Yes to this. I’d extend this to say that the person can give a crap about different things in the course of a lifetime. Which is why pragmatism is restrictive. It is like a decision has been made that we are all now to grow up and get serious and be robots and stop wondering about things that don’t make sense. I have to really think hard before I agree to let go of my precious stupidity.
That makes no sense to me. Was he being facetious?
Yes, he was. I sometimes have to put my tap shoes on to get thru a thread and the goal is to be facetious in a particular way that makes some wonder if I’m couching a greater point in a farcical package, which is nice business if you can get it.
Gamer,
Nice piece of scholarship on GB’s private letters.
Are you using the term ‘useful’ when the use is some purpose you value, and ‘usable’ when the use is some purpose you don’t? Why engage in projects/purposes that you don’t value at all, such that you would ever even use that distinction? If a 20 dollar whore is not useful, then you oughtn’t pay 20 dollars.
I know this is going to be flippant, but you seem to want to cling to a cold, unmoving, possibly even dead and rotting conception of truth, such that you could say, “Yes, von Rivers, I am defending the notion that ‘truth’ is something more than is really worth caring to defend! We must really champion the notion that ‘truth’ is something other than what’d be useful to champion! –Because the ‘truth’ is not useful, and we must stick to what is not useful!”. If I ever found a cold, unmoving and useless 20 dollar whore, I’d probably…
Have you ever seen the movie Tommy Boy. There’s a scene where they fill a car dealer’s cars with dead hookers. And it’s a news story. And one guy in the bar says, “I’ve never seen so many dead hookers in my life!!”, and then another guy in the bar says, “…lord knows I have…”. I don’t want to be the equivalent of that guy, in philosophy. Life is too short.
But here’s an interesting question: “Where is the bedrock truth in pragmatism?”
You can be a pragmatist in different ways; descriptively, normatively, linguistically, epistemologically, maybe others. I’m not sure what kind of question you’re asking. Are you asking as a metaphysician? Do you want to know what ‘truth’ Really is? —Because forget that. ‘Truth’ is a label applied to the relation between the kind of creature that you are, and the world around you. There is no ‘truth’ independently of what you are.
The best case for pragmatism in that sense is that it works better than Correspondence theories of truth, or Coherence theories of truth, or others. But that’s no surprise really, given what pragmatism is. That’s circular, obviously. But so what? You’ll find the same when you ask a Coherence theorist why coherence theory is true, or any other theory of truth why their theory is true.
Your question, to me, seems like this one: “Why should we adopt what works?” —And that’s really not a question I’d care to ask someone. I can’t even read it without crunching my brow and dropping my jaw and drooling a bit. Does that mean I’m robotic or whatever? Why would it? I’ve probably just insulted you, and that’s not a good thing to do. So there’s a long line of very distinguished philosophers, probably most of them, who agree with teh sentiment behind what you’re implying… whatever that is, I forgot. But seriously, I’m really the one who is slow and lazy, given that your questions are really very deep philosophical ones----and I’m not treating them with the proper respect. So the insult is not really an insult. Kind regards and all of that.
Gamer,
For all the labeling, pragmatism isn’t a philosophy. That’s just a label used to get published. Pragmatism is simply a tool used philosophically. It’s no different than saying skepticism is a philosophy. It isn’t. It’s just a tool used to filter the flow of information. While it’s true that pragmatism can color how we think (or not), it’s primary function is to help us decide how we shall act out. Yes, taken to extremes, it can create the disinterested robotic humdrum existence we see so much of today. But pragmatism doesn’t rule out or negate flights of heart or imagination. Rather, it dilineates that which appears to be plausible from the seemingly infinite creations of mind. Being “pragmatic” is only sorting out what is likely from endless possibility.
Note that my emphasis is on how we act out. I think this is important. We can allow heart and mind to soar, but it is how we act out that is the confirmation of our internal dialogue with ourselves.
