The Rorty Discussion with Donald Davidson - Part 2 of 6

[HornyJoeBaloney]

Is it true his middle name is Dork?

[soultorment27]

Why isn't truth a value? Is it not better to have true beliefs rather than false beliefs? I'm not so this relates to any of the Platonic overtones of the notion of truth...

[Krelianx]

I don't understand why we couldn't explain recursive propositional structures not in terms of conceptual acquisition and use, but in terms of natural-causal mechanisms. We wouldn't say a man has a concept of disjunction just because he acts according to the concept; lest we think there is a concept for every potential individuating description of our behavior. We don't need to have concepts to react adequately to concepts. Flies have no concepts but so have recursive behavioral structures.

[polymath7]

Two parts in, and neither has said a thing.

Not a single goddamn thing.

Nothing.

Not that I was expecting them to, of course.

This harlequin Rorty is absolutely nothing but a verbal juggler, and few people can more sorely can more sorely tempt one to concur with Stephen Hawking's claim that philosophy is dead. 

Ah, but I might this discussion more substantive if I knew a knew a great deal *less* philosophical jargon.

[zappafile123]

@polymath7 wow you think philosophy is dead? how po mo of you! come on man, they are arguing about something that is pretty important. moreover its interesting to see such radically different approaches.

just because the socio-cultural impacts of philosophy dont hit you in the face like the forefront of science and technology do, does not mean that it isnt a highly significant endeavor. to discount philosophy is tantamount to dismissing the worth of a vital part of western culture altogether.

[zetterberg]

@polymath7 No. Grapling with trying to define the undefinable can be a difficult task. This is Rorty's world view regarding Truth with a captial T. And he does an excellent job of describing why it is in fact a philosophical problem. No doubt he has an outstanding grasp of the English language. But he has admitted historically that he worries some philosophical problems seem to be untenable as opponents can simply 're-define the intellectual landscape'. Thats is why he abandons "T"

[vladaro]

LIAR!!! YOU ARE A RELATIVIST YOU SON OF A B@#$!!!!

[nibus9]

An ANSWER is always governed by a QUESTION..

[cmeast]

Thank you for the reply, seeing the evolution of the ideas on truth in such a clear way is very helpful.

While I can see Rorty's point, I can't help but feel that there is some level of correspondence between reality and truth. So perhaps we can never understand the world in full, but that doesn't change the fact that as we find new and more accurate ways to describe it we get closer and closer to a 'true' idea of reality.

Of course, we casually use the word true when judging the...

[cmeast]

...the qualitive value of ideas and objects when actually we're simply making an emotional statement but then plenty of words have more than one meaning. We use the word true like this because we want these things to be 'real', that our view is the correct view, but of course there is no magical 'Truth' (capital T) that can be attached to an idea or object just because we like it.

Does this make sense?

[riversonthemoon]

It does make sense, and there are many philosophers who take the realist position. The best argument I've heard for it is Hilary Putnam's 'No miracles' argument which uses inference to the best explanation for the success of scientific theories. Why should some model or other 'work' if it isn't in some way corresponding to. or approximating, reality? He sees the best explanation is that is actually does, because if it doesn't then success can only be due to dumb luck or a miracle.

[riversonthemoon]

You might be interested in a paper that does a rather good job of defending scientific realism, by an Australian philosopher named Howard Sankey, named 'Scientific Realism: An elaboration and a defence'. He has some other papers on this topic that you also might find useful. Just type it into a google search.

[riversonthemoon]

"...but of course there is no magical 'Truth' (capital T)"

Yes. We create the standards for truth, and we adjust those standards if they don't work, i.e serve our purposes. In the case of science, our purpose is largely accurate prediction of phenomena, but also satisfactory explanations of them. So in a sense, it is because we like it. We like to see our goals reached, and we like t have more control over reality, and so our standards of truth have been honed for those purposes.

[cmeast]

Excuse me if I misunderstand, I'm an armchair philosopher at best and this is the first time I've seen Rorty (thanks!). As far as I can tell, they're deconstructing the idea of truth and saying there is a gap between how we conceive of the reality, how we describe the reality, and what reality actually is. Which makes sense, that disconnect will always be there, we're limited by our senses, by our brains and by language. Davidson then said that the practical definition of truth is simply...

[cmeast]

... simply whatever fits the evidence and is agreed by others. This makes sense too. I can't help but think that if you apply the new definition of truth to the concept of truth, you end up with the original definition i.e. something that is true is accurate and conforms to reality. I think we have to be aware of the disconnect but then dismiss it entirely as it's not useful. 'Truth' is a valuable tool for understanding. Make sense?

[riversonthemoon]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I, too, am just an armchair philosopher and I'm sure what I'm about to say will be criticized and corrected by someone more knowledgeable, which is something that I welcome.

Rorty's conception of truth involves a rejection of the Greek notion that one needs to define truth (or goodness) in some essential way, something that has perplexed philosophers for millennia. Descartes suggested ideas as representations of the world,...

[riversonthemoon]

...which Locke limited by senses, Kant introduced conceptual schemes, shown to be culturally contingent by Hegel, then the positivists put representations into language, shown to be problematic by Quine. Rorty wonders why we should trouble ourselves with notions of a medium of representation between us and the world, as though the world is something 'out there' that these media to faithfully copy. He sees a causal relationship between world and sentences we judge to be true, rather than one of..

[riversonthemoon]

...correspondence. Sentences are true if they work and help you navigate the world, as language is a part of the world. Truth is a property of sentences and a normative concept - what's good in the way of belief (as James said). This frees us somewhat to allow concepts like 'objectivity' and 'rationality' to evolve. You're right that we should dismiss the disconnect, as there's no way to compare what we know of the world and 'The World' independent of our ways of navigating and describing it.

[shiningwhiffle]

@cmeast Davidson doesn't reject correspondence *per se*. He says in a number of essays that his issue with the correspondence theory of truth is that it doesn't explain anything because it can't be explained itself, so he prefers to think of statements as simply true or simply false — without defining truth.