John Dewey (1859-1952)

John Dewey (1859-1952) Truth and Consequences (1911) Second part of a three-part paper entitled “The Problem of Truth”

Theories of Truth • Correspondence Theory of Truth • Coherence Theory of Truth • Pragmatic Theory of Truth

Propositions or Judgments Objective States of Affairs Subjective Internal Ideas Relations of ideas External Matters of Fact Value Judgments Aesthetic Ethical

Proposition or Judgments 1. Objective 1.1 State of affairs (events) 1.2 Matters of Fact 1.3 Ideas/Definitions 1.4 Relations of Ideas 2. Subjective 2.1 Internal 2.2 External 3. Value Judgments

Coherence • A proposition is true if it is consistent with one’s set of beliefs. • A proposition is true if and only if it supports well the beliefs one already has AND the beliefs one already has support well the proposition. • Truth as coherence can be viewed as a jigsaw puzzle. All true propositions make up the total of the puzzle.

Objections • Dreams • Delusions • Consistency is not sufficient. • Consistency increases the chances of something being true but it is not truth itself and it cannot guarantee truth.

Correspondence • A proposition is true if it states things as they really are. • But how do we know how things are “really”. • We have transferred our definition of truth to reality. • We can now ask what is Reality?

Objection Ad infinitum 3rd Medium Proposition or Something else Reality Proposition Reality

Correspondence as Coherence • To say that an idea is true if and only if it corresponds to its object is like saying that a map is true if and only if it corresponds (represents properly) to the location of which it is a map of. • Notice, however, that the fact that makes it true lies in the past (it’s antecedent); that is, it has done so in the past. • Idealists or coherentists reply that what makes something true in this situation is an increase in coherence; that is, it coheres well with my beliefs about maps and their purposes.

Pragmatic Conception of Truth • Step1: What is to be a proposition or statement? • Step2: Truth is determined by future consequences and not simply antecedent conditions. • Step3: How the proposition performs its task? (Instrumentalism)

1st Step: Proposition as a hypothesis • A proposition is a hypothesis and NOT “a statement that by its own nature implies an assertion of its own truth.” • We can also include here judgments and representation. • For instance, a compass is good (or true) if it’s needle represents the direction of N,S,E,W correctly. • A signature is good if it accurately represents the person.

Proposition as Hypothesis • Scientific • Truth exists as part of testing the claim. • If it works it solves the problem (i.e., gets us to where we want to go), then it is true. • All statements are treated as provisional.

Proposition as Hypothesis • Frames statements indicating the procedures for testing it. (e.g., Is the compass’s claims true?) • Even assured propositions are the summaries of past hypothesis, and therefore always subject to revision.

2nd Step - Future • For realist (correspondence theory of truth) and idealist (coherence theory of truth) alike truth (or falsity) is a property which exists ready made in the intellectual assertion. • For Pragmatists, since a proposition is a hypothesis, its truth lies in future inquiry, its truth is a matter of its career, or its history: • “that it becomes or is made true (or false) in process of fulfilling or frustrating in use its own proposal.”

1st step -> 2nd step • The first step necessarily leads to the second step. • The meaning of any proposition is not exhausted by reference to what is PAST.

1st step -> 2nd step • A proposition is true or false in a given context where it plays a role in whether the consequences are achieved (i.e., it is a means it an end). • “When a question of further use, of reference to future consequences enters in, we are inevitably concerned with the fitness, the adaptability, [agreement] of the thing for the use intended” (p. 349)

Truth as Use • The truth or falsity of a proposition has to do with its success or failure in performing its mission . • The good (true) watch is the one that tells time well. • The piece of paper is good (true) money if it can be used to exchange goods with it, that is, if it works at the retail store. • “tried and true”

3rd Step: • How a proposition works in a pragmatic conception of truth? • Consider the example of the compass on a ship’s mission. • The compass is good and true if it does what it’s suppose to do in getting the ship to where it is destined to go. • The compass is constructed from PAST experiences but its TRUTH lies in the FUTURE.

Truth and Consequences • The compass has an office, a mission, a specific function, a purpose, and the consequences determine how well it accomplishes this purpose.

The Compass Example (pp.349-350) Intellectual Deposits True or False? Yes True No False Past Experiences Did it Work? Consequences? The Compass

Pragmatic Theory-Correspondence • A pragmatic theory of truth entails correspondence. • The compass has a responsibility. • The compass is an instrument; it is a means to an end and therefore has a responsibility in achieving established purpose. • To do this the compass must correspond appropriately to the antecedent and future conditions.

Pragmatic Theory and Correspondence • “In short, our definition of truth through reference to consequences, uses correspondence as a mark of a meaning or proposition in exactly the same sense in which it is used everywhere else; in the sense in which two friends correspond, that is, interact as checks, as stimuli, as mutual aids and mutual correctors, or as the parts of a machine correspond.” (353)

Truth and Consequences • “…to be truth means to have been verified by use under test conditions.”

Truth and Reality • “Truths present things as they really are” • “Namely. That way of presenting things which is actually , not merely potentially, effective in securing the consequences with reference to which the things are causes. For purposes of knowledge knowledge, things ‘as they really are’ are things as they-are-in-the-securing-of-projected-ends.”

Pragmatic Theory and Coherence • First, truth as consequences requires that the there be logical consistency in whatever turns out to be true. • The tool, that which works, cannot be contradictory. • Thus, according to a pragmatic theory of truth, the inherent structure of a true proposition must be self-consistent.

Formal Advantage of Pragmatism • The advantage of pragmatism is that it is open to all, the correspondence theorists and the coherence theorists.

Philosophy and Common Sense • Dewey argues that philosophy should not adopt an esoteric method that is not open to scrutiny, but rather a scientific-experimental method that is in line with common sense, every day methods of verification. • “Having repudiated as a test of its truths the test of use and practice, it can hardly be surprised if it find itself in a state of ‘splendid isolation,’ where the isolation is most evident and the splendor depends on the point of view.”

John Dewey (1859-1952)