So forget usefulness, truth, and all the other agenda labels. By all means, soar to the heights, just temper those flights with what is likely amongst all the “wouldn’t it be great if…”
Let me come at this from an angle. It seems like at least some of the other truth definitions, non-pragmatic ones, treat ‘statements in the mind’ as well delineated objects that correspond or reflect correctly with what is ‘out there’. There is a lot of metaphysics in that -of course, and for me the term metaphysics is not pejorative, but I Think this needs to be pointed out.
Statements (language) can contain truths - as opposed to eliciting processes.
The mind contains truths in the form of statements - as opposed to the tip of the iceberg of thought and body for that matter processes are these mental statements (often also spoken).
We can compare these things - the mental objects (statements) - with the things of the World - as opposed to internal processes lead to actions involving other parts of the World. We look from the object in the mind (or on the page) at the World. We hold up the two objects.
It has been a long time since I read Dewey and James - who it seems to me have rather different versions of truth anyway - but my sense is that pragmatism ephasized process over the kind of what might be called reification in non-pragmatist approaches to truth. What does the idea do? What happens? Rather than let’s look at the idea and then look at the World and compare and contrast. If I end up getting to the moon using Newton and not Einstein there is some serious truth in Newton, even if he was wrong about some very all encompassing ontological issues. Note: that last sentence would not be said by a pragmatist, since it has a non-pragmatist ultimate assessment of TRUTH in it. But as one not quite a pragmatist Writing to Another one, I put it like that.
I Think a pragmatist could also say that they do not know what to do with the idea of a non-pragmatic truth. What function does it serve? But I don’t see them restricting philosophy, or really that pragmatism need to. Most metaphysical truths or claims to truth do entail practical effects, even if these are not necessarily easy to monitor. It would be weird to bother with ideas that had no effects, even if that is not the motivation for bothering.
double post
Truth is that which is.
Is something useful by virtue of existing? Pragmatism seems to say yes.
The universe is, therefore the universe is useful.
A necessary attribute of a useful thing would seem to be existence.
And existence is itself a useful thing, since it provides the attribute of existence, the single requirement for that which is useful.
Enter batman’s or my utility belt. It isn’t so much about Reality as much as harsh reality.
Harsh reality is about what works for us. I call that science, or business, or politics, or even religion, or the everyday business of being human.
Reality reality is something else. It persists regardless of what we think, say or do or want or use.
if we are to say something is true, maybe the best way to do that (the best epistemological criteria) is to put it to the test and see if it works, or pragmatism.
if it works, we can agree to call that thing true.
if it doesn’t work for us, we have NOT earned the right to call that thing true.
But that’s different from saying we have earned the right to call it false. absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
I’m not sure these are deep questions. I may be misunderstanding pragmatism, and wikipedia suggests there is no one definition.
Go ahead and sort out the “likely” and call it truth if it pleases you. But it’s not the whole truth and it never will be. To believe otherwise, for me, is an end game scenario.
Well, truth is an ascription that relates to “that which is” in some way----but what that way is, is what we’re talking about.
I’m not sure if you want to just re-state a different definition of ‘truth’, with the implication being that you must have the best theory of truth, because you have defined it so. IOW, if you are just implying that ‘truth’ is what corresponds to the world (that which is) somehow, then anyone else is going to just deny that. E.g., for a pragmatist, or a coherentist, or other theories… truth is NOT that which corresponds to what is the case.
For a pragmatist, “that which is” is always only going to be what works. —That’s how you find “that which is”, in the first place.
For a coherentist, “that which is” is always only going to be what coheres. —That’s how you find “that which is”, in the first place.
