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Ideas for '', 'Thinking About Logic' and 'Reason, Truth and History'

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3. Truth / E. Pragmatic Truth / 1. Pragmatic Truth
Truth is an idealisation of rational acceptability [Putnam]
     Full Idea: Truth is an idealisation of rational acceptability; we speak as if there were such things as epistemically ideal conditions, and we call a statement 'true' if it would be justified under such conditions.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.3)
     A reaction: The second part makes human beings sound stupid (which they are not), but the first part is right, and incredibly important. Peirce is behind Putnam's thought. Truth is the target of belief. It isn't a nonsense just because we can't be infallible.