Pragmatic Truth

[Jon Awbrey]

Pragmatic Truth • 1
• http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/07/08/pragmatic-truth-1/

All,

Questions about the “pragmatic conception of truth” have broken out
in several quarters, asking in effect, “What conceptions of truth
arise most naturally from and are best suited to pragmatic ways
of thinking?” My best thoughts on that score were written out
quite a few years ago, in an article I originally wrote for
Wikipedia. I haven't dared look at what's become of it on
that site — linked below is my current fork on another wiki.

Pragmatic Theory Of Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth

It begins as follows …

❝“Pragmatic theory of truth” refers to those accounts, definitions,
and theories of the concept “truth” distinguishing the philosophies
of pragmatism and pragmaticism. The conception of truth in question
varies along lines reflecting the influence of several thinkers,
initially and notably, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and
John Dewey, but a number of common features can be identified.

❝The most characteristic features are (1) a reliance on the
“pragmatic maxim” as a means of clarifying the meanings of
difficult concepts, truth in particular, and (2) an emphasis
on the fact that the product variously branded as belief,
certainty, knowledge, or truth is the result of a process,
namely, “inquiry”.❞

Et sic deinceps …

Resources —

Logic Syllabus
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/logic-syllabus/

Pragmatic Maxim
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/08/07/pragmatic-maxim-a/

Truth Theory
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Truth_theory

Pragmatic Theory Of Truth • Document History
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth#Document_history

Correspondence Theory Of Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Correspondence_Theory_Of_Truth

Regards,

Jon

cc: https://www.academia.edu/community/5AEygK

[Jon Awbrey]

Pragmatic Truth • 2
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/07/10/pragmatic-truth-2/

Truth as the Good of Logic —

Pragmatic theories of truth enter on a stage set by the philosophies
of former ages, with special reference to the Ancient Greeks, the
Scholastics, and Immanuel Kant. Recalling a few elements of that
background can provide valuable insight into the play of ideas as
they have developed up through our time. Because pragmatic ideas
about truth are often confused with a number of quite distinct
notions it is useful say a few words about those other theories
and to highlight the points of significant contrast.

In one classical formulation, truth is defined as the good of logic,
where logic is classed as a normative science, in other words, an
inquiry into a good or value which seeks to arrive at knowledge of it
and the means to achieve it. In that view, truth cannot be discussed
to much effect outside the context of inquiry, knowledge, and logic,
all very broadly conceived.

Resources —

Logic Syllabus
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/logic-syllabus/

Pragmatic Maxim
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/08/07/pragmatic-maxim-a/

Truth Theory
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Truth_theory

Pragmatic Theory Of Truth • Document History
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth#Document_history

Correspondence Theory Of Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Correspondence_Theory_Of_Truth

Regards,

Jon

cc: https://www.academia.edu/community/lKQGB8

[Jon Awbrey]

Pragmatic Truth • 3
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/07/12/pragmatic-truth-3/

Truth Predicates —

An inquiry into the character of truth generally begins with
the idea of an informative, meaningful, or significant element,
the goodness of whose information, meaning, or significance may
be put in question and needs to be evaluated. Depending on context,
the element may be called an artefact, expression, image, impression,
lyric, mark, performance, picture, sentence, sign, string, symbol,
text, thought, token, utterance, word, work, and so on. However
that may be, one has the task of judging whether the bearers of
information, meaning, or significance are indeed truth‑bearers
or not. That judgment is typically expressed in the form of
a specific “truth predicate”, whose positive application to
a sign, or so on, asserts the truth of the sign.

Considered within the broadest horizon, there is little reason to imagine
the process of judging a work, which leads to a predication of false or
true, is necessarily amenable to formalization and that task may always
remain what is commonly called a judgment call. But there are many well-
circumscribed domains where it is useful to consider disciplined forms of
evaluation and the observation of those limits allows for the institution
of what is called a “method” of judging truth and falsity.

One of the first questions to be asked in this setting concerns the
relationship between the significant performance and its reflective
critique. If one expresses oneself in a particular fashion and someone
says “that’s true”, is there anything useful at all to be said in general
terms about the relationship between those two acts? For instance, does
the critique add value to the expression criticized, does it say something
significant in its own right, or is it but an insubstantial echo of the
original sign?

