The Varieties of Pragmatism: Truth, Realism, and Knowledge from James to Rorty (Continuum Studies in American Philosophy)

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The Varieties of Pragmatism: Truth, Realism, and Knowledge from James to Rorty

DOUGLAS McDERMID

Continuum

THE VARIETIES OF PRAGMATISM

Continuum Studies in American Philosophy: Dorothy G. Rogers, America's First Women Philosophers Thorn Brooks and Fabian Freyenhagen, eds, The Legacy of John Rawls James Marcurn, Thomas Kuhn's Revolution Joshua Rust, John Searle and the Construction of Social Reality Timothy Mosteller, Relativism in Contemporary American Philosophy

THE VARIETIES

OF

PRAGMATISM

TRUTH, REALISM, AND KNOWLEDGE FROM

JAMES TO RORTY

DOUGLAS

McDERMID

continuum LONDON

NEW

YORK

Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 © Douglas McDermid 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Douglas McDermid has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 0-8264-8721-1 (hardback) Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication

Data

McDermid, Douglas. The varieties of pragmatism : truth, realism, and knowledge from James to Rorty / Douglas McDermid.

p. cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8264-8721-1 (hardback) 1. Pragmatism

I. Title.

B832 M33 2006 144'.3-dc22

2005024744

Typeset by Aarontype Limited, Easton, Bristol Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire Quotes from William James from Pragmatism, ed. B. Kuklick, copyright 1981 Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.

Just as in the law courts no man can passjudgment who does not listen to the arguments from both parties, so must the per son whose task it is to study philosophy place himself in a better position to reach a judgment by listening to all the arguments, as if they came from undecided litigants.

— St. Thomas Aquinas

Contents

Acknowledgements 1

Pragmatism and Epistemology: Deconstruction or Reconstruction?

Part I 2 3 4 5

The Decline and Fall of Correspondence Keeping Reality in Mind: The Comparison Objection Neither Worldmakers nor Mirrors: The Constructivist Objection Towards a Pragmatist Epistemology

1

5

7 14 46 89

Neo-Pragmatism and Epistemology

95

Rorty's Brave New Pragmatism Anti-Foundationalism — From the Ground Up Anti-Representationalism and Its Discontents

97 110 126

Part II 6 7 8

Pragmatism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth

vii

Epilogue: In Defense of a Myth

138

Appendices: A Rorty on Truth B Putnam on Kant and the Coherence Theory of Truth C James and Dewey on Correspondence: Deniers or Demystifiers?

141 148 154

Bibliography

159

Index

173

Acknowledgements

This book is a descendant of my doctoral dissertation, written at Brown University. While at Brown, I had the good fortune to study with some remarkably talented philosophers: Felicia Ackerman, Justin Broackes, the late Roderick Chisholm, Jaegwon Kim, Martha Nussbaum, Ernest Sosa, and James Van Cleve. I am grateful to them all for their rigorous and patient tuition. I am also beholden to Brown and to the Woodrow Wilson Foundation for generous financial support. Thanks of a different species are due both to Josiah Carberry (who might or might not approve of this book) and to the household gods of the Rockefeller Library (Level A) — a place where coarser ancestors of my pages first blinked and, mewling, glimpsed the light of day. I also wish to express my gratitude to the following philosophers, with whom I have had helpful exchanges about issues and ideas addressed in this book: Paul Boghossian, Tyler Burge, the late Donald Davidson, Guillermo Hurtado, Cheryl Misak, Carlos Pereda, Richard Rorty, Israel Scheffler, Eckhard Schmidt, and Pedro Stepanenko. My warm thanks, too, to my editors — Philip de Bary, James Fieser, Anthony Haynes and Joanna Taylor — all of whom have been generous with encouragement, help, and good cheer. It goes without saying, however, that all howlers, misreadings, infelicities, and fallacies subtle or gross are the exclusive property of yours truly. Parts of this book draw on previously published or forthcoming work of mine, and I am most grateful to the publishers for permission to reproduce that material here: "Pragmatism and Truth: The Comparison Objection to Correspondence," The Review of Metaphysics 51 (4): 775—811; "Putnam on Kant on Truth: Correspondence or Coherence?" Idealistic Studies 28 (1/2): 17—34; "Does Epistemology Rest on a Mistake? Understanding Rorty on Scepticism," Critica XXXII (96): 3-42; "Metaphysics and the Analytic Tradition," in The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth Century Philosophies, edited by Constantin Boundas (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming). I am delighted to be still more indebted — hopelessly so — to the three joyful anti-philosophers to whom this work is dedicated, with much love and gratitude: Michelle, Julia, and Andrea. Mexico City July 2005

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1

Pragmatism and Epistemology: Deconstruction or Reconstruction?

I have always liked under standing views with which I did not agree — how else could one like the study of philosophy? 1 — George Santayana

1.0

Introduction

Let us begin — why not? — with one more myth of a bygone Golden Age. 1.1

L'aged'or

Once upon a time, or so the rumours run, epistemologists were by and large disposed to endorse three theses: one about reality, one about truth, and one about human knowledge. The first of these theses was realism: the commonsensical-sounding view that the world of physical objects exists independently of human thought or language. The second thesis was the correspondence theory of truth, according to which true beliefs accurately represent the way that : the view that our knowledge world is. And the third thesis was foundationalism: of the world must rest on sturdy foundations, as befits a well-built and imposing edifice. In the last two decades, partisans of these theses have been put on the defensive by an audacious anti-epistemology coalition led by Richard Rorty — "the most interesting philosopher in the world today." A self-styled disciple of William James and John Dewey, Rorty has consistently claimed a pragmatist pedigree for his opposition to the shibboleths of old-fashioned epistemology. From his perspective, pragmatism promises to transform philosophy from a fusty and staid discipline obsessed with knowledge into a playful and creative exercise in edification — "an attempt to see how things, in the broadest possible sense of the term, hang together, in the broadest possible sense of the term." Where others have glimpsed epistemology's bright Paradise or fecund Golden Age, our neo-pragmatist beholds a dark and intellectually barren Inferno. And his counsel is as grim as it is familiar: Lasciateognesperanza, voi ch'intrate.

2

The Varieties of Pragmatism

In this book, I defend two main claims: first, that Rorty's critique of epistemology, though ingenious, is unconvincing; second, that Rorty takes the name of pragmatism in vain. And the plan of this, my Guide for the Perplexed NonPragmatist, is simplicity itself: in Part I (Chapters 2—5) I assess a plethora of prominent pragmatist arguments ostensibly aimed at the correspondence theory; in Part II (Chapters 6—8), I rebut a brace of neo-pragmatist objections to epistemology. Finally, a hopelessly naive Epilogue reveals what this slim volume was really all about.5

1.2 Caveat Lector

Before we get underway, let me enter three caveats in the name of truth in advertising. First, this book is something of a hybrid — unavoidably so, given the mix of exegetical and substantive issues it encompasses. On the one hand, it aspires to make a contribution to the history of philosophy; on the other, it attempts to shed light on some contemporary debates within the theory of knowledge. This mixed approach may displease the odd scholarly historian or cuttingedge epistemologist who inflexibly opposes intellectual miscegenation. In my opinion, however, we have a right (if not a duty) to use our knowledge of philosophy's present to illuminate its past, and vice versa. Certainly Rorty himself has never been shy about exercising that right; and neither have leading non-pragmatists, such as Roderick Chisholm, Michael Dummett, Wilfrid Sellars, P. F. Strawson, Charles Taylor, and Bernard Williams. Second, a warning: I shall say little about that fabulously irascible Ur— pragmatist, C. S. Peirce. There are essentially two reasons for this. In the first place, I presume the reader is not interested in disquisitions on the obvious — viz., that there are important differences between Rortyean neopragmatism and Peircean "pragmaticism" (CP 5.414). No; I want instead to argue that Rorty's views are strikingly unlike those held by the classical pragmatists —James and Dewey — whom he reveres and strives to emulate. In the second place, Peirce's insightful views on truth, realism, and inquiry are already appreciated by analytic philosophers; in contrast, the views of other classical pragmatists are still caricatured and disparaged with depressing regularity. If they are to get the respect they deserve from contemporary epistemologists, James and Dewey — not to mention the half-forgotten F. C. S. Schiller — need our help in a way Peirce no longer does. Accordingly, I have given my downtrodden trinity more space, in which — to put it paradoxically — I have tried to help them speak for themselves. Finally, an admission: I come neither to praise Rorty nor to bury him. Although there is much in his neo-pragmatism to which I strenuously object,

Pragmatism and Epistemology

3

I also believe his oeuvre contains much food for thought; it is not to be dismissed as chic and radical chaff. Because I am interested in understanding Rorty, and not in lunging indignantly at some stiff and rustling strawman or sloppy 8 Doppelglinger,,8I have tried hard to present his proposals and arguments fairly, with clarity and charity (in the Quinean sense of the term). I have also given him credit where I think it is due — a form of justice not without its ironies, since Rorty is apparently not interested in the kind of credit I cheerfully dispense (e.g. credit for advancing well-crafted arguments in support of substantive theses). Nevertheless, I hope some readers — particularly those within the analytic camp — will find the sort of systematic cross-examination I conduct useful. 10 And with this trio of caveats behind us as ballast, we are poised to begin.

