Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Reasoning and the Logic of Things' and 'True Believers'

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4 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 6. Verisimilitude
The one unpardonable offence in reasoning is to block the route to further truth [Peirce]
     Full Idea: To set up a philosophy which barricades the road of further advance toward the truth is the one unpardonable offence in reasoning.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], IV)
     A reaction: This is Popper's rather dubious objection to essentialism in science. Yet Popper tried to do the same thing with his account of induction.
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 9. Rejecting Truth
Derrida says that all truth-talk is merely metaphor [Derrida, by Engel]
     Full Idea: Derrida's view is that every discourse is metaphorical, and there is no difference between truth-talk and metaphor.
     From: report of Jacques Derrida (works [1990]) by Pascal Engel - Truth §2.5
     A reaction: Right. Note that this is a Frenchman's summary. How would one define metaphor, without mentioning that it is parasitic on truth? Certainly some language tries to be metaphor, and other language tries not to be.
True thoughts are inaccessible, in the subconscious, prior to speech or writing [Derrida]
     Full Idea: 'True' thoughts are inaccessible, buried in the subconscious, long before they get to speech or writing.
     From: Jacques Derrida (works [1990]), quoted by Barry Stocker - Derrida on Deconstruction
     A reaction: [My reading of some Derrida produced no quotations. I've read two commentaries, which were obscure. The Derrida ideas in this db are my simplistic tertiary summaries. Experts can chuckle over my failure]
3. Truth / E. Pragmatic Truth / 1. Pragmatic Truth
'Holding for true' is either practical commitment, or provisional theory [Peirce]
     Full Idea: Whether or not 'truth' has two meanings, I think 'holding for true' has two kinds. One is practical holding for true which alone is entitled to the name of Belief; the other is the acceptance of a proposition, which in pure science is always provisional.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], IV)
     A reaction: The problem here seems to be that we can act on a proposition without wholly believing it, like walking across thin ice.