).
     From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Final - Branching)
     A reaction: This is something like Russell's Othello example (1912), except that the parts there, with relations seemed to add up to the whole proposition. For Jenkins, presumably parts might correspond, but the whole proposition fail to.
3. Truth / E. Pragmatic Truth / 1. Pragmatic Truth
Maybe James was depicting the value of truth, and not its nature [Nozick]
     Full Idea: We might see William James's pragmatic view that truth is what works as depicting the value of truth, and not its nature.
     From: Robert Nozick (The Nature of Rationality [1993], p.68)
     A reaction: James didn't think that he was doing this. He firmly says that this IS truth, not just the advantages of truth. Another view is that pragmatists are giving a test for truth.