Notes 1. 2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

From a letter (1939) reprinted in Cory (1963: 214). That is, on beliefs whose justification does not depend on other beliefs. Or so it has been said by Harold Bloom, quoted on the dust j acket of Rorty (1989). See Rorty (1979), (1982), (1989), (19911), (1991II), (19981), (1998II), (1999). At this stage I shall say nothing about the details of Rorty's neo-pragmatism; but the (commendably) impatient reader is referred to §6.1—§6.3 and to Appendix A. Those seeking a book-length introductory overview of Rorty's work may consult Malachowski (2002); as Malachowski acknowledges, however, his exposition does not attempt to evaluate Rorty's position (Malachowski 2002: 11, 17—20). A definition of Wilfrid Sellars's Rorty is fond of using. Cf. Rorty (1976c: 29), (1981e: 226), (1982a:xiv). For further proof of my naivete, see McDermid (2005). In "Tradition and the Individual Talent," T. S. Eliot argues that one of the functions of the critic is to explore the ways in which works of the past and present illuminate each other. Eliot makes the point with reference to poetry; I would argue, however, that something similar holds in the case of philosophy. See Eliot (1920). According to Rorty (1980: 161), Peirce was an overrated philosopher whose reactionary Kantian tendencies disqualify him from serving as the patron saint of the new-fangled pragmatism. Such strawmen are legion. As Malachowski observes, "many of Rorty's critics, especially in philosophy, fail to read him carefully and tend to misrepresent his views" (Malachowski 2002: xiii; cf. 139, 163). "On the view of philosophy which I am offering, philosophers should not be asked for arguments against, for example, the correspondence theory of truth" (Rorty 1989: 8; cf. 9). Those who align themselves with Rorty may complain that my interpretation is vitiated by the fact that I judge his work by standards he contests. If one thinks

4

The Varieties of Pragmatism that interpretations are to be judged by their utility, however, one should allow that an interpretation can be valuable provided it is useful. But — obviously — whether a reading is useful depends on what one's purposes or interests are. My reading of Rorty is primarily meant for readers interested in finding out (i) what arguments Rorty employs in a certain domain (i.e. epistemology, broadly conceived); (ii) whether those arguments are cogent; and (iii) how those arguments and their conclusions are related to the work of earlier pragmatists. Of course, if you do not happen to share any of these interests, you may not find parts of this book helpful — just as you may not derive much benefit from aspirin unless you have a headache, or have much use for a chisel unless you are trying to carve or sculpt.

PART I

Pragmatism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth


a2

T

What is truth; said jesting pilata 1 — Francis Bacon

2.0

Introduction

Jesting Pilate's query still lacks a widely accepted answer. Indeed, his question has itself been questioned — and is now condemned as a howler by more than a few. Be that as it may, a great many philosophers have sought to placate their inner Pilate by upholding some version of the correspondence theory of truth, according to which what we say or believe about the world is true just in case it corresponds with (represents, mirrors, pictures, fits) the way things are (i.e. 2 the world, reality, or — most infamously — the facts). Few philosophical theories initially appear as ingratiatingly down-to-earth, as soothingly and delightfully trite, as this. When a philosopher solemnly swears that our belief that the cat is on the mat is true because it corresponds to the fact that the cat is on the mat, we may well experience the philosophical equivalent ofdeja vu, and feel as if we stand on ground both uncannily familiar and reassuringly firm. Moreover, few philosophical views can claim a more distinguished and diverse roster of adherents: Plato and Popper, Aristotle and Wittgenstein, Aquinas and Hume, Descartes and Austin, Locke and Searle, Spinoza and Schlick, Kant and Brentano, McTaggart and Moore, Russell and Maritain — all have espoused a correspondence theory of some kind or other. Alas, the Golden Age when correspondence reigned supreme is past. What brought about this cruel reversal of fortune?

2.1

Correspondence Under Siege

The charges levelled at the correspondence theory of truth are many and severe. These days, we are routinely informed that the correspondence theory is a platitude masquerading as philosophy; that it is a vestige of a naive copy conception of perception; that it is a primrose path leading to the coal-pit of skepticism; that talk of "correspondence" corresponds to nothing;

8


that it is informed by dubious suppositions about reference and meaning; that "facts" are insubstantial penumbras cast by language; that there is no extralinguistic reality for language to represent; that the theory is a pre-Kantian relic which uncritically assumes we can judge our conceptual scheme from a God's eye point of view; that it fares best with truisms about recumbent felines, but is easy prey for less domesticated beasts (e.g. negations, disjunctions, conjunctions, conditionals); and — worst of all — that it is an answer to an illposed question, the mere product of "a linguistic muddle" (in the words of F.P.Ramsey). 6

2.2

The New Wave of Pragmatism

Here are a half-dozen prominent denunciations of correspondence issued in recent decades: Richard Rorty rejects any account according to which mind or language mirror nature: "we must get the visual, and in particular the mirroring, metaphors out of our speech altogether" (Rorty 1979: 371). Since "several hundred years have failed to make interesting sense of the notion of'correspondence' " (Rorty 1982a:xvii), truth does "not name a relation between utterances on the one hand and 'the world' on the other" (Rorty 1976b: 322). Rorty accordingly entreats us to "see the term 'corresponds to how things are' as an automatic compliment paid to successful normal discourse rather than as a relation 7 to be studied and aspired to throughout discourse" (Rorty 1979: 371—2). Nelson Goodman, too, informs us that "truth must be otherwise conceived than as correspondence with a ready-made world" (Goodman 1978: 94). His anti-correspondence convictions date from his paper "The Way the World Is," in which he dismissed the picture theory of language as "obviously wrong" and argued there can be no representation of the way the world is, for the simple reason that "there is no such thing as the structure of the world for anything to conform to or fail to conform to" (Goodman 1960: 24, 31). Like Goodman, Thomas Kuhn contends there is no way the world is absolutely, only various ways it is relative to incommensurable paradigms. He therefore denies that science's goal is to formulate theories whose ontology is such that there is a "match between the entities with which the theory populates nature and what is 'really there' " (Kuhn 1970: 206). He rejected the related suggestion that the superiority of one theory over its rivals consists in its being "a better representation of what nature is really like" (Kuhn 1970: 206). To say science progresses is thus not to say that we are getting better at representing reality's intrinsic structure; for there is no such structure. Hilary Putnam regards as ruinous "the current dichotomy between copy theories of truth and subjective accounts of truth" (Putnam 1981: xi), and he

The Decline and Fall of Correspondence

9

seeks a via media between metaphysical realism and relativism. Central to this irenic attempt at mediation is Putnam's Peircean-sounding proposal to gloss truth as "some sort of (idealized) rational acceptability . . . and not correspondence" (Putnam 1981:50). Putnam's internal realism claims inspiration from Kant, whom he credits with being the first to acknowledge the shortcomings of the correspondence theory: "Kant was the first really to see that describing the world is not simply copying it" (Putnam 1995:28).8 According to Donald Davidson, the idea of correspondence is "not so much wrong as empty" (Davidson 2000: 66). Initially, Davidson was critical of correspondence theories of truth because of the difficulties in "finding a notion of fact that explains anything, that does not lapse, when spelled out, into the trivial or the empty" (Davidson 1969: 37). He has supplemented this attack on facts with a swipe at "the representational picture of language" (Davidson 1990: 281). Once we reject this picture, we are free to acknowledge "beliefs are true or false, but they represent nothing. It is good to be rid of representations, and with them the correspondence theory of truth" (Davidson 1989: 165).9 Jiirgen Habermas claims that "the truth of a proposition can no longer be conceived as correspondence with something in the world" (Habermas 2000:40). In addition, Habermas has declared that any theory of truth "according to which the reversibly univocal correlation of statements and matters of fact must be understood as isomorphism" is "naive" and he speaks slightingly of "the prescientific interpretation of knowledge as a copy of reality" (Habermas 1968: 69, 89). Drawing on Kant and Husserl, he criticizes "the objectivist illusion that deludes the sciences with the image of a reality initself consisting of facts structured in a lawlike manner" and asserts that "statements are not simple representations of the facts in themselves" (Habermas 1968:305, 308). Besides rejecting realism, Habermas follows Strawson 11 and Davidson in banishing facts from the world.

2.3 The American Revolution Two features of this anti-correspondence movement are especially salient and deserving of mention. First, the rejection of correspondence is total and uncompromising. Davidson claims the idea of correspondence is "without content" and "cannot be made intelligible" (Davidson 1990: 303—4); Goodman calls it "incomprehensible" (Goodman 1988: 154); Habermas speaks of its "self-contradictoriness" (Habermas 1973: 5); Putnam spurns "the whole idea of truth's being defined or explained in terms of a 'correspondence'" (Putnam 1982b:41); Kuhn

10


confesses that "the notion of a match between the ontology of a theory and its 'real' counterpart in nature now seems to me illusive in principle" (Kuhn 1970: 206); and Rorty tells us that "the intuition that truth is correspondence should be extirpated rather than explicated" (Rorty 1985b: 79-80). What is deemed flawed, in short, is not this or that form of correspondence theory, but the very idea that truth is accuracy of representation. Their attitude is nicely captured by Strawson's bon mot: "The correspondence theory requires, not purification, but elimination" (Strawson 1950: 129). Second, members of the anti-correspondence camp typically connect this zero-tolerance stance with the grand tradition of American pragmatism. Nowhere is this tendency more pronounced than in the case of Rorty, for whom "pragmatism . . . consists very largely in the claim that only if we drop the whole idea of 'correspondence with reality' can we avoid pseudoproblems" (Rorty 1986: 132). Yet this attitude is not confined to him. Habermas, who has acknowledged his debts to "the sober insights of pragmatism" (Habermas 1987b:206), alludes to "the difficulties of the correspondence theory of truth that have been repeatedly raised since Peirce" (Habermas 1993: 29). Karl-Otto Apel has claimed that the consensus theory of truth of Peircean provenance to which both he and Habermas subscribe "makes it possible to avoid every form of uncritical 'external' or 'metaphysical realism' and the correspondence theory of truth" (Apel 1981: unpaginated introduction). In the wake of the (supposed) collapse of metaphysical realism, Putnam remarks that "the only direction I myself see as making sense [is] a species of pragmatism" (Putnam 1982a:225); elsewhere he confesses he "should have called it [i.e. his own internal realism] pragmatic realism" (Putnam 1987: 17), and he has never concealed what his understanding of truth as "an idealization of warranted assertibility" (Putnam 1979: 167) owes to Peirce and to Dewey. Even Davidson, a primitivist about truth, agrees with Rorty that his own position "should properly be classed as belonging to the pragmatist tradition" (Davidson 1987: 134), averring that "the problem the pragmatists were addressing — the problem of how to relate truth to human desires, beliefs, intentions, and the use of language — seems to me the right one to concentrate on in thinking about truth" (Davidson 1990:280).