Ok, I think this is important for clarification…
When I’m thinking about ‘truth’, I’m thinking of it being a relation between the kind of creature that you are, and the world around you (that which is). When we talk about ‘truth’, we’re talking about what that relation is. IOW, we’re not simply talking about what exists… just what exists for us. So my point is that I don’t think something is useful by virtue of its existing in a metaphysical sense, but only that we recognize that something exists when it becomes useful to us. —E.g., It works in a theory to explain phenomena, for example. I’m not sure if that really addresses what you said…
I also think that there’s some way the world is independently of how it seems to us. IOW, there’s a “Ultimate Reality reality”. But nothing about what is actually the case justifies me in saying that. I can’t point to anything in the world to justify my existence claim about Reality reality. But I do anyways. Why? —Because thinking that way works for all kinds of things.
Pragmatism might be a good way to “find what is.” I can even accept that without a use, we have no justification for thinking something is true or exists. I can allow that.
What I can’t allow is that somehow the act and process of deeming something useful is also the genesis of that very thing as existing and true, in the same way that a position of an electron is literally non-determined until observed. I can’t conceive of it because it’s non-intuitive. At least in the case of electrons, we can demonstrate the fact of the matter in experimental data.
What I’m wrestling with is how it makes sense that a thing pops into existence when and only when it is deemed useful, and until that moment, the thing is in some phantom zone of non-existence.
It’s more intuitive to believe the SITUATION is just there always, and we go about thinking what we will, distorting It or missing It or seeing flecks here and there, given our limited faculties.
I also agree in Ultimate Reality reality. How we get to it is a matter of epistemology, and I’m not here to debate the relative merits of different epistemologies, or the best descriptors of phenomenology, or anything normative. I’m having a metaphysical discussion about the shit going on and what we know about it a priori. We don’t know what it is, only that it is. It is what it is. Some of it might be useful to us, some not. Some might be useful but as yet undiscovered, and that it has not been discovered yet to be useful doesn’t make it any less existent.
Keep in mind I’m a radical solipsist. If ANYONE wants to argue that nothing exists except the shit I can use, it’s me. Because that’s about as precise a description of my subjective shit as it gets. Existentially speaking, pragmatism is a razor sharp way to describe what it’s like to be me.
But unless I’m willing to say my mind is the cosmos and there’s nothing else, I have to take issue with the claim that perceived usability is literally a MAKER of truth rather than merely our best VERIFIER of truth.
We are talking about pragmatism as a claim about truth, not existence. Those are different. ‘Truth’ is something you ascribe to a sentence about the world—it’s a property of language, which is our mediation between us and the world. Existence isn’t that kind of relational concept.
I agree that things exist that are not useful to us. And I agree that something being useful doesn’t mean it pops into existence. But for a pragmatist, I think sentences like, “quarks exist” or “there is a planet x-size in galaxy-z”, or whatever, are true (or false) because of the use that representational language like that has, for us. Sentences like that are not true, for a pragmatist, because quarks actually do exist----because maybe they don’t. I think pragmatism has more going for it when you recognize that much of language is metaphorical, or at least not designed to be literal representations of actual states of affairs in the world. When I’m talking about my happiness, I’m not saying that happiness corresponds to such-and-such object in the world or something like that. But claims about my own happiness can be true or false. If I say that I think you see what I’m saying… it might be true, but it’s certainly false as a claim about your eyes.
Here’s something that might be true: You cannot get from anything about the way the world actually is, to the conclusion that there is an Ultimate Reality reality. There’s nothing what actually exists in the world that justifies a leap like that. But I make the leap, just like you. And I think the only way that leap is possible, is if you are something like a pragmatist or a coherentist. Because if you think the only things that are ‘true’ are “what actually is”----then you’re not justified in claiming truth for Ultimate Reality reality, not even for the bare claim of its existence.
If some of what I said doesn’t make sense… it might not make sense to me either. I was thinking outloud and trying to make sense of what I was saying as I went.
Gamer,
There is novelty and sponteneity is the comings and goings in the universe. This isn’t provable in any pragmatic sense, but we observe it constantly if we are being mindful. We assume that there is a REALITY reality because things occasionally just pop into being without any ascribable cause. Somethings come into existence just because… damned if I know.
