What is Truth? Classical Theories of Truth (Huw Price)

[@spitfirerulz]

I greatly appreciated this talk! One suggestion is to be explicit that the lecture is about Classical WESTERN Theories of Truth. Because the speaker limits their lecture to Europeans and Americans. If speaking on behalf of all humanity, I would insist on citing not William James for pragmatism but centuries of Buddhist philosophers from millennia prior.

[@spitfirerulz]

@@Karamazov9 with respect, I see no reason to agree with that statement. Every civilization has its classical period: Indian, Chinese etc. Assuming that "we" by default means a Westerner in 2023 is not cool.

[@kehindeonakunle7404]

Great elucidation and presentation

[@Brewmaster757]

More Price!

[@rudivandereep310]

In using words alone one can create a truth corresponding to the words laid out in a sequence on paper ...but real truth can only be experienced by the presence of mind of the fact as it happens yet two different people shall have a different perception of the fact of truth at that same moment due to proximity and angle of view and experience of the fact .

[@B_Estes_Undegöetz]

An answer to your question posed at 7:55 in the video is Paul K. Feyerabend. He famously said that in the context of history and philosophy of science, epistemology truly does, and also must, adopt the credo “anything goes”. One lesser known philosopher who wrote about epistemology in the context of philosophy of science was Paul K. Feyerabend. In his most famous book, “Against Method”, Feyerabend adopted what he called “epistemological anarchism”. Feyerabend claimed, against Popper, Lakatos, and Kuhn that there is no “scientific method” (not an inductive one, nor one that employs falsification) nor are there “paradigms”, nor are there “scientific research programs”. He claimed that science is radically anarchic in the beliefs that are permitted to be considered in the debates over scientific knowledge, and that science must be so if it’s to change as radically as it often both seems to change, and needs to change. Feyerabend therefore claimed his “epistemological anarchism” was both descriptive of the history of science and prescriptive for any vigorous science that wants to properly be so-called. Feyerabend very famously is associated with the epistemological principle of “anything goes”.

[@Khuno2]

Dewey wasn't on Team Relativist (Peirce clearly wasn't a relativist). "It is therefore in submitting conceptions to the control of experience, in the process of verifying them, that one finds examples of what is called truth. Therefore, any philosopher who applies this empirical method without the least prejudice in favor of pragmatic doctrine, can be lead to believe that truth 'means' verification, or if one prefers, that verification, either actual or possible, is the definition of truth." --"Philosophy and Civilization" I don't think that James was, either.

[@ericb9804]

Yes, but "relativism" is, as Rorty has said, just what people call pragmatism who don't like it. So saying that pragmatists aren't relativists is just a fancy way of saying that pragmatism (or relativism, for that matter) isn't bad. Which is the whole point of what you just watched.

[@elielerman1432]

​@@ericb9804relativist isn't connected to senses. Pragmatist is connected to senses. And what senses gives is what is truth for pragmatist.

[@ericb9804]

@@elielerman1432 The pragmatists I have read use the word "experience," as opposed to "sense." Their point is that we "believe" whatever it is that we do because we deem those beliefs "justified" by way of our experience. And yet, there is no sense in which we can demonstrate this experience is "objective," which isn't a problem, according to pragmatists. But those who insist the lack of "objectivity" is a problem accuse pragmatists of being "relativists."

[@DarrenBrierton]

Nice to see Huw uses LaTeX!

[@richardt.buryan832]

READ LONERGAN. START WITH HIS 1968 LECTURE TITLED "THE SUBJECT."

[@henriquecardoso45]

I guess you're a little obsessed with the Problem of the Criterion lately. I love it, so keep it up!

[@adminluca]

Why some of the criticisms of coherence theory and pragmatism seems to presuppose the corrispondentist theory of truth?

[@matepenava5888]

How cam somebody make an introductory lecture about truth and not say a single word about deflationism. And Peirce did not further develop James' ideas, he had a whole different perspective on truth, truth is that upon which we arrive at the end of rational enquiry accordong to him. Although there were some good points in the video, such blunders are almost inexcusable.

[@Robinson8491]

"When anything goes, nothing stays"...you mean "if you dont stand for nothing, you stand for anything" by the great Rage Against the Machine? :D

[@thomaskilroy3199]

Don’t we use both correspondence and coherence together as criterion under the notion of ‘consistence’? We assume a consistent, coherent physics, which is the basis for our taking correspondent results in experiments as getting us to some truth. If physics were inconsistent, then no experimental result would stand in perpetuity, and so correspondence between predictions and results i.e. beliefs and observations, would not matter but momentarily. This would be the Pragmatist’s half of the equation. But in consisting we also take truth to be coherent else it wouldn’t consist, since it would contain some sort of logical friction between its components. Consistency is the essence of truth, and this can explain both why we don’t have free access to it, but why we do have laborious access to it: we do not a priori consist anymore than we are physically evolved to, to survive our context. But in seeking more universal rules we expand the list of contexts we can understand and thus navigate, at first theoretically but ultimately physically. This is not requiring any specific theory of evolution you understand. We need merely admit ourselves contingent to physics and we can deduce ourselves to be shaped by it in a temporal way. Criterion in this picture are momentarily pragmatic, since we must survive, but asymptotically approaching absolutes, since final truths will unlock ‘transcendent’ functions, functions that consist with all contexts. Sounds pretty absolute to me, just not yet. It also leaves room for us to correspond in a biased manner to only certain familiar or imagined contexts, this explaining how being a subjectivist is possible, but I think rightly implying it inferior in what lower-case ‘truth’ it grasps.

[@ericb9804]

"We assume a consistent, coherent physics,..." - no we don't. We demonstrate a consistent and coherent physics by way of careful experiments. We directly experience "consistency" in what we call physics. "...which is the basis for our taking correspondent results in experiments as getting us to some truth." - yes, but this is the assumption part. Just because our "physics" is "consistent" doesn't make a notion of "correspondence" coherent. We don't directly experience "correspondence," we just declare it. Imagine assuming that we don't "correspond to reality." Would anything change about what we do and why? No. And that's how you know correspondence doesn't matter and basing "truth" on it is a philosophical pseudo-problem.

[@andrewblair7264]

This is a very insightful comment. Is there somewhere where I could find a further development of it?

[@thomaskilroy3199]

@Eric B doesn’t that standard of ‘observing consistency’ always leave us with the problem of induction though? It’s perfectly true to say we have a back-catalogue of consistent results, but we still always assume it will be representative of continuing results.

[@thomaskilroy3199]

@Andrew Blair just my own thought, it’s not developed! Just what seems the case to me.

[@ericb9804]

@@thomaskilroy3199 No, because the "problem of induction" is precisely us wringing our hands about our lack of demonstrable "correspondence" to reality; i.e. if we had "correspondence" we wouldn't need "induction." We have found the act of induction useful and this utility is what justifies its continued use. It doesn't need to be "true" in any sense beyond that, and insisting it does is merely to assume the epistemological metaphysics that pragmatism is encouraging us to abandon. "asymptotically approaching absolutes...that consist with all contexts." is just kicking the epistemological can down the road. It is to acknowledge that we have no "correspondence," but then says, "meh...lets just pretend we do anyway cuz it makes us feel better."

[@defenderofwisdom]

Not huw price - what price?

[@pavlekostic4533]

Meta-ethical lessons are boring, aren't they?