2.4

Is Pragmatism Coherent?

Consideration of the points just mentioned naturally disposes us to reflect on the relation of the new to the old, and invites us to ponder pragmatisms present and past — and the nature of their relationship with the correspondence 13 theory of truth. 13 In Part I of this study, I should like to focus on a single


11

question — namely, "Is pragmatism coherent?" This question converts itself into a trinity, however; for in it lurk and work three distinct meanings of "coherence": coherence as rationality, coherence as systematicity, and coherence as unity. Let us take these in turn. (a) Coherence as rationality. To ask whether pragmatism is coherent in the first sense — coherence as rationality — is to ask whether pragmatists offer a reasoned account or justification of their critical claims about truth. Do pragmatists present any arguments that repay careful study? Or are they rather freelance therapists and fast-talking edifiers? (b) Coherence as systematicity. To ask whether classical pragmatism is coherent in our second sense — coherence as systematicity — is to consider whether pragmatism's views on truth and kindred matters constitute a body of propositions which fit together harmoniously and reinforce each other. Are pragmatist claims about truth stray and scattered, or integrated and interconnected? (c) Coherence as unity. To ask whether pragmatism is coherent in our final sense — coherence as unity — is to ask what (if anything) unites the diverse lot classified as pragmatists. Does the suspiciously elastic word "pragmatist" — an epithet courteously extended to a heterogeneous group of thinkers — really stand for a well-defined philosophical outlook? We may well wonder. 15 These are the three principal issues with which we shall be preoccupied in Part I. It should go without saying that we cannot make much progress on these questions unless we resist the seductive lure of the apothegm; instead of tossing off interpretative one-liners, we must sedulously analyze theses and arguments as we find them articulated in the original texts. To the best of my knowledge, however, no one has attempted a detailed study of pragmatist arguments bearing on the correspondence theory of truth. In Part I, I hope to remedy this deficiency, or — more modestly (and pragmatically) — make a solid start on which others may build and improve.

2.5 Part I: A Structural Overview Here is the plan of Part I. In Chapter 3, I attend to the comparison objection, which asserts that the correspondence theory leads to skepticism (since we cannot verify empirical beliefs by "comparing" them with an unconceptualized reality). Chapter 4 deals with the constructivist objection, according to which the correspondence intuition cannot be reconciled with the postKantian understanding of the mind as a creative source of cognitive form (as opposed to being an inert mirror or malleable tabula rasa). In Chapter 5, we re-examine the question of pragmatism's threefold coherence in light of lessons learned in Chapters 3 and 4.

12

The Varieties of Pragmatism Notes

1. Cf. Bacon (1625: 5), "OfTruth." 2. I shall stealthily side-step the question of truth-bearers; for, unless I indicate otherwise, I do not take myself to be making any points which depend crucially on what they are. See Mackie (1973: 17-22) and Alston (1996: 9-22) for commentary. 3. A. C. Ewing put it well: the correspondence theory of truth "is the common-sense theory in so far as common-sense can be said to have a theory at all" (Ewing 1951:53). Cf. Trigg (1980:8) and Wright (1992:25-7, 82) on the Correspondence Platitude. 4. The early Wittgenstein (1921), that is. 5. Though Walker (1989) classifies Spinoza as a coherence theorist. But cf. Spinoza (1677:1, Axiom 6). 6. For an insightful discussion of correspondence theories, see Kiinne (2003: 93—174). He does not discuss most of the objections mentioned, however. 7. See Appendix A. 8. See Appendix B. 9. Davidson does pay correspondence theories a back-handed compliment, however: "Correspondence, while it is empty as a definition, does capture the thought that truth depends on how the world is, and this should be enough to discredit most epistemic and pragmatic theories" (Davidson 2000: 73). 10. On Habermas's consensus theory of truth, see Hesse (1980), Chapter 9; and Swindal (1999). 11. Cf. Habermas (1973:4). 12. Putnam's phraseology is an acknowledgment of sorts, since the term "warranted assertibility" was coined by Dewey (1938), (1941). 13. It also reminds us of a trend to which John Passmore wittily called attention: "It is an extraordinarily widespread phenomenon, this tendency of American philosophers to turn pragmatist as they grow older" (Passmore 1985: 121). 14. Here is a list — doubtless incomplete — of philosophers whose work has been said to contain pragmatist elements: Apel, Brandom, Carnap, Davidson, Foucault, Goodman, Haack, Habermas, Heidegger, Kuhn, C. I. Lewis, Mead, Nietzsche, Papini, Popper, Putnam, Quine, Ramsey, Rescher, Rorty, Santayana, Sellars, and the later Wittgenstein. (This, of course, is in addition to the founders — Peirce, Schiller, James, and Dewey — among whom there were significant and undeniable differences). 15. A longstanding grievance. F. H. Bradley remarked: "I cannot believe that socalled Pragmatists are really of one mind either as to what they assert or as to what they deny" (Bradley 1914:66). The locus classicus of this complaint is A. O. Lovejoy's "The Thirteen Pragmatisms" (1908; 1963) — still worth consulting, almost a century on. More recently, Simon Blackburn has noted that "pragmatism" is "conferred on anything from a vague sympathy with empiricism, to a redundancy theory or disbelief in the prospects for any serious theory of truth at all" (Blackburn 1984: 259). Indeed, even those desirous of associating themselves


16.

17.

13

with this tradition have qualms about the term; cf. Rorty (1980: 160) and Putnam (1983:225). Rorty gets rid of this temptation by yielding to it. For he is inordinately fond of offering "brief sloganistic characterizations" (i.e. self-serving stipulative definitions) of pragmatism (Rorty 1980: 162). Here is a representative sample of excellent studies of pragmatism which do not contain detailed discussions of arguments related to correspondence (Needless to say, this is not meant as a criticism.): (1) General: Thayer (1981); Scheffler (1986); West (1989); Murphy (1990); (2) Peirce: Apel (1981); Skagestad (1981); Hookway (1985); Misak (1991); (3) James: Myers (1986); Sprigge (1993); (4) Dewey: Sleeper (1986); Tiles (1988).

3

Keeping Reality in Mind: The Comparison Objection

Why does man not see things? He is himself standing in the way: he conceals things.

— Friedrich Nietzsche1

3.0 Introduction The first argument on the agenda is the venerable comparison objection, designed to demonstrate that the correspondence theory of truth plays right into the skeptic's hands by making truth epistemically inaccessible. We may formulate the argument as follows: If truth is a matter of correspondence, then we can verify our beliefs only if we can compare some of them directly with reality and find out whether they agree with the way things are. Since we cannot possibly perform such a comparison, the intuitively appealing idea that truth is correspondence ironically results in something virtually no one wants to accept — namely, skepticism. So unless we are prepared to concede that knowledge of the external worldis an impossibility, we must give up the correspondence theory infavor of some conception of truth that can do justice to our claims to know.

This is supposed to be a purely epistemological objection — one which does not depend or turn on any particular characterization of the correspondence relation. It should therefore be distinguished from four arguments with which it might be confounded: (1) First, recall the Berkeleyan complaint that our beliefs cannot correspond to a mind-independent reality; for correspondence is said to involve resemblance, but "only an idea can resemble another idea." Underlying Berkeley's baroque rhetoric is a worry later voiced by Royce, Santayana, Heidegger, and Goodman about the (im)possibility of correspondence, construed as similitude between ontologically heterogeneous items. Observe, however, that this concern about representation is logically prior to the epistemological issue raised by the comparison objection; if correspondence between beliefs and non-beliefs is impossible, there is no problem about knowing whether one's beliefs correspond to non-beliefs. (2) According to idealists such as Berkeley and Schopenhauer, the very idea of comparing our representations with a mind-independent world is

Keeping Reality in Mind15

15

absurd because that world is inconceivable. Our old-school idealist asks: if we have experience of nothing but mind-dependent items — one's perceptions, say, or ideas — then how can we form a conception of a mind-independent reality? As a loyal empiricist, he concludes we cannot. And yet without the world of metaphysical realism, our no-nonsense notion of representation selfdestructs — as in a mind-bending meta-painting by Magritte. For the sturdy, worldly pole of the contrast on which that notion depends has dissolved and melted into air. Our idealist thus pronounces comparison impossible on the grounds that there is nothing outside of thought for thought to match. Proponents of the comparison objection do not go that far; as we shall see, the case against confronting beliefs with an objective reality is not necessarily predicated on realism's denial.6 (3) P. F. Strawson once urged that the concept of a fact cannot be used to elucidate the concept of truth because a fact just is a true statement. But — or so one might plead — if facts and true statements are identical, we cannot compare them; for genuine comparison arguably requires two distinct items.8 Here it must be stressed that proponents of the comparison argument do not need to assume that facts are true statements by another name. (4) Finally, mention must be made of a difficulty described by Paul Moser.9 Suppose truth is identified with correspondence, and correspondence is equated with some sort of complicated isomorphism or picturing that can be understood only by means of rigorous philosophical analysis. In that case, the dull Gave-Dwellers who cannot comprehend that ultra-sophisticated relation — meaning everyone, save a savvy clutch of Philosopher Kings and Queens — will be unable to believe that any given proposition is true. But a philosopher who presses the comparison objection does not need to think of correspondence as picturing; her point is that we can never know that beliefs correspond to reality, regardless of how correspondence is explicated. And so, she urges, correspondence — be it grandly isomorphic or no — must go. We have now clarified what the comparison objection does not affirm. But just what does it affirm, and what are we to make of it? My aim, in what follows, is twofold: first, to determine what the comparison objection tells us about the correspondence theory of truth; second, to explore the objection's relation to the tradition of pragmatism. I begin with the latter project.

