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Adam Schaeffer
Meidlinger
ENGL 493
4/25/08
A Truth in Progress
“Truth”. This is a word that can be looked at from any distance with useful results. From afar, watching it pass walking briskly with hunched shoulders down the busy street next to the other parts of speech, it appears as just another noun flitting in and out of a myriad of simple and complex sentences. Cross that street and follow the word “truth” a little closer as it conducts the errands of the day, and it appears as a more curious device, frequenting sentences of many different types. “This is the Truth. Please, tell me the truth! Which of these, do you think, is more true?” If one were of the most tenacious temperament, and actually managed to tack down the nimble word long enough for a thoughtful conversation (perhaps over a much needed cup of hot tea, after all of the previous running amok) then the word truth would turn out to be a divisive enigma, who’s own notion of what it actually represents is just as hazy and diaphanous as anyone else’s. “Truth” might tell you, rather sheepishly, that it is really just a representation of a set of ideas that are, in themselves, a bit nebulous, and all of that dodgy scaffolding has created a symbol that is aware of its grammatical function, but has a rather vague concept of what it is really about. It might go on a little further before breaking down in frustrated tears, lamenting it’s inability to stop those of a mind to control others from using it’s abilities to impress ideas upon people that didn’t want, need, or ask for them (missionaries, liberating armies, telemarketers, etc.). That would be the point in the conversation where you would kindly hand over your copy of William James’s “Pragmatism” with a hopeful smile, and impress upon the word that the humans might, someday, understand a little better. Hopefully, you would reach out with your own hands and comfort the shaking shoulders of the overwhelmed and overworked noun, and let it know that it does indeed have a basic meaning, one that is accessible and understandable to all rational humans. Truth would then probably get up, slowly, after affably stammering out an attempt to the pay the bill, which you would refuse, and leave to finish it’s work for the day. Hopefully, that night, it would leaf sleepily through James’s “Pragmatism”, and maybe reach a sentence that would cause it to bolt upright in it’s bed, jostling the dozen or so alarm clocks on the night stand that wake it up so impossibly early.
There could be many places in James’s “Pragmatism” that could cause this reaction. But, I like to think it would be this one, “All realities influence our practice…and that influence is their meaning for us… In what respects would the world be different if this alternative or that were true? If I can find nothing that would become different, then the alternative has no sense.”(p. 27) This quote best highlights my general understanding of William James’s notion of truth, as this is an example of the way that his truth works best for me. However, I feel the need to look at this idea further, and see what would change (personally) if it works, or if it does not work when personally instrumented.
Others, through the courses and veins of related philosophies, have come to James and his pragmatism (James would credit it mostly to C.S. Pierce and John Stuart Mill) with questions about its applications, relevance and practical functionality. Some of these questions are answered by James himself in his own words in his definitions and interpretations of pragmatism. James anticipated the uproar and difficulty amateur philosophers would have with his new method, even though he claimed it had been in existence and practice for years, “You doubtless wish examples of this process of truth’s growth, and the only trouble is the superabundance.” (p. 32).
While James did indeed set down some illuminating and practical examples of how the varying pundits of his method operate, the method itself raised new questions after James was relieved from their piercing glare by his unfortunate death. The strength of pragmatism, however, is such that it did not fall out of favor after the loss of its progenitor, and several dynamic philosophers have taken up the challenge that James left. Particularly successful among this ambitious group was Richard Rorty, who’s deep and heavy worded probe into the causal relations of true characteristics does much to clear up and modernize the workings of pragmatism in relation to a society closer to our time. In the introduction to his book, “Truth and Progress”, Rorty explains how pragmatism is being used as one of many tools by philosophers in recent times to answer the question, “are we, as a species, getting closer to the Truth?” Rorty uses pragmatism to attempt to answer questions on human rights, societal progress, and the evolution of philosophy. Human Rights, being recently a hotly and loudly discussed issue, are causing some wealthy and comfortable nations like our own to tout our human rights records (even though our fat, safe, and comfortable government won’t officially join the international human rights movement or make an official ban on the torture of prisoners of war) and to watch as other countries are embarrassed and harassed because of their less reputable human rights records by fashionable celebrities (China and it’s Olympic troubles come to mind). Rorty postulates that questions about the existence of human rights are as pointless as questions about the existence of quarks in atoms (p.7), as knowledge of quarks is indispensable in discussions of atoms as knowledge of human rights is in questions of humans. Here, Rorty starts making specific and usefully noticeable distinctions in his discussion of pragmatism that James did not. Rorty also points out that James, along with other early pragmatists, failed to offer a substitute to what truth really is, as he so vehemently and adroitly claimed, “truth is not correspondence to reality.” If truth is an absolute idea, and in its absoluteness it is related to other things, then there must be an absolute and vivid version of what truth really is (p. 3). I think that this is what has led to the development of so many of our religions today, that yearning, that insufferable longing for a view of reality that is exactly true. Rorty does something that James did not, and he does it with the help of another philosopher. Channeling Donald Davidson, Rorty explains that, “the very absoluteness of truth is a good reason for thinking “true” indefinable and for thinking that no theory of the nature of truth is possible. It is only the relative about which there is anything to say.” (p.3) With this statement I think that Rorty makes a shining example of what happens when pragmatism is applied to a huge and abstract postulation, such as what truth is and what it does.