Resources —

Logic Syllabus
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/logic-syllabus/

Pragmatic Maxim
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/08/07/pragmatic-maxim-a/

Truth Theory
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Truth_theory

Pragmatic Theory Of Truth • Document History
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth#Document_history

Correspondence Theory Of Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Correspondence_Theory_Of_Truth

Regards,

Jon

cc: https://www.academia.edu/community/VDPGY4

[Jon Awbrey]

Pragmatic Truth • 4
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/07/13/pragmatic-truth-4/

Truth Theories —

Theories of truth may be described according to several dimensions
of description affecting the character of the predicate “true”.
The truth predicates used in different theories may be classified
according to the number of things which have to be taken into account
in order to evaluate the truth of a sign, counting the sign itself as
the first thing. The number of dimensions is sometimes called the
“arity” or “adicity” of the truth predicate.

• A truth predicate is “monadic” if it applies to its main subject,
typically a concrete representation or its abstract content,
independently of reference to anything else. In that case one
may think of a truth bearer as being true in and of itself.

• A truth predicate is “dyadic” if it applies to its main subject
only in reference to something else, a second subject. Most commonly,
the ancillary subject is either an “object”, an “interpreter”, or
a “language” to which the representation bears a specified relation.

• A truth predicate is “triadic” if it applies to its main subject
only in reference to a second and a third subject. For example,
in a pragmatic theory of truth one has to specify both the “object”
of the sign and either its interpreter or another sign called its
“interpretant”. In that case, one says the sign is true “of” its
object “to” its interpreting agent or sign.

There are practical considerations we need to keep in mind when
contemplating such radically simple schemes of classification.
Real‑world practice seldom presents us with pure cases and ideal
types. There are many settings where it is useful to speak of
a truth theory as “almost” k‑adic or to say it “would be” k‑adic
if certain details are abstracted away and neglected in a particular
context of discussion. That said, given the generic division of
truth predicates according to their dimensionality, further species
may be differentiated within each genus according to a number of
more refined features.

The truth predicate in a correspondence theory of truth tells of a
relation between representations and objective states of affairs and
is therefore expressed by a dyadic predicate. In general terms, one
says a representation is true of an objective situation, more briefly,
a sign is true of an object. The nature of the correspondence may vary
from theory to theory in this family. The correspondence can be fairly
arbitrary or it can take on the character of an “analogy”, an “icon”,
or a “morphism”, where a representation is rendered true of its object
by the existence of corresponding elements and a similar structure.

Resources —

Logic Syllabus
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/logic-syllabus/

Pragmatic Maxim
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/08/07/pragmatic-maxim-a/

Truth Theory
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Truth_theory

Pragmatic Theory Of Truth • Document History
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth#Document_history

Correspondence Theory Of Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Correspondence_Theory_Of_Truth

Regards,

Jon

cc: https://www.academia.edu/community/VodyB4

[Jon Awbrey]

Pragmatic Truth • 5
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/07/23/pragmatic-truth-5/

Peirce on Reality, Signs, Truth —

Very little in Peirce's thought can be understood in its proper
light without understanding he thinks all thoughts are signs,
and thus, according to his theory of thought, no thought is
understandable outside the context of a sign relation.

Sign relations taken collectively are the subject matter of
a “theory of signs”. So Peirce's “semeiotic”, his theory of
sign relations, is key to understanding his entire philosophy
of pragmatic thinking.

In his contribution to the article “Truth and Falsity and Error”
for Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology (1901),
Peirce defines truth in the following way.

❝Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the
ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend
to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract
statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its
inaccuracy and one‑sidedness, and this confession is an
essential ingredient of truth.❞ (Peirce 1901, CP 5.565).

This statement emphasizes Peirce's view that ideas of approximation,
incompleteness, and partiality, what he describes elsewhere as
“fallibilism” and “reference to the future”, are essential to
a proper conception of truth. Though Peirce occasionally uses
words like “concordance” and “correspondence” to describe one
aspect of the pragmatic sign relation, he is also quite explicit
in saying that definitions of truth based on mere correspondence
are no more than “nominal definitions”, which he follows long
tradition in relegating to a lower status than “real definitions”.

❝That truth is the correspondence of a representation with its object
is, as Kant says, merely the nominal definition of it. Truth belongs
exclusively to propositions. A proposition has a subject (or set of
subjects) and a predicate. The subject is a sign; the predicate is
a sign; and the proposition is a sign that the predicate is a sign
of that of which the subject is a sign. If it be so, it is true.
But what does this correspondence or reference of the sign, to
its object, consist in?❞ (Peirce 1906, CP 5.553).