3.1 The Comparison Objection from Schiller to Rorty Let me begin with a not-so-shocking confession: the comparison argument is not the exclusive property of pragmatists. The intuition that the correspondence theory should be abandoned on account of its allegedly unacceptable

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epistemological consequences has been bandied about in one form or another for well over three centuries by thinkers of divergent philosophical orientations. Indeed, in the first half of the twentieth century, the comparison objection was instrumental in two very different attempts to vindicate a coherence theory of truth. During the heyday of the Vienna Circle, the objection turns up in the course of an internecine squabble: rejecting Moritz Schlick's views on truth, Otto Neurath and Carl Hempel turned coherentist, citing as their chief reason "the fatal confrontation of statements and facts .. . and all the embarrassing consequences connected with it" (Hempel 1935a:51). Toiling away at the other end of the philosophical spectrum, the absolute idealist Brand Blanshard lucidly summed up the objection's gist in The Nature of Thought: "[I]f we can know fact only through the medium of our own ideas, the original forever eludes us" (Blanshard 1939: II 268-9). The comparison objection is therefore not peculiar to pragmatists. Nonetheless, the argument has been central to their case against correspondence from the time of the classical pragmatists down to the present day. This is reflected in an obiter dictum of F. G. S. Schiller, the Oxford pragmatist, who characterized pragmatism as follows: In its logical aspect pragmatism originates in a criticism of fundamental conceptions like "truth," "error," "fact," and "reality," the current accounts of which it finds untenable or unmeaning. "Truth," for instance, cannot be defined as the agreement or correspondence of thought with "reality," for how can thought determine whether it correctly "copies" what transcends it? (Schiller 1929:413) Here is another passage in which Schiller brandishes the comparison objection with panache: 12 The well-known dictum that truth consists in an "agreement" or "correspondence" of thought with its object ... speedily leads to a hopeless impasse, once the question is raised: How are we to know whether or not our "truth" "corresponds" or "agrees" with its real object? For to decide this question must we not be able to compare "thought" with "reality," and to contemplate each as it is apart from the other? This, however, seems impossible. (Schiller 1912:45-6) William James expressed similar doubts about the idea of measuring human thought against an absolute reality. Such a reality, James thinks, is inaccessible to us: "When we talk of a reality 'independent' of human thinking, then, it seems a thing very hard to find" (James 1907: 112). As a result, we cannot gauge the adequacy of our ideas and theories by comparing them directly

Keeping Reality in Mind

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with something non-human and independent: "How does the partisan of absolute reality know what this orders him to think? He cannot get direct sight of the absolute; and he has no means of guessing what it wants of him except by following the humanistic clues" (James 1909:72). Among the classical pragmatists, however, emphasis on the epistemological consequences of correspondence is most salient in the writings of John Dewey. His oft-repeated grievance — that so-called "copy" theories of truth make an unfathomable mystery of verification, turning it into an absurd "process of comparing ready-made ideas with ready-made facts" (Dewey 1890: 87) — lies at the centre of his celebrated exchange with Bertrand Russell. Dewey sees as fatal to the cause of correspondence the following problem, which he describes as "a fundamental difficulty that Mr. Russell's view cannot get over or around": The event to be known is that which operates, on his view, as cause of the proposition while it is also its verifier; although the proposition is the sole means of knowing the event! Such a view .. . seems to me to assume a mysterious and unverifiable doctrine of pre-established harmony. How an event can be (i) what-is-to-be-known, and hence by description is unknown, and (ii) what is capable of being known only through the medium of a proposition, which, in turn, (iii) in order to be a case of knowledge or be true, must correspond to the to-be-known, is to me the epistemological miracle. For the doctrine states that a proposition is true when it conforms to that which is not known save through itself. (Dewey 1941:343) For Dewey, the problem facing traditional correspondence accounts was simple: "How can anybody look at both an object (event) and a proposition about it so as to determine whether the two 'correspond'?" (Dewey 1941: 352). Quine echoes Dewey when, less than a decade later, he tells us that [W]e cannot detach ourselves from it [i.e. our conceptual scheme] and compare it objectively with an unconceptualized reality. Hence it is meaningless, I suggest, to inquire into the absolute correctness of a conceptual scheme as a mirror of reality. Our standard for appraising basic changes of a conceptual scheme must be, not a realistic standard of correspondence to reality, but a pragmatic standard. (Quine 1950: 79) Richard Rorty, the most vocal member of the contemporary anticorrespondence chorus, also sings the same tune as Dewey. In his efforts to persuade us that language is not a medium of representation meant to mirror nature, Rorty has repeatedly invoked the comparison objection, the intuitive core of which is discernible in writings spanning a quarter-century:

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[Tjhere is no point in raising questions of truth .. . because between ourselves and the thing judged there always intervenes mind, language, a perspective chosen among dozens, one description chosen out of thousands. (Rorty 1976a:67) [Tjhere is no way to get outside of our beliefs and our language so as to find 16 some test other than coherence. (Rorty 1979: 178) [Tjhere is no way to hold the world in one hand and our descriptions of it in the other and compare the two. (Rorty 1981b: 180) [A] ny specification of a referent is going to be in some vocabulary. Thus one is really comparing two descriptions of a thing rather than a description with the thing-in-itself .. . [W]e shall not see reality plain, unmasked, naked to our gaze. (Rorty 1981d: 154) [T]he attempt to say "how language relates to the world" by saying what makes certain sentences true is, on this view, impossible. It is the impossible attempt to step outside our skins — the traditions, linguistic and other, within which we do our thinking and self-criticism — and compare ourselves with something absolute. (Rorty 1982a:xix) [Tjhere is no way to compare descriptions of the world in respect of adequacy ... (Rorty 1982a:xlvii) [Y]ou can't compare your beliefs with something that isn't a belief to see if they match. (Rorty 1985b: 83) [Correspondence ... cannot be a relation whose existence could be established by confronting an assertion with an object to see if a relation called "corresponding" holds. Nobody knows what such a confrontation would look like. (Rorty 1986: 130) [IJnquiry does not consist in confrontation between beliefs and objects, but rather in the quest for a coherent set of beliefs. (Rorty 1988b: 101) [W]e can only compare languages or metaphors with one another, not with something beyond language called "fact." (Rorty 1989: 20) Ironists agree with Davidson about our inability to step outside our language in order to compare it with something else ... (Rorty 1989: 75) [Y]ou cannot validate an assertion by confronting an object (e.g., a table, the concept "tablehood," or the Platonic Idea of Table), but only by asserting other sentences. (Rorty 1989b: 110) [Tjhere is no independent test of the accuracy of correspondence ... unless we can attain what [Putnam] calls a God's-eye standpoint — one which has


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somehow broken out of our language and our beliefs and tested them against something known without their aid. But we have no idea what it would be like to be at that standpoint. (Rorty 199la: 6) James and Dewey . .. agreed with their idealist opponents that doubts about a beliefs correspondence to reality can only be settled by assessing the coherence of the dubious belief with other beliefs. (Rorty 1995a: 281) Pragmatists agree with Wittgenstein that there is no way to come between language and its object. Philosophy cannot answer the question: is our vocabulary in accord with the way the world is? ... [W]e cannot check our language against our nonlinguistic awareness. . . (Rorty 1998a: 127) [W]e shall never be able to step outside language, never be able to grasp reality unmediated by a linguistic description. (Rorty 1999: 48) The misgivings common to Dewey and Rorty have found expression in the work of a number of contemporary philosophers who want to free themselves of the traditional idea that truth means conformity or adequation to mindindependent fact. To wit: Nelson Goodman argues that "truth cannot be denned or tested by agreement with 'the world'" (Goodman 1978: 17) and urges us to reject "the absurd notions of science as the effort to discover a unique, prepackaged, but unfortunately undiscoverable reality, and of truth as agreement with that inaccessible reality" (Goodman 1988: 49). This stance is a corollary of Goodman's conviction that there is no ready-made reality, only a rich and irreducible plurality of man-made versions. World-versions, however, cannot be measured "by comparing [them] with a world undescribed" (Goodman 1978:4). 17 Hilary Putnam credits Kant with teaching us that "the whole idea of comparing our conceptual system with a world of things-in-themselves ... to see if the conceptual system 'copies' the unconceptualized reality is incoherent" (Putnam 198la: 177). It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that Putnam opposes the copy conception of truth, arguing that "the notion of comparing our system of beliefs with unconceptualized reality makes no sense" (Putnam 1981: 130). In a recent book, Putnam has reaffirmed this objection: he insists "the idea of comparing our thoughts and beliefs, on the one hand, with things 'as they are in themselves,' on the other, makes no sense" (Putnam 2002: 100). Nicholas Rescher refuses to gloss truth as congruity with an in-itself reality on Kantian grounds, stressing "the essential inseparability of perception from conceptualizing thought" (Rescher 1973b: 10). From the claim that " 'raw experience' uncooked by conceptualization is not possible" (Rescher 1973b: 4), Rescher infers that "reality-as-we-think-of-it ( = our reality) is the