One of my favorite excerpts from Pragmatism is when James establishes that ultimate Truth, with a resounding capital letter “T”, is unknowable and ineffable to humans. Thus, spending exhaustive amounts of energy on it is, in essence, a dramatic and colossal waste of time. Rorty makes the same claim, but improves the statement by saying plainly that questing for truth that relates to humans and their experiences is indeed necessary. After reading these passages, and lifting them out, painstakingly and piece by piece, from the fluff that surrounds most of the more equivocal passages (I am guilty of this practice as well. We mustn’t be picky with chastisement!) a great sense of freedom lifted my chest and arms, and I was buoyed through the rest of the day by the liberty of embracing a limit, something I had only sparingly done in the past (reminisces of algebra class come to mind). The days that followed seemed brightened and sharpened by the removal of a murky sheet of glass, as knowledge that that most elusive facet of Truth would almost never again rear its great and wobbly head in my direction, because I was no longer looking at it. I am sure that there will be indirect and obtuse glances in the future, as conjecture about the great Truth can be a cause for even greater literary stimulus, and help inspire a person to turn that conjecture into beautiful stories. At the end of that shifty and sandy Absolute path is something that will always be subject to nearly infinite amounts of interpretation. In this vein, James meets a question that he raises himself in the voice of the “layman” reading his philosophy. The problem raised here is that pragmatism asserts that any belief being beneficial to the lives of people is true (p. 36) James explains briefly that this is the way it should be, “ If there be any life that it is really better we should lead, and if there be any idea which, if believed in, would help us to lead that life, then it would be really better for us to believe in that idea, unless, indeed, belief in it incidentally clashed with other greater vital benefits.” (p. 37). When James speaks of “vital benefits” I wonder if he was vaguely speaking of a human’s basic rights, and that a persons belief in the truth should be honored and respected until it starts to violate those “vital benefits” or human rights.
Speculations on the concept of Truth have caused the genesis of literature with lasting impact, such as Wordsworth’s, Lines Written Over Tintern Abbey, a poem that suggests maybe the ultimate Truth is our Mother Nature dominant over all, and reconnecting with it should be a persons priority. Or, to look at a more contemporary example (and my favorite); “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, by Douglas Adams, a story that wholly embraces the notion that Truth is ineffable and uses that idea to make wildly imaginative and hilarious (if sometimes confusing, 42 as the ultimate answer?) suggestions as to it’s true nature. Both of these are examples of how speculation about Truth can bring forth art that enriches our lives, without hurting anyone. By embracing that limit of human understanding, freedom that is entirely more useful to humanity can be obtained, and the collective minds of the intellectual community would be able to concentrate on pursuits that would have a genuine benefit or “cash value” to their respective societies. In lecture six of William James’ Pragmatism, he speaks at length about the cash value of truth as a verifiability (different than verification) system, saying that truths resemble a credit system; they are true only so long as they keep working, and by verifying themselves during and after usage they earn their cash value. Further on, he continues his analogy with an imagination about the financial system of truths collapsing when one truth stops working, causing that truth to lose its value. Here truths are assigned the function of verification systems, eventually leading to the correct idea. This verifiability works fine when applied to common sense matters, but James advises caution when it is applied to principles or “true ideas”, but praises them as catalysts to, “…useful verbal and conceptual quarters as well as directly up to useful sensible termini. They lead to consistency, stability, and flowing human intercourse.” (p.97) When applied to science, these theories that work are hemmed in tightly, as they need to meet very strict parameters. Rorty continues closely to this vein, perhaps not picking up where James left off, but going in a slightly diagonal direction from the part of lecture six that I left with earlier. Again criticizing Charles Taylor (it isn’t a personal grudge, the chapter is simply about Charles Taylor’s notions of truth) Rorty attempts to debunk Taylor’s claim that a truth is something that is immovable through the processes of observation, by claiming that, “ …there is no occupant of space-time that is not linked in a single web of causal relationships to all other occupants” (p. 94) (thinking of the game eight degrees of separation with Kevin Bacon might be helpful in creating an example of what Rorty is positing here).