Peirce makes a statement here which is critical to understanding
the relationship between his pragmatic definition of truth and
any theory of truth which leaves it solely and simply a matter
of representations corresponding with their objects.

Peirce, like Kant before him, recognizes Aristotle's distinction
between a “nominal definition”, a definition in name only, and a
“real definition”, one which states the function of the concept,
the “vera causa” or “reason” for conceiving it, and so indicates
the essence, the underlying substance of its object. This tells
us the sense in which Peirce entertained a correspondence theory
of truth, namely, a purely nominal sense. To get beneath the
superficiality of the nominal definition it is necessary to
analyze the notion of correspondence in greater depth.

In preparing for this task, Peirce makes use of an allegorical story,
omitted here, the moral of which tells us there is no use seeking
a conception of truth which we cannot conceive ourselves being able
to capture in a humanly conceivable concept. So we might as well
proceed on the assumption that we have a real hope of comprehending
the answer, of being able to “handle the truth” when the time comes.
Bearing that in mind, the problem of defining truth reduces to the
following form.

❝Now thought is of the nature of a sign. In that case, then, if
we can find out the right method of thinking and can follow it out —
the right method of transforming signs — then truth can be nothing
more nor less than the last result to which the following out of
this method would ultimately carry us. In that case, that to which
the representation should conform, is itself something in the nature
of a representation, or sign — something noumenal, intelligible,
conceivable, and utterly unlike a thing‑in‑itself.❞ (Peirce 1906,
CP 5.553).

Resources —

Logic Syllabus
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/logic-syllabus/

Pragmatic Maxim
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/08/07/pragmatic-maxim-a/

Truth Theory
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Truth_theory

Pragmatic Theory Of Truth • Document History
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth#Document_history

Correspondence Theory Of Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Correspondence_Theory_Of_Truth

Regards,

Jon

cc: https://www.academia.edu/community/laAjEW

[Jon Awbrey]

Pragmatic Truth • 6
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/07/25/pragmatic-truth-6/

Peirce on Semiosis and Inquiry —

Peirce's theory of truth depends on two other, intimately related
subject matters, his theory of “sign relations” and his theory of
“inquiry”. Inquiry is special case of “semiosis”, a process passing
from signs to signs while maintaining a specific relation to an object.
That object may be located outside the trajectory of signs or else be
found at the end of it. Inquiry includes all forms of belief revision
and logical inference, including “scientific method”, which is what
Peirce means by “the right method of transforming signs”.

A sign‑to‑sign transaction with respect to an object is a transaction
involving three parties, or a relation involving three roles. A relation
of that sort is called a “ternary relation” or a “triadic relation” in logic.
Consequently, pragmatic theories of truth are largely expressed in terms of
triadic truth predicates.

Peirce's statement at the end of the previous post tells us one more thing:
Peirce, having started out in accord with Kant, is here giving notice he is
parting ways with Kant's idea that the ultimate object of a representation
is an unknowable “thing‑in‑itself”. Peirce would say the object is knowable,
in fact, it is known in the form of its representation, however imperfectly
or partially.

“Reality” and “truth” are coordinate concepts in pragmatic thinking, each
being defined in relation to the other, and both together as they co‑evolve
in the time evolution of inquiry. Inquiry is not a disembodied process, nor
the occupation of a singular individual, but the common life of an unbounded
community.

❝The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning
would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries
of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows
that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without
definite limits, and capable of an indefinite increase of knowledge.❞
(Peirce 1868, CP 5.311).

❝Different minds may set out with the most antagonistic views, but the
progress of investigation carries them by a force outside of themselves
to one and the same conclusion. This activity of thought by which we are
carried, not where we wish, but to a foreordained goal, is like the operation
of destiny. No modification of the point of view taken, no selection of other
facts for study, no natural bent of mind even, can enable a man to escape the
predestinate opinion. This great law is embodied in the conception of truth
and reality. The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all
who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented
in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality.❞
(Peirce 1878, CP 5.407).

Resources —

Logic Syllabus
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/logic-syllabus/

Pragmatic Maxim
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/08/07/pragmatic-maxim-a/

Truth Theory
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Truth_theory

Pragmatic Theory Of Truth • Document History
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Pragmatic_Theory_Of_Truth#Document_history

Correspondence Theory Of Truth
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Correspondence_Theory_Of_Truth

Regards,

Jon

cc: https://www.academia.edu/community/Vj810j