15 ideas
6782 | Realism is the only philosophy of science that doesn't make the success of science a miracle [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Realism….is the only philosophy science which does not make the success of science a miracle. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (works [1980]), quoted by Alexander Bird - Philosophy of Science Ch.4 | |
A reaction: This was from his earlier work; he became more pragmatist and anti-realist later. Personally I approve of the remark. The philosophy of science must certainly offer an explanation for its success. Truth seems the obvious explanation. |
19100 | Truth makes disagreements matter, or worth settling [Misak] |
Full Idea: The role of truth is to make disagreements matter, or to make sense of wanting to resolve disagreements. | |
From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 2) | |
A reaction: [She cites Huw Price 2003] This suggests that the most important use of 'truth' is forensic. It is hard to make any sense of a law court without a robust sense of truth. Trial by jury, rather than some great personage, shows this value. |
19094 | For pragmatists the loftiest idea of truth is just a feature of what remains forever assertible [Misak] |
Full Idea: For pragmatists there is an unseverable connection between making an assertion and claiming that it is true. ...Were we to get to a belief that is forever assertible...then we would have a true belief. There is nothing higher or better we could ask of it. | |
From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 1) | |
A reaction: She is particularly drawing on Peirce. She says his 'ideal end of enquiry' idea is a small aspect of his view of truth, which is mainly given here. I had taken the pragmatic view of truth to be silly, but I may rethink. |
19099 | 'True' is used for emphasis, clarity, assertion, comparison, objectivity, meaning, negation, consequence... [Misak] |
Full Idea: 'P is true' is used to emphasise p, and avoid logic problems. The pragmatists says there are plenty of other uses: the aim of assertion or deliberation, the improvement of our views, distinguishing objectivity, explaining meaning, negation, consequence... | |
From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 2) | |
A reaction: Pragmatism seems to break 'true' down into its many uses, rather than having a specific theory of truth. This might be where ordinary language philosophy (how is the word 'true' used) meets pragmatism (how is the concept [true] used). |
19103 | 'That's true' doesn't just refer back to a sentence, but implies sustained evidence for it [Misak] |
Full Idea: The pragmatist says 'That's so' or 'that's true' are not just 'pro-sentential', but carry with them the thought that evidence does currently speak in favour of the statement asserted, and the prediction that it will continue to speak in favour. | |
From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 3) | |
A reaction: This is a very nice point made by a pragmatist against the flimsy view of truth held by various deflationary views. You ought to believe what is true, and stand by what you hold to be true. |
19105 | Truth isn't a grand elusive property, if it is just the aim of our assertions and inquiries [Misak] |
Full Idea: If truth is what satisfies our aims in first-order assertion and inquiry (as the pragmatist says), then there is no search for an elusive property, or a metaphysical property, or a property which we cannot grasp. | |
From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 3) | |
A reaction: This pragmatic approach is much more persuasive than the usual caricature of pragmatic truth (Idea 19097), but I'm beginning to wonder how you distinguish an 'inquiry' (or 'assertion') from other modes of thought. Do I smell a circularity? |
19108 | Truth is proper assertion, but that has varying standards [Misak] |
Full Idea: The pragmatist will say that truth is proper assertion, but different discourses have different standards for proper assertion. | |
From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 4) | |
A reaction: This remark shows that there is a pragmatic attitude towards truth behind most attempts to analyse the concept of assertion. When and why is assertion legitimate, and what motivates it? |
19101 | Disquotation is bivalent [Misak] |
Full Idea: The disquotational schema entails bivalence. | |
From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 2 n10) | |
A reaction: A simple but interesting observation. Critics of Tarski observe that he depends on a bivalent logic. |
19106 | Disquotations says truth is assertion, and assertion proclaims truth - but what is 'assertion'? [Misak] |
Full Idea: The point of the disquotational schema is that to say that a sentence is true is to assert it, and to assert a sentence is to say that it is true. We must then ask what it is to assert or endorse a proposition. | |
From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 4) | |
A reaction: [She is referring to the views of Crispin Wright] Most people would say that we assert something because we think it is true, and truth is obviously prior. Clearly if it has been asserted, that was because someone thought it was true. |
19096 | Disquotationalism resembles a telephone directory [Misak] |
Full Idea: Disquotationalism is more like a telephone directory than a theory. | |
From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 2 n7) | |
A reaction: [She cites Wilfred Sellars 1962:33] The idea is that there is a schema - 'p' is true iff p - and that all the acceptable sentences of a language can be expressed in this way, making a vast but finite list. It seems to replace 'theories'. |
19098 | Deflating the correspondence theory doesn't entail deflating all the other theories [Misak] |
Full Idea: We must not move seamlessly from the thought that the correspondence theory must be deflated to the thought that any theory of truth must be deflated. | |
From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 2) | |
A reaction: This rather good essay offers the idea that Peircean pragmatic approaches to truth can meet the deflationary desires of the opponents of correspondence, without jettisoning all the crucial naturalistic connections with reality. Interesting. |
19104 | Deflationism isn't a theory of truth, but an account of its role in natural language [Misak] |
Full Idea: Deflationist theories are not theories of truth, or theories of what truth is. ...They are theories which try to explain the role that 'true' plays in natural languages. | |
From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 3) | |
A reaction: [She cites Dorothy Grover 2001,2002] If so, then the modern axiomatic theory of truth sounds appealing, because it tries to give a fuller and more precise account than a mere list is disquotations could possibly give. |
22181 | Putnam says anti-realism is a bad explanation of accurate predictions [Putnam, by Okasha] |
Full Idea: Putnam's 'no miracle' argument says that being an anti-realist is akin to believing in miracles (because of the accurate predictons). …It is a plausibility argument - an inference to the best explanation. | |
From: report of Hilary Putnam (works [1980]) by Samir Okasha - Philosophy of Science: Very Short Intro (2nd ed) 4 | |
A reaction: [not sure of ref] Putnam later backs off from this argument, but my personal realism rests on best explanation. Does anyone want to prefer an inferior explanation? The objection is that successful theories can turn out to be false. Phlogiston, ether. |
19109 | The anti-realism debate concerns whether indefeasibility is a plausible aim of inquiry [Misak] |
Full Idea: If indefeasibility turns out to be something we can't sensibly aim at in a kind of inquiry, then the judgements that arise from that kind of 'inquiry' are not truth-apt. It is here that the realism/anti-realism debate resides. | |
From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 4) | |
A reaction: A very interesting way of presenting the issue, one that makes the debate sound (to me) considerably more interesting than hitherto. I may start using the word 'indefeasible' rather a lot, in my chats with the anti-realist philosophical multitude. |
17897 | Analytic explanation is wholes in terms of parts; synthetic is parts in terms of wholes or contexts [Belnap] |
Full Idea: Throughout the whole texture of philosophy we distinguish two modes of explanation: the analytic mode, which tends to explain wholes in terms of parts, and the synthetic mode, which explains parts in terms of the wholes or contexts in which they occur. | |
From: Nuel D. Belnap (Tonk, Plonk and Plink [1962], p.132) | |
A reaction: The analytic would be bottom-up, and the synthetic would be top-down. I'm inclined to combine them, and say explanation begins with a model, which can then be sliced in either direction, though the bottom looks more interesting. |