Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', '04: Gospel of St John' and 'Why Reason Can't be Naturalized'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 2. Defining Truth
Jesus said he bore witness to the truth. Pilate asked, What is truth? [John]
     Full Idea: Jesus: I came into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?
     From: St John (04: Gospel of St John [c.95], 18:37-8)
     A reaction: There is very little explicit discussion of truth in philosophy before this exchange (apart from Ideas 251 and 586), and there isn't any real debate prior to Russell and the pragmatists. What was Pilate's tone? Did he spit at the end of his question?
3. Truth / E. Pragmatic Truth / 1. Pragmatic Truth
Truth is rational acceptability [Putnam]
     Full Idea: Truth, in the only sense in which we have a vital and working notion of it, is rational acceptability.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Why Reason Can't be Naturalized [1981])
     A reaction: I smell a circularity somewhere in there, probably in 'rational', though it could be in 'acceptable'. Putnams's views on truth tend to shift a lot. He denies that evolutionary survival is a criterion.