Discussing Pragmatism with

[@jeffbarney3584]

4:30 At the level of metaphysics pragmatism breaks down because it has already purchased and seeks to rationalize a falsely truncated ontology and so artificially dogmatizes an epistemology that dogmatically adheres to a false limit to knowledge based on an unholy marriage of Hume and Kant.

[@entertainingideas]

Agreed!

[@ericb9804]

no. To understand pragmatism is to understand that speculating about "the level of metaphysics" doesn't change what we actually do, so it has no demonstrable "utility." With regards to what we think about our use of language, we can either be "metaphysicians," and insist that "truth" is something words have due to their relation to the non-human (i.e. "reality"), or we can be pragmatist and think that words are only given "truth" by other words spoken by other humans.

[@jeffbarney3584]

@@ericb9804 Words? What is the nature of knowledge to you? I agree that speculating about metaphysics is fruitless and even destructive.

[@ericb9804]

@@jeffbarney3584 yes, "words," as in language, sentences, propositions, symbols, etc. Regardless of "the nature of knowledge," we express ourselves via language; we can't really analyze "knowledge itself," but we can analyze language and how we use it. This realization is called "The Linguistic Turn" in late 20th century analytic philosophy. Are we on the same page? If so, that page reads that, following this turn, pragmatism is "anti-representionalist" in the sense that we can't show that language "represents" or "refers to" or "corresponds to" anything "outside" of language, namely "reality." To declare that language DOES or MUST "correspond to reality" goes by the name of "the correspondence theory of truth" and from it we get the notion of "objectivity." This is a metaphysical declaration in the sense that it makes ontological claims - i.e. it purports to reveal how "reality really works" and is the cornerstone of traditional epistemology. Pragmatists agree that "speculating about metaphysics is fruitless and even destructive," but understand those metaphysical claims include much, if not all, of traditional epistemology. As such, pragmatism advocates for the replacement of traditional vocabulary of "correspondence" and "objectivity" with vocabulary about "justification" and "utility." This replacement is preferable because it emphasizes that "knowledge" and "truth," if they are to be identified at all, are are a function of the relationships between people as they use words with each other, but NOT a function of the relationship between words and reality - at least not without making unjustified metaphysical claims.

[@ericb9804]

Neither of you understand pragmatism. Its not about "consciousness" or "an observer" or "solipsism." The point is that we conclude there is an explosion when we split atoms because we think that conclusion justified given our experience of explosions. We also assume that such an explosion would occur even if there is no humans to experience it. And yet, we make that assumption precisely because we think it justified by way of our experience. Yes, of course we realize we can't somehow "actually experience the lack of experience," but so what? - That doesn't change what we think it justified to conclude given the experience we DO have. You are not engaging in a "thought experiment," you are just engaging in silly navel-gazing.

[@entertainingideas]

What the thought experiment shows is the limits of pragmatism. The pragmatist postion doesn’t allow you to say that there is energy hidden inside an atom, if making that discovery kills everyone on the planet.

[@ericb9804]

@@entertainingideas no, you are confusing the colloquial usage of the term "pragmatic" with the philosophical use of the term "pragmatism" as a critique of traditional epistemology because you don't understand how the term "useful" is used in the latter context. the pragmatist would say that the extent to which we think there is "energy hidden inside and atom" depends on our experience of that "energy," i.e. the evidence we think we have that supports such a conclusion. This much is hardly controversial. But the pragmatist would point out that we don't need to insist that our conclusion is "objective," meaning, the statement "energy is hidden in the atom doesn't need to "correspond to reality." Because whether it does or doesn't is beyond our ability to know - all we know is what we are convinced of given the experience we have. And yet we are none-the-worse for that. But if we abandon "objectivity" as a concept, then how are we to describe the statements that we find "true?" We can describe them as "useful." So when we say "there is energy hidden inside an atom" is "true," what we mean is that we find this statement an adequate description of our experience, and when we employ that statement in pursuit of other goals, such as building bombs, we are successful. But as a philosophical position, pragmatism has nothing to say about whether or not building a bomb is a good idea or a worthy goal. Pragmatism is about replacing the vocabulary of traditional epistemology with a vocabulary that de-emphasizes metaphysics, most notably "objectivity." The reason we want to undertake this replacement is because in doing so, we realize that our goal of "Truth" is unobtainable, and thus not worth pursuing, and yet, we can replace it with "solidarity" and still have everything that we need to keep doing what we are already doing. With all due respect, and I mean that, your critique of what you call "pragmatism" is naive. But that is not uncommon - pragmatism does suffer from the fact that it is easy for those unfamiliar with the actual literature to be confused by the way that common terms are used in ways similar enough to colloquial usage to justify their continued use, but dissimilar enough to be confusing to the layman.