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only reality we can deal with" (Rescher 1973b: 169). He concludes that truth cannot be "a matter of corresponding to an in-principle inaccessible mindindependent reality" (Rescher 1973b: 168).18 Donald Davidson has expressed sympathy, not with Kant, but with those members of the Vienna Circle who defied Schlick: "There is no clear meaning to the idea of comparing our beliefs with reality or confronting our hypotheses with observations . .. No wonder Neurath and Garnap were attracted to the idea of a coherence theory!" (Davidson 1982: 477). For a time Davidson was content to follow Neurath, and upheld a coherence theory on the grounds that the correspondence theory required "a confrontation between what we believe and reality" (Davidson 1986: 307). He called the very idea of such a confrontation "absurd," however, since "we can't get outside our skins to find out what is causing the internal happenings of which we are aware" (Davidson 1986: 312). 19 Jiirgen Habermas, too, thinks we will harken to the idea that truth is correspondence only if we assume it is possible to "take up a standpoint between language and reality" — something Habermas dismisses as incoherent (Habermas 1992: 135). He denies correspondence because he thinks it requires us "to 'get outside of language' while using language" (Habermas 2000:40). But this, Habermas urges, is palpably absurd: "Obviously, we cannot compare linguistic expressions with a piece of uninterpreted or 'naked' reality" (Habermas 2000:40). Finally, the neo-Peircean Karl-Otto Apel calls attention to the "aporias of the metaphysical-ontological correspondence theory of truth," the most important of which consists in this, that "no one can look behind the mirror of phenomena and examine the agreement — assumed by the metaphysical correspondence theory of truth — between the phenomena represented or thought in judgments and the things-in-themselves" (Apel 1987: 125). We can see from this brief survey of neo-pragmatists that the comparison objection, far from being a dusty museum piece or embalmed curiosity, is alive and well. Its vitality, along with its longevity, suggest the argument merits sustained critical treatment, which I shall endeavor to provide here. My question is simple: Does the comparison objection refute the correspondence theory of truth? We cannot answer this question without first addressing another: On what grounds is comparison deemed impossible, and dismissed as absurd?

3.2

The No-Independent-Access Argument and Foundationalism

Traditionally, pragmatists have inveighed against the possibility of confrontation on the basis of the following argument:


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A subject can compare her empirical beliefs with the world only if she has unmediated access to that world — has, that is, a direct intuitive grasp of a denuded and unconceptualized reality. 20 Such access she can never have: unable to shed her conceptual scheme and get a glimpse of the world as it is in itself, she is condemned to remain imprisoned within the ring of her private representations, and, in consequence, cannotjoin together what God (or Nature) has put asunder. There is thus no hope of confronting our beliefs with the world, thefacts, or reality.

At this point the classical foundationalist protests. He thinks all this melodramatic and metaphorical talk of confrontation — of being cut off from the world or trapped within the circle of one's beliefs — only obscures an issue which is straightforward when seen in the proper light. Taking the traditional epistemic regress argument to show that not all justification can be mediate, that is, a matter of relations of inference or evidential support holding among beliefs, the foundationalist argues that, in addition to those beliefs which can be justified via an appeal to other beliefs, there must be some basic beliefs 21 whose status as justified does not depend upon the support of other beliefs. Some have alleged that such foundational judgments are epistemically justified in virtue of their relation to a privileged class of subjective states (i.e. sensory presentations) which provide us with unmediated acquaintance with things as they really are. According to our foundationalist, it is here — at the level of the simple ideas of classical empiricism, Russellian atomic propositions, or exotic Konstatierungen imported from Vienna — that we encounter reality in the raw via a mode of non-doxastic awareness or apprehension, and are vouchsafed the direct contact the enemies of correspondence would 22 deny us. If, however, the foundationalist is inclined to balk at his opponents' metaphors of confrontation and stepping outside one's conceptual scheme, he should at least admit that he, too, operates with his own preferred set of metaphors — metaphors in which substantive philosophical assumptions are embedded. He is held captive by a certain picture closely associated with what Wilfrid Sellars christened "the Myth of the Given": the mind is portrayed as passive, receptive, and inert, whereas the objects of knowledge impress themselves upon us in such a way that the mind, if functioning properly, is seemingly compelled to mirror them, representing them with a minimum of distortion (at least in the most elementary cases). The picture is a familiar one — in one form or another it has been implicit in the tradition of modern empiricism — but is it one we ought to accept? Here is an argument drawn from post-Kantian philosophy — we might call it "Hegel's dilemma" — which calls into question this way of thinking about cognition. Our foundationalist contends that basic empirical beliefs are justified by an appeal to a form of immediate apprehension known as the Given.

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Now — this is the dilemma's first horn — suppose that, as its supporters standardly urge, the Given is a direct sensory awareness of reality, a flood of raw and unprocessed experience; as such, it is not discursively mediated, that is, structured or interpreted by concepts. If the Given is unconceptualized, however, then it is bereft of cognitive content and thus neither asserts nor denies anything. Since a sublimely ineffable nothing can stand in no logical or epistemic relation to one's judgments or beliefs, the Given seems incapable of justifying basic beliefs and is therefore unfit to perform the function the foundationalist assigns to it. This is an unwelcome conclusion. Is there any way to avoid it? This brings us to the second horn of the dilemma. Suppose the foundationalist concedes that the Given is not an intuitive grasping of pure experience unsullied by conceptualization, but the result of interpreting and imparting structure to what would otherwise be a formless and unintelligible chaos (what James famously described as a "blooming buzzing confusion"). This may appear to promise escape to the correspondence theorist; after all, the Given (here understood as the product of imposing a scheme of categories on raw material) now possesses the prepositional or assertive content necessary to be an epistemic reason. But have matters really improved? Closer inspection suggests this route actually delivers the coup de grace. Once the organizing and synthetic activity of our cognitive faculties is allowed to enter the picture — once, that is, we appreciate the full force of the Kantian dicta that "intuitions without concepts are blind" (Kant 1781: A51/B76), and that spontaneity, no less than receptivity, is required for empirical knowledge — we must abandon the idea that there is some neutral and unconditioned source of content, some way we could meet reality face-to-face without the intervention of our powers of conceptualization and interpretation. And if that is indeed the case, it becomes hard to see how an appeal to the foundationalist's Given could save the correspondence theory of truth from the original objection.

3.3

Pragmatism on Foundationalism and the Given

Up to this point, our treatment of the no-independent-access argument has floated free of historical considerations; we have not tried to establish any connection between anti-foundationalism and pragmatism. What, then, do we discover when we turn to the original texts? The evidence is incontestable: virtually all philosophers associated with pragmatism have declared Givenism an untenable dogma of traditional empiricism. Pragmatists, we find, have little or no tolerance for the idea that our knowledge of the world ultimately rests upon a class of observational statements accorded privileged epistemic status in virtue of their special


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relation to objects or facts. To get a sense of how strong and constant a theme anti-foundationalism has been in the pragmatist movement, I shall trace its gradual emergence, beginning with the classical period, then dealing more briefly with more recent work affiliated with this tradition. A.

Classical pragmatism

Commentators have often described Peirce's general philosophical orientation as "anti-Cartesian." As tags and labels go, this seems an apt one. From his earliest papers in the late 1860s and early 1870s, many of the epistemological positions Peirce inveighed against were associated with Descartes: classical foundationalism; an obsession with absolute certainty; a reliance on occult mental faculties like intuition; an emphasis of introspection which reinforced the tendency to locate "the test of certainty in the individual consciousness" (CP 5.264); and so forth. The positive views Peirce espoused were similarly antithetical to what he called "the spirit of Cartesianism" (CP 5.264), the most conspicuous example being the contrast between the Peircean conception of inquiry as a fallible and self-correcting communal practice, on the one hand, and on the other, the quest of the solitary Cartesian ego seeking certainty in splendid isolation. What interests us here, however, is Peirce's hostility towards classical foundationalism, which dates from those 1868—69 papers in which he set out to exorcise the spirit of Cartesianism. For Peirce, justification is primarily a matter of coherence among beliefs, not a relation to something outside the circle of belief. Dismissing the Cartesian search for absolute indubitability as quixotic, he contended that we must get accustomed to the idea that no syntheticjudgment is guaranteed to be free from error and immune from revision: a//empirical claims are hypotheses subject to further review, and may undergo truth-value reversal if they cease to fit well with other members of one's total doxastic system. Such "contrite fallibilism" (CP 1.14) was, Peirce held, a defining characteristic of the scientific spirit [which] requires a man to be at all times ready to dump his whole cartload of beliefs, the moment experience is against them . . . [Pjositive science can only rest on experience; and experience can never result in absolute certainty, exactitude, necessity, or universality (CP1.55). Rejecting the metaphor of an adamantine foundation for knowledge, Peirce proposes another: science, he tells us, "is not standing upon the bedrock of facts. It is walking upon a bog, and can only say, this ground seems to hold for the present. Here I will stay till it begins to give way" (CP 5.589).