It’s possible that the pragmatist POV is merely seeing the focus rather than the field. The field is REALITY reality and the focus is whatever you are attending to at the moment. Think about all the times that the right image, the right word, just popped into your head and you were the most brilliant person in the world at that moment. We don’t or perhaps can’t ever know the content of sponteneity, we just know that it is there. Is this truth? It’s MY truth and that is all that counts. Why? Because it’s useful. 
It’s sort of like the court of justice saying everyone is innocent until proven guilty. I have the same issue with that…because, I get it and support the spirit of what the phrase is getting at, but if we step back for a second, we all know that GUILTY doesn’t just refer to a VERDICT within a coherent legal system. It refers to a STATE OF AFFAIRS held against a set of laws, regardless of the verdict. “OJ was guilty.” Therefore, even if John Wayne Gacy wasn’t yet proven guilty, or never proven guilty, he still was GUILTY…even though a purist lawyer might insist on pushing the combination of words: no he was innocent, according to legal theory he was innocent…no, no, you don’t understand legal theory, which dictates blah blah blah. And this is all very ugly and stupid considering what actually happened to the victims.
The legal system is the best we have. It helps us figure out to the best of our ability what is going on. But if and when it ever starts blinding us to the definition of reality itself, we become more like robots than people, our field becomes narrower. Guilt becomes a fact of verdict and not conduct. (Is becomes a fact of verification not isness) This scares me. I may be guilty of the Robot Who Doesn’t Want To Be A Robot fallacy, aka argumentum ad Johnny Five.
Similarly, even if pragmatists don’t accept certain truths until proven useful, they are still TRUTHS. Pragmatism chimes the same scary narrowing of reality, or our place in it, heralds an age of machines. The beasts that swim in the deeps of the ocean, fraggle toothed and darkness soaked, eyeless and faceless – they must be pragmatists.
How is saying there’s an ultimate reality a leap? I’m just saying whatever is, is. I’m not saying what it is, just that it is, if it is. If it is not, then it is not. If it is both then it’s both. Whatever. My definition of is encompasses pretty much anything it is or is not. I don’t think we know if we know what is is or isn’t, but I don’t require a leap to say there is is, and to say there is not is would require a much bigger leap. The game of saying WHAT is actually is might require a filter like pragmatism, but to say that is is is isn’t a leap or pragmatism. It’s the ground zero of everything else, logically. “I think therefore I am” has flaws, but simply saying “Is is” doesn’t have any flaws. I don’t say is because it’s useful. I say is because is says is through me. “Is isn’t” seems to be what you’re offering as a potential candidate for describing reality, or at least an equally valid one, once our biases are stripped away. But I’m still flailing to grasp what you mean.
Nice dovetail JT. Seeing the focus rather than the field is in itself useful, or part of a normative scheme, or reactionary, and in any case is a concise way to explain to an idiot like me what the pragmatism I’m asking about is really trying to say. If you look at my signature quote below, you’ll see it fits in quite nicely with what you’re saying.
“Man, some stuff just fucking exists. It’s there. It exists. Reality.”
I can say that, even if I’m a pragmatist. Sometimes you imply that a pragmatist can’t say that. Are you? If you are, then recognize that pragmatism isn’t a theory about existence, it’s a theory about truth----and those are different. Pragmatism is about how we arrive at VERDICTS, (or truth), that’s all. I don’t think it’s implying it does any more than that. What do you want them to do?
a. Why would you accept something as true until it is proven true? --But I thought we weren’t going to get into epistemology…?
b. You are trying to say that pragmatists think there is no truth other than what has already been proven useful—and that’s just false.
It’s like you think pragmatists are radical external world skeptics or something… uber-idealists…
Or nihilistic egoists fucking over everybody because if it works for them, it must be good…
It’s a leap for you because you think ‘truth’ is what corresponds to the world. At least that is the implication behind what you’re saying. But nothing in reality corresponds to Ultimate Reality. But it’s not a leap for anyone other than someone who thinks like you. Like pragmatists.
