[Arisbe] Truth Theory

[Jon Awbrey]

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tom,

gosh, i only wish the core of the controversy was anywhere
near that interesting, but it really had more to do with
the level of the article, like whether it was okay to
quote a greek source and mention certain abstruse
matters that 8th graders might find off-putting.
oh well, my attempt at a higher level article,
with greek & geek intact, did manage to
survive the deletion proceedings,
and that was a source of some
warm feelings, in the good
sense of the word "warm".
well, got in late, so
will read again
tomorrow.

jon

t.gollier at att.net wrote:
> 
> Jon,
> 
>     I had to smile at the controversy you're managing to generate with
> your "Truth Theory" entry for Wikipedia. It seems you must be sprucing up
> the "Peirce" entry as well judging from some recent remarks on Peirce-L.
> 
>     But as much as I enjoy the resistance you provoke, I have to admit I'm
> a bit resistant — like I was with your use of acronyms long ago — to put
> forth the effort myself to grasp what you're getting at. For one thing, it
> has got to do with a characteristic Bosanquet attributed to logic, and all
> philosophical sciences:
> 
>     "The teacher of philosophy, from Socrates downwards, has talked about
>     common things, things already familiar to his hearers. And although he
>     calls upon them to think of these things in a peculiar way, and from
>     an unaccustomed point of view, yet it is likely to be felt that he is
>     demanding a new effort, without supplying a new interest. 
"
> 
> and he goes on to nail, I think, the attitude of your antagonists at
> Wikipedia toward your efforts.
> 
>     "
 And it is a common experience, that after a time the mind rebels
>     against this artificial attitude, which fatigues without instructing,
>     if we have accustomed ourselves to understand by instruction the
>     accumulation of new sense-perceptions and the extension of historical
>     or scientific vision over a wider superficial area." [Bosanquet,
>     'The Essentials of Logic']
> 
>     Still, that doesn't explain my own reluctance, as I've put up with the
> "boredom" of philosophy and logic for some time. In my own case I think
> it's more a distaste for any theory of truth, the conviction that any
> attempt to provide a theory or criterion of truth is inherently circular,
> that before something can be true because it corresponds, coheres, or
> whatever, it must be true that it does correspond, cohere, or whatever.
> Truth is one of those "pure concepts" that can be predicated of other
> things but of which nothing can be (non-circularly) predicated, and while
> it has been the pretension of philosophy to predicate things of these
> concepts anyway, I don't think it has really been successful. Personally,
> I think "truth" can still be defined — as "true is true" — so as to
> produce conjunction, negation, and a truth-functional logic; but if that's
> not going to fly, or that's not enough to account for logical thought,
> Peirce's option displacing it to an indefinite future — where it can still
> function but where we are not able nor do we need to say anything further
> about it — is the next best thing. I would want to argue that Peirce was
> dispensing with such theories of truth himself — that it's more James'
> notion of truth the goes under the rubric of "pragmatic" with such
> theorizing — but I always have problems with what I would want Peirce to
> say and what he actually said.
> 
>     At any rate, it's good to see you're still kicking.
> 
> Tom
> 
>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: Jon Awbrey <jawbrey at att.net>
> > o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
> >
> > that reminds me, i probably ought to post the last
> > by way of exegizing the ad-verse.  check out the
> > article on "truth theory", while it lasts, as
> > it's the one i created from all the stuff
> > that the others were deleting from "truth",
> > but now the new one has been blacklisted
> > for deletion.  we'll see how it goes.
> >
> > jon
> >
> 
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