So, “Which of these, do you think, is true?” This is a question that I have heard my entire life, popping up in discussions as frequently as prairie dogs in mating season. For many of those questions there was a specific and (apparently) bare faced fact; two plus two is four, Sacagewea aided Lewis and Clark, Einstein was a poor student, etc. Regardless of how vigorously and enthusiastically Pragmatism is applied to some answers; there will still be one correct option, which, if we listen to James, is only correct as long as it continues to work. However, there are answers that beg the question, “which of these, do you think, is true?” or, “is this true because it is related to that, which has been shown as true?” This is another aspect of William James’s Pragmatism that I found implicitly helpful, but more illuminating and concrete examples (for me) were found in Richard Rorty’s, “Truth and Progress”. In the question of the causal relations between true things, Rorty cites an example from another philosopher, “If the name Kilimanjaro refers to Kilimanjaro, then no doubt there is some relation between English (or Swahili) speakers, the word, and the mountain. But it is inconceivable that one should be able to explain the relation without first explaining the role of the word in sentences’ and if this is so, there is no chance of explaining reference directly in non-linguistic terms” (Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, p. 220). Rorty goes on to explain the differences he sees between causal relationships of things that are observed by people and truth. His peer and literary opponent (even though they seem to be suspiciously similar on a few perceptible issues) Charles Taylor said of truth that it, “[stays] put through all changes in description.” Rorty, however, claims that “there is no description-independent way the world is, no way it is under no description.” This posit has gotten Rorty and his colleagues into corners before, as it leads to questions such as, “did not moon the exist before it was first described by people with language?” The answer to this question is clearly “no” (I hope) and Rorty follows the advice of his colleague Donald Davidson by just ignoring the question altogether.
I have been trying for years to impress upon my friends that more than one option can be true. After reading James’s eloquent suggestions for handling truth with multiplicity I felt armed to the proverbial teeth and ready to belabor it into the heads of my peers until they pleaded for mercy (it is true that that was indeed a joke). As far as “cash value” goes, I think this facet of Pragmatism is the most productive. Pragmatism’s wanton need to smash dichotomies into steaming bits ushered in waves of fresh energy into my beleaguered debating skills. Now, I have a method to adroitly describe a way of selecting stances on political issues not based on liberalism or conservatism, democratic or republican filters, but on the individual merits of each situation. My stance on issues can bridge positions, instead of standing stoically in one spot. I can use James’s Pragmatism and its notion of truth’s multiplicity to help relieve the pressure between conflicting ideologies inside of myself and hopefully, when more comfortable with its offices, I will be able to give some modest aid to others.
“Please, tell me the truth!” My mother used to see this to me often when my teachers would call home with some clearly fantasized story about my misbehavior at school. The model of social conduct that I was, a contradictory version of events was normally ready for recitation when these events presented themselves. If I had known then about Pragmatism, perhaps I would have delivered my version of the truth with a little more confidence. Alas, those days are in the past and their punishments have been served. As innocent as I was, today I feel slightly wary when I think of the ways in which Pragmatism’s notion of truth could be twisted slightly by those with avarice in their hearts. When this feelings occurs, it is normally helpful for me to glance over at James’s thin book sitting on the shelf, and remember that Pragmatism’s nerves and brain and bounding heart are safely inscribed for future generations to read and, hopefully, analyze in a way that will benefit their own notions of truth. But after everything I have read on this bridging, tractor beam philosophy that quests to pull all other philosophies together, one piece of small wisdom echoes quietly in the warm corridors of my universe. “Do not follow in the footsteps of the ancients; seek what they sought.” said the philosopher poet Matsuo Basho. And that is what I will do. Discovering the truths that work on my own, instead of holding faith in the truths that others have passed on, will hopefully create truths that are more meaningful for me, as their entire experience will be mine, from creation to actualization. One day, this course may lead me to complete solidarity, but hopefully never to intellectual complacency.
Reference:
James, William. Pragmatism. Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing, 1981
Rorty, Richard. Truth and Progress, Philosophical Papers, Vol 3. Cambridge:
University Press, 1998.