…Comeon. Then you’re really saying nothing. Vacuous. Tautological. EVERY SINGLE pragmatist is going to say the same thing. Along with any other non-demented human.
“recognize that pragmatism isn’t a theory about existence, it’s a theory about truth----and those are different. Pragmatism is about how we arrive at VERDICTS, (or truth), that’s all. I don’t think it’s implying it does any more than that. What do you want them to do?”
Thanks. That’s all I was really checking on. Some things I’ve read made it sound like it was saying it literally doesn’t exist unless we can use it. I will try to cite examples when I get a chance. Sorry it took so long to fully articulate my question but I’m satisfied with your answer for now. I believe I mentioned i was a dummy.
I still have a sneaking suspicion that its fear that makes us want to believe we can logically avert our gaze from useless shit. Because it’s the useless shit that scares us the most. I guess pragmatism is in the end, a comfort. If that be the case, sign me up and issue me my ceremonial blinders.
Double post
Gamer,
In my first post, I said that pragmatism is just a tool, it isn’t a philosophy in itself. We have to be clear about what we are dissecting and the tools of dissection. Dividing the mind into ever smaller pieces clouds things doesn’t it? I get the is IS because without it, there can be no curiosity, no creativity, and we do indeed become the robot. I can call it the field, the mystery, or any of several other metaphorical names but it still is IS. What I’ve called focus is just attenuation to various parts of the field and there is no escaping that. The mind cannot attend to all of the field at once. It has to be enough to be aware that the field, or the mystery, is always there and presents us with the full spectrum of all that is possible - and even all that is impossible.
In a way, one cannot not be pragmatic to some degree. There are those who succeed in escaping focus and live entirely in the field. We call them insane and they probably are because they live in a state of being unavailable to most of us. Autism may be that state of being. But for those of us that claim sanity, it really is nothing more than being capable of exercising the tools of discrimination - of which pragmatism is one of those tools.
Fearing the limitations of pragmatism or any of the other sorting tools we use is missing the point, just as denial of is IS misses the point as well.
I guess that one simply finds a balance and accepts the limitations. I look forward with gleeful anticipation of what the field will offer me tomorrow while understanding that I will never know but the tiniest part of is IS. That’s OK. After all, that is the limit of being human. I’m just grateful for catching a glimpse of the field now and then. It gives my pragmatism something to do.
Martin Heidegger thought that we don’t become aware of things in the world as objects—i.e., material, brute, substance—until either they become useful, or the use that they had for us breaks down. IOW, the use of things is ontologically more primary than the substance of things. It’s like he thought that the engine under your hood would be a non-entity for you, until it broke down and you had to fix it.
If you’ve worked yourself up and need to vent on somebody, he might be a good candidate. But maybe a nicer way to interpret what he means is to take it as a conceptual point----like, some set of phenomena doesn’t get conceptualized as a single ‘thing’, until it is useful or its use breaks down. E.g., if an engine absolutely never broke down, then it wouldn’t be a separate and distinct thing from everything else under your hood, assuming those never broke down either.
Yea, fear… or disinterest. No wait, yea absolutely I’m scared something like my life as a whole could be useless. That’s nihilism bruah. Maybe I see what you’re saying now. I’m not sure if I’m a pragmatist, but maybe there’s some online book clubs or something.
JT: “Fearing the limitations of pragmatism or any of the other sorting tools we use is missing the point, just as denial of is IS misses the point as well”
Ah, the joys of surfing the infinite regress of interstitial truth. I agree with all you’re saying. I think before even fearing this or that, I needed to understand the thing better. Pragmatism as a tool, as you said, and not a claim about IS, or the field, as VR said.
I now get it better.
VR
That bit about being mad at Heideggar is helpful, and how to be forgiving of Heideggar, more helpful. And the parting thought about nihilism, that’s all you. All in all, good writing, and good listening. Good knowledge.
Useful.
.