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Schiller, it would seem, never met a foundationalist-friendly metaphor he didn't dislike. There are, he tells us, no self-evident first principles which can prop up human knowledge — no truths discerned by unerring intuition which can form a rational basis for belief. To suppose otherwise is, he intimates, to confuse certainty with certitude: That men feel certain propositions to be indisputable and self-evident, cannot be taken as more than a psychical fact . .. Men have never agreed as to what truths are self-evident, and the mere fact that they feel certain about them proves too little or too much. Men of science and men of affairs, therefore, do not put their trust in intuitions, which habit or insanity are equally potent to produce. (Schiller 1910:85—6) Moreover, candor compels us to confess that the vaunted eternal verities come and go in a rather disconcerting fashion: "What truths have lasted like the Alps, or even like the Pyramids?" (Schiller 1907:205). If the history of inquiry teaches us anything, it is that no principles are sacrosanct — not even those laid down by Euclid and "consecrated by the tradition of 2000 years" (Schiller 1912: 86). The moral is plain: epistemologists should turn fallibilist and stop trying to unearth secure, rock-solid foundations for science. Schiller supplements these reflections with attacks on two views he associates with specifically empiricist versions of foundationalism which hold that the ultimate court of appeal for empirical beliefs is a privileged stratum of perceptual reports. First, Schiller opposes attempts to ground knowledge in our experience of the world by appealing to Lockean simple ideas, the Given, sense-data, apprehensions, appearances, and the like. Since "[w]e are not aware of any reality except by its representation in our 'thought' " (Schiller 1912: 46), we cannot test our ideas or representations against a reality existing independently of thought. In the absence of unmediated access to the world, therefore, claims of correspondence become vacuous: "Whether or not our ideas correspond with a transcendent reality it is futile to ask, because it is impossible to determine" (Schiller 1910:87). In short, justification must prove elusive so long as truth is glossed as conformity to an inaccessible set of "facts-in-themselves" (Schiller 1907: 123). Second, Schiller takes aim at what we might call "the myth of the wideopen mind": namely, the view that the human mind is an indiscriminating receptacle which gratefully accepts whatever facts the world is generous enough to deposit or drop into it. According to Schiller, the mind is far from passive or submissive: it sifts and sorts through the world's donations, an will reject input which won't fit or mix with the bulk of its stock. For this reason, Schiller maintains that truth-attributions are made, not in a belieffree vacuum, but against the background of a pre-existing worldview or


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theory: "the 'facts' we recognise are always relative to the 'truths' we predicate" (Schiller 1907: 123). But if this is correct - if what we call "facts" are just beliefs justified for us in virtue of their coherence with beliefs we already hold — what has become of the foundationalist idea of a belief-independent source oljustificationr Ever eager to reform the tradition of British empiricism, James was sharply critical of its foundationalist and Givenist presuppositions. Though he himself was avowedly anti-Hegelian — he decried "the entire industry of the Hegelian school in trying to shove simple sensations out of the pale of philosophical recognition" (James 1909: 12—13), and his spirited exchanges with Bradley and Royce are legendary — James nevertheless sympathized with several broad strands in the fabric of post-Kantian thought, including its attempt to overthrow the classical empiricist picture of the mind as purely passive and receptive in perception. Contesting the prevailing conceptions of experience as "something simply given" (James 1890 1:402) and of the mind as "absolutely passive clay, upon which 'experience' rains down" (James 1890 1:403), James insists that the very possibility of experience presupposes the application of mental categories, which order and structure the chaotic "blooming buzzing confusion" of the sensory manifold. His attack on foundationalism takes various forms: he emphasizes what he refers to as "the dumbness of sensations [which are] neither true nor false; they simply are" (James 1907: 111); denies that a subject's descriptions of her mental states are incorrigible, anticipates the doctrine that perception is theory-laden and conditioned by expectation — "we can hardly take in an impression at all, in the absence of a preconception of what impressions there may possibly be" (James 1907: 112) — and declares that the Givenist idea of a direct encounter with reality in the raw is a chimera: When we talk of a reality "independent" of human thinking, then, it seems a thing very hard to find. It reduces to the notion of what is entering into experience and has yet to be named, or else to some imagined aboriginal presence in experience, before any belief about the presence had arisen, before any human conception had been applied. It is what is absolutely dumb and evanescent, the merely ideal limit of our minds. We may glimpse it, but we never grasp it; what we grasp is always some substitute for it which previous human thinking has peptonized and cooked for our consumption. (James 1907:112) It is ironic: by rejecting the foundationalist conception of a non-judgmental mode of access to the facts in favor of the view that perception requires the fusion of sensational and conceptual elements, James comes down on the same side of the question as the post-Kantian idealists with whom he often

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found himself at loggerheads. In light of this convergence, it is less surprising to find James deploying something akin to the Hegelian dilemma in his treatment of mysticism in The Varieties of Religious Experience. Here James's concern is primarily epistemological: Can mystical experiences function as evidence for theistic claims? James's negative answer flows from his conviction that two distinctive characteristics of mystical experiences are mutually exclusive. The first of these marks is ineffability: the sort of mental state in question is such that it "defies expression, that no adequate report of its contents can be given . . . In this peculiarity mystical states are more like states of feeling than like states of intellect" (James 1902: 319). That is, James is inclined to deny that mystical experiences are states with prepositional content. However — and this brings us to the second point — those who have undergone mystical experiences do indeed regard them as cognitive, that is, as sources of knowledge or insight. Or, as James expresses it, a certain "noetic quality" is customarily attributed to such experiences: "[ajlthough so similar to states of feeling, mystical states seem to those who experience them to be also states of knowledge .. . They are illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance" (James 1902: 319).36 The problem is to understand how mystical states of consciousness can have both qualities at once: How can mystical experiences possess noetic quality and be ineffable? How can a state lacking assertive or prepositional content provide epistemic support for other claims? James suggests there is no way to resolve this tension. And this is essentially the first horn of Hegel's dilemma: if the Given is a form of immediate and non-conceptual apprehension, how can it possibly function as a reason, as a source of justification? Although James stops short of drawing a general anti-foundationalist moral in The Varieties of Religious Experience, his remarks indicate he was aware of this parallel. Dewey, the inheritor of Peirce's fallibilism, maintains that the assumption that knowledge must rest upon certain foundations blocks the road of inquiry, retarding intellectual progress: "The history of science shows that when hypotheses have been taken to be finally true and hence unquestionable, they have obstructed inquiry and kept science committed to doctrines that later turned out to be invalid" (Dewey 1938: 145). In his Gifford Lectures, The Questfor Certainty, Dewey explored the causes and effects of the traditional separation of theory from practice, and earned a reputation as a stern critic of foundationalist epistemologies in the process. His primary target is one consequence of the rigid theory/practice dichotomy: the "spectator theory of knowledge," which represents knowledge as a kind of idle contemplation or passive beholding which transforms the knower but not the objects known. The spectator theory, he argued, is the cul-de-sac into which the quest for certainty leads. For the traditional notion that knowledge (unlike nontheoretical or practical activity) requires certainty leads ineluctably to the


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view that the objects of knowledge must be immutable and hence cannot be altered by being known. Insisting on certainty thus forces us to say that "the object of knowledge is a reality fixed and complete in itself, in isolation from an act of inquiry which has in it any element of production of change" (Dewey 1929:23). Though Plato's Forms are the paradigmatic instance of such objects, Dewey is convinced that this set of assumptions has outlived the metaphysics of the ancients and continues to exert a pernicious if unacknowledged influence on modern philosophy. Indeed, he goes so far as to claim that practically all modern epistemologies have been spectator theories: Special theories of knowledge differ enormously from one another. Their quarrels with one another fill the air. The din thus created makes us deaf to the way in which they say one thing in common . .. They all hold that the operation of inquiry excludes any element of practical activity that enters into the construction of the object known . .. The common essence of all these theories, in short, is that what is known is antecedent to the mental act of observation and inquiry, and is totally unaffected by these acts; otherwise, it would not be fixed and unchangeable. This negative condition, that the processes of search, investigation, reflection, involved in knowledge relate to something having prior being, fixes once for all the main characters attributed to mind, and to the organs of knowing. They must be outside what is known, so as not to interact with the object to be known. (Dewey 1929:22-3) Empiricist foundationalism is a case in point. Its notion of immediate knowledge or the Given conforms to the basic structure of the spectatorial model: the subject passively apprehends an independent reality, reflecting or mirroring objects unchanged by being reproduced in the medium of intellect. Endorsing and extending Kant's insight that "sensible and rational factors ... are allies, cooperating to make knowledge possible" (Dewey 1929: 171), Dewey wants to get rid of Givenism — a doctrine which, as he sees it, has impeded philosophical progress: "The history of the theory of knowledge or epistemology would have been very different [i.e. better] if instead of the word 'data' or 'givens,' it had happened to start with calling the qualities in question 'takens' " (Dewey 1929: 178). Urging us to denounce the Given as a myth and to forego the quest for self-certifying certainties, Dewey's polemics against the spectator theory broaden and enrich the critique of Cartesian foundationalism initiated by Peirce six decades earlier. B.

Post-Deweyan pragmatism

The themes so dear to Dewey, James, Schiller, and Peirce — the rejection of the idea that objects are given to consciousness in a pristine pre-judgmental

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mode, and the denial of the suggestion that empirical knowledge rests on a sure and unalterable foundation — have figured prominently in the post-positivist critiques of traditional empiricism found in Wittgenstein, Quine, Popper, Kuhn, Goodman, Putnam, Rorty, Davidson, and Habermas. Here I shall enumerate only a few of the more noteworthy signs of this resistance: Wittgenstein's private-language argument, if sound, challenges foundationalist assumptions traditionally favored by empiricists prone to endorse a broadly Cartesian picture on which sensations or mental states — the foundations of knowledge — are private inner episodes to which a subject has privileged introspective access. Moreover, the phenomenon of "seeing as" (illustrated with the figure of a duck—rabbit) is significant in this context: it suggests the extent to which the output (whether one sees a duck or a rabbit) is underdetermined by the input (the visual stimulus). This stress on the interpretative dimension of perceptual experience puts the classical doctrine of the Given on the defensive. With mordant wit, Quine mocks the positivist dream of a neutral protocol language; there is, he quips, no "fancifully fancyless medium of unvarnished news" (Quine 1960: 2). For Quine, moreover, the metaphor which best captures the structure of our doxastic system is not that of an edifice built upon unyielding bedrock, but that of an unanchored raft which Neurath's mariners repair as they sail across the open sea. In the absence of unrevisable commitments or incorrigible statements, justification goes holistic, becoming a matter of maximizing coherence and fit within the system. Of particular importance is the preservation of equilibrium between the continuous barrage of sensory experience and the more entrenched theoretical statements which, though central to our current view of the world, are nonetheless potentially subject to revision. According to Karl Popper, "there are no uninterpreted 'data'; there is nothing simply 'given' to us" (Popper 1983: 102). Virgin experience is not to be had; all perception is "theory-impregnated" (Popper 1972: 72), that is, made fertile by background assumptions and expectations. Experience involves interpretation or "decoding" (Popper 1972: 36); but since the art of decoding is learned and fallible, "there is no absolute certainty" (Popper 1972: 37). Bereft of pure intuitions and rock-solid foundations, we must avow that human knowledge "is built on sand" (Popper 1972: 104). These themes are intimately connected to Popper's unwavering opposition to the so-called "bucket theory of mind" — a theory enshrined in the empiricist view of the mind as a container into which the undistilled spirits of experience pour, and in the related idea that empirical knowledge grows chiefly through the accumulation of facts. Influenced by considerations drawn from the history of science and, to a lesser extent, Gestalt psychology and Wittgenstein, Kuhn became


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dubious about the logical positivists' belief in a pure observation language in which we could frame "neutral and objective reports on 'the given' " (Kuhn 1970: 127). Judging the observation/theory distinction to be "exceedingly artificial" (Kuhn 1970: 52), he denied there could be any strict and categorical separation between them and spoke approvingly of "the intimate and inevitable entanglement of scientific observation with scientific theory" (Kuhn 1977: 267). Along with a holistic view of meaning, this commitment to the theory-laden character of observation forms the basis of Kuhn's argument for his incommensurability thesis. Long a foe of traditional foundationalism, Goodman acknowledges his debt to "the Kantian theme of the vacuity of the notion of pure content" and peppers his work with references to the "overwhelming case against perception without conception, the pure given, absolute immediacy," "the speciousness of the 'given'," and "the false hope of a firm foundation" (Goodman 1978:6, 1, 7). Observation is marinated in theory: facts, far from being absorbed by the mind, are "small theories" (Goodman 1978:97) made with the aid of symbol-systems and signs. Since reality is fashioned rather than found, "there is no world independent of description" (Goodman 1988: 154). Putnam is in substantial agreement with Goodman: in a review of Ways of Worldmaking he endorses thelatter's view that "perception is notoriously influenced by interpretations provided by habit, culture, and theory" (Putnam 1979: 155), and he has himself denied that there exist experiential inputs "which are not themselves to some extent shaped by our concepts... [or] conceptually contaminated" (Putnam 1981:54). Putnam insists the only access we have to the world is through discourse: "the idea that we sometimes compare our beliefs directly with unconceptualized reality ... has come to seem untenable ... [W]e compare our discourse with the world as it is presented to us or constructed for us by discourse itself" (Putnam 1984: 121). "Can we see ourselves as never encountering reality except under a chosen description?" queries Rorty, who has also singled out the foundationalist idea of Givenism for attack (Rorty 1982a: xxxix). Central to his case is his oftrepeated charge that foundationalism succumbs to "the urge to coalesce the justificatory story and the causal story" (Rorty 1986: 148): it maintains that some judgments are justified by their relation to something extra-linguistic transcending our web of belief, whereas the true nature of this relation is not rational but causal. Rorty goes so far as to claim that this conflation of the logical space of reasons with the natural space of causes is the original sin that made a discipline called epistemology seem fruitful and enticing: "[T] he notion of a 'theory of knowledge' will not make sense unless we have confused causation and justification in the manner of Locke" (Rorty 1979: 152). Davidson argues that traditional empiricism has failed to perceive that sensory input can only cause beliefs, not justify them. He credits Neurath with

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seeing that the foundationalist's error lies "in trying to turn this causal bridge into an epistemological one, with sense-data, uninterpreted givens, or unwritable sentences constituting its impossible spans" (Davidson 1982:488). Since "nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief" (Davidson 1986: 310), we should reconcile ourselves to the fact that "empirical knowledge has no foundation and needs none" (Davidson 1989: 166). Finally, Habermas has condemned foundationalism on the grounds that "we cannot confront our sentences with anything that is not already saturated linguistically" (Habermas 2000: 40). He observes that "we cannot break free from the magic circle of our language. This fact suggests an anti-foundationalist conception of knowledge and a holistic conception of justification" (Habermas 2000: 40).

3.4 Hegel or Neurath? By this point, it should be clear that pragmatists are profoundly unsympathetic to the foundationalist's attempt to save the correspondence theory of truth by invoking a special class of theory-free apprehensions of sense. However, caution is needed: despite the appearance of unanimity and concord, not all the writers mentioned have rejected foundationalism on the basis of the argument we looked at in §3.2. The pragmatist marriage of certain themes of post-Kantian philosophy with fallibilism means Hegel's dilemma is often found side by side with less persuasive attempts to refute foundationalism by denying that any beliefs are immune from revision. Before we examine the Hegelian objection in detail, then, we should distinguish it from an argument which it superficially resembles and with which it could easily be conflated. The basic conflation is nicely exemplified in the writings of the positivist Neurath. Opposing Schlick's foundationalism and the correspondence theory, Neurath sought to argue for a brand of coherentism by challenging Garnap's then-influential characterization of protocol statements as "statements which express a pure immediate experience without any theoretical addition." Neurath's case rested largely on two arguments which he often ran together — presumably because both assume that no rigid and categorical distinction can be drawn between theory and observation or judgment and experience: (i) The first argument, essentially Hegelian in orientation, runs thus: since all observation is contaminated or conditioned by theory, there is no nonjudgmental form of cognition, and hence no neutral experiential input or uptake against which one might test one's beliefs. (ii) The second argument also sets out from the claim that all observation statements are theory-laden or "processed" (Neurath 1932/33: 96). Assuming


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that whatever is theory-laden cannot provide us with a direct or unmediated grasp of the world, Neurath then infers that, at least in principle, no statement — not even mundane ground-floor observation sentences — can be regarded as certain or immune from revision: "[T]he fate of being discarded may even befall a protocol statement. There is no noli me tangere for any statement" (Neurath 1932/33: 95). Neurath appears to have been convinced that this second argument was suf ficient to refute both the correspondence theory and foundationalism. We may well wonder, though, whether he was entitled to be so sanguine. Treated as an attack on correspondence, it is hard to see how the argument from the theoryladen character of protocols adds anything substantial to Hegel's more straightforward argument. Seen as a raid on the foundationalist citadel, the second argument is decidedly inferior. For even if we grant Neurath his premises, the general anti-foundationalist conclusion would follow only if it is assumed that the foundations of knowledge must be absolutely certain. While it is true that some (e.g. G. I. Lewis) have followed this path, it is open to the foundationalist to opt for a more liberal line, and require only that basic beliefs possess a substantial degree of initial plausibility or intrinsic credibility. This means that the strongest moral one could draw from Neurath's second argument is not anti-foundationalism, butfallibilism.To its credit, the Hegelian objection wisely bypasses the question of certainty, seeing it as the side-issue it is (at least in this context). Instead, it sets up a dilemma that goes straight to the heart of empiricist foundationalism: either the Given is not a cognitive state with prepositional content (in which case it can justify nothing) or it is such a state (in which case it is itself a judgment in need of justification). Neurath has his counterparts among the pragmatists, several of whom — James, Dewey, Goodman, and Rorty — appear to have been tempted to equate these two arguments or to regard them as equally compelling. The case of Rorty is especially instructive, because it illustrates a problem which dogs Quinean (i.e. fallibilist—holist) critiques of foundationalism which waffle on this point. He inveighs against foundationalism on the grounds that it requires a set of "privileged representations" — a term he employs rather loosely. The ambiguity of this phrase suggests a dilemma the foundationalist might put to Rorty. If "privileged" is intended to refer to the epistemic status of beliefs, then either it means something along the lines of "certain" (indubitable, unrevisable), or it does not. Interpreted in the former sense, Rorty's objection falls squarely in the tradition of Dewey's polemic against the quest for certainty; nevertheless, we have seen that his foundationalist nemesis may plead not guilty with a good conscience. If, on the other hand, "privileged" does not carry this connotation, then there is at least one respectable sense of that term in which Rorty and his fellow holists are guilty of the very thing they accuse the foundationalist of doing. For we must not imagine that, in turning

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their back on the foundationalist's hierarchical or two-tiered picture of the structure ofjustification, holists are advocating some form of doxastic egalitarianism and putting all our beliefs on a par. Far from it! The Quinean also discriminates — but he distinguishes, not between sub- and super-structure, but between centre and periphery. Statements of the former order occupy a privileged position within the totality of our beliefs: when reweaving our web of belief to accommodate recalcitrant experiences they are the strands we are least likely to disturb, or (to vary the metaphor) they are the planks on which we take our stand as we rebuild Neurath's raft. In light of this, considerations of charity suggest we interpret the Rortyean—Quinean holist as objecting to the claim that some beliefs owe their epistemic status solely to their relation to something non-doxastic (i.e. experience, reality, the world). That is to say, we are led back to Hegel.

3.5 Supervenience To the Rescue Let us set aside historical and exegetical issues and focus on the noindependent-access argument. Our question is straightforward: Is Hegel's dilemma as devastating as some anti-foundationalists have been inclined to suppose? Let us direct our attention to the two principles responsible for generating the difficulty: (1) If there exists some mental statej to which S's beliefs owes its epistemic status (such thatjy is a sufficient condition for x's being justified for S), thenj itself must be a candidate for epistemic assessment or justification. (2) Only doxastic states are candidates for justification. If the foundationalist wants to combat the Hegelian menace, he must find fault with at least one of these theses. Thesis (2) seems defensible, however, since it can be validly derived from two unobjectionable assumptions: (i) only those states of a subject which are potentially bearers of truth or falsity are candidates for epistemic appraisal; and (ii) beliefs are the only mental states which are truth-bearers. Thus it is to the first principle foundationalists must look if they are to refute Hegel. Fortunately for them, it is not difficult to find fault with (1), since it is inconsistent with the intuitively plausible doctrine that epistemic properties supervene on non-epistemic ones (which might be seen as a corollary of a more general thesis, namely, that evaluative properties supervene on non-evaluative ones). Given two distinct families of properties, a and f3, we may say that a supervenes on [3 just in case it is necessarily true that if two things share all properties in (3 then they must share all properties in a. Surely some form of this doctrine is attractive: it seems to make no sense to suppose that an individual man could


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be a good man, although a person exactly like him in all non-ethical respects was not; that a work of art might be beautiful but one identical to it in all nonaesthetic respects be ugly; that a belief is justified, whereas one endowed with all and only those naturalistic properties the former possesses might have an entirely different epistemic status; and so forth. If, however, the epistemic properties of a belief (being justified, evident, certain, and the like) are indeed dependent upon its non-epistemic or naturalistic properties in such a way that the former are determined once the latter are fixed, nothing would seem to prevent us from allowing that a basic beliefs derives its justification from its origin or, for instance, is warranted in virtue of the fact that x was causally produced byjy, the experience which the belief is about. This suffices to show that the suggestion that a doxastic state might derive its positive epistemic status from a non-doxastic state is neither paradoxical nor irredeemably mysterious. Granted, it would be incorrect to claim thatj> justifies x, if that is taken to mean thatji transmits justification to x \y, as a non-doxastic state, is simply not the type of thing to which the category ofjustification can be applied. Rather, we ought to say that the non-cognitive statey generates x'$ justification. If this is correct, then we should reject thesis (1); for the foundationalist can use the supervenience thesis to defend his position against those who assume epistemic properties are metaphysically autonomous. And such adversaries are not as rare as foundationalists might hope: the idea that criteria of justification cannot be formulated in non-normative terms arguably lies at the root of four positions which have exerted considerable influence within the theory ofknowledge: (i) Popper's treatment of the problem of the empirical basis, in which he denied that basic observational reports could be justified by experience. (ii) Some of Sellars's anti-Givenist quips in "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind."59 (iii) Rorty's complaint that foundationalist epistemology follows Locke in confusing causation and justification. (iv) Davidson's critique of the attempt to ground justification in the testimony of the senses.

3.6

Two Further Difficulties

So far we have confined our discussion to the first part of the comparison objection: the no-independent-access argument. We shall now focus on the objection's latter half, in which it is assumed that the doughty champions of correspondence lose — and the wily skeptic wins — unless we can compare our beliefs with an unconceptualized reality. But this assumption seems questionable. Consider the following pair of objections:

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The Varieties of Pragmatism Conflation of metaphysical and epistemological issues

The Achilles heel of the objection is its failure to distinguish clearly between the nature of truth, on the one hand, and its criterion, on the other. The Pilate-like question, "What is truth?" can be construed as "What is the nature (or essence) of truth? That is, in virtue of what property or properties are true statements true?" This query — a request for a formal definition — dif fers from the question "What is the criterion of truth?," which can be reformulated as "In virtue of what property or properties can true beliefs be recognized or identified as such by the believer?" Since a criterion is supposed to provide a test enabling an epistemic subject to determine whether her belief is true, it can function effectively only if the properties it claims correlate positively with truth are detectable by the subject through reflection or introspection. Hence if we are prepared to concede that (in Davidson's words) "we can't get outside our skins to find out what is causing the internal happenings of which we are aware" (Davidson 1986: 312), then correspondence, as a relation holding between something in the mind and something wholly outside it, cannot serve as a truth-criterion. Even so, how is this supposed to constitute a refutation of the correspondence theory of truth? Since that theory is concerned with the definition of truth and not with its test(s), the argument's anti-correspondence conclusion is a blatant non sequitur.

B.

Internalism

Why should we see the absurdity of confrontation as proof positive that the correspondence theory entails the impossibility of empirical knowledge? Presumably, the assumption that is supposed to license this inference is that none of S's basic empirical beliefs possesses the degree of warrant required for knowledge unless S can compare it with the relevant state of affairs and so ensure her belief passes the test laid down by the truth-criterion. However, in maintaining that a truth-criterion is needed to stave off skepticism, the objectors have assumed that S's beliefs qualify as justified only if she herself justifies them; that is, has in her cognitive possession supporting arguments, reasons, or evidence. We may describe this stance as broadly internalist, since it assumes that what justifies a belief must be an object of possible awareness, that is, something to which the subject for whom that belief is justified could have reflective cognitive access. Such a conception of epistemic justification seems unduly narrow, however, and has in recent decades been put on the defensive by various species of externalism which currently dominate the epistemological landscape. Theories of the latter sort — such as those which explicate justification in terms of the reliability of belief-forming processes — countenance the existence of


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justification-making properties not disclosed or ascertained through reflection or introspection. This suggests that if the correspondence conception of truth is allied to a reliabilist epistemology, a subject's true belief could acquire the epistemic status necessary for knowledge even though the subject might not be in a position to adduce reasons as support — provided (say) her belief is the product of a reliable cognitive faculty or intellectual virtue.

3.7

A Case for Coherence?

We observed in §3.1 that the comparison objection has often been invoked by philosophers who favor a coherence theory of truth as part of a larger effort to discredit their competition and make a persuasive prima facie case for their own view. Neurath is a case in point. In a well-known passage, he wrote: Statements are compared with statements, not with "experiences," not with a "world" not with anything else. All these meaningless duplications belong to a more or less refined metaphysics and are therefore to be rejected. Each new statement is confronted with the totality of existing statements that have already been harmonized with each other. A statement is called correct if it can be incorporated into this totality. What cannot be incorporated is rejected as incorrect. (Neurath 1931/32:66) More recently, Hilary Putnam and Nicholas Rescher have also drawn coherentist morals from the alleged impossibility of confrontation and the consequent demise of correspondence. In Reason, Truth, and History, Putnam frames a conditional that makes this move explicit: If the notion of comparing our system of beliefs with unconceptualized reality makes no sense, then the claim that science seeks to discover the truth can mean no more than that science seeks to construct a world picture which, in the ideal limit, satisfies certain criteria of rational acceptability. (Putnam 1981: ISO 69 Rescher's case for the coherence theory of truth he defends as part of his conceptual idealism proceeds by way of a similar inference: Reality is thus not a mysterious unknowable something-or-other hidden away behind an impenetrable curtain . .. To take this stance is, in effect, to abandon the correspondence theory of truth for a coherence theory . . . One is led to take this line by considering that, as we have no theory-independent apprehension of reality, the best we can possibly do is to construct a coherent conceptual theoretical scheme about reality. (Rescher 1973b: 170)

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Is the dialectical strategy common to Neurath, Putnam, and Reseller sound? Apparently not. Let me suggest that if the argument in its present form creates trouble for the correspondence theory of truth, it also creates trouble for the coherence theory. If a coherence account is to be preferred to the correspondence view on the basis of the comparison objection, we must assume that an individual cognizer's system of beliefs, unlike an external realm of fact, is something to which he has unproblematic access. Yet it is far from obvious that this assumption is tenable. Consider these two objections: A.

A double standard?

Coherence theories are often thought appealing because they stress the connection between truth and human epistemic capacities, and so are believed to furnish us with a standard or criterion we can actually trust and use. To verify a belief or statement, we need not perform some miraculous selftranscending comparison: instead (as Neurath states), all we have to do is ensure that the new element fits harmoniously or coheres with — what, precisely? Given the coherentist emphasis on epistemic accessibility, we might suspect coherence with one's present corpus of beliefs is what is required. Yet this cannot be so: such an outright identification of truth with justification simpliciter is rendered problematic by the commonplaces that even well-justified beliefs can be false, and that truth, unlike justification, is not a property that a statement can lose. Evidently, a less easily obtainable form of coherence must be invoked:/) is true if and only if it would be a member of an ideally coherent (i.e. consistent, absolutely complete, and systematically integrated) set of beliefs. The trouble with this is obvious. Once the proponent of a coherence theory feels the need to posit some ideal system or focus imaginarius in terms of which truth is defined, he allows the comparison objection — his old ally — to reappear, this time in a decidedly unfriendly guise. For how now can S tell whether a given belief of hers, even if coherent with her current doxastic system, will be a member of the elect final set? B.

The circularity problem

On reviewing the principles assumed by the original argument, we immediately realize that in order to refute the skeptic, it is not enough that the beliefs of a subject merely cohere. To satisfy the skeptic, S would have to have in her cognitive possession some reason to suppose that her beliefs formed a systematically coherent and suitably comprehensive set. In order to determine whether and to what extent her beliefs constitute such a system, however, she must first possess an adequate grasp of what beliefs she actually holds. Now, what reason might she have to suppose that her meta-beliefs (i.e. beliefs


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about the contents of her belief system) are true, or apt to be true? Unless she has some such reason or assurance, she lacks justification and skepticism results (at least on the principles assumed by the comparison objection). Yet S's meta-beliefs cannot be justified by an appeal to coherence. To see why, suppose for a moment that her meta-beliefs could be justified in virtue of their coherence with her overall system of beliefs Bl—Bn. Given the constraint imposed by the assumed internalist conception of justification, it follows that S must know (or at least warrantedly suppose) that her meta-beliefs are in fact congruous with Bl—Bn. This presupposes, however, that she is aware she holds Bl—Bn; otherwise, how could she have any idea of the relations (logical, probabilistic, or explanatory) holding between them and her metabeliefs? Thus the attempt to justify meta-beliefs by appealing to coherence is objectionably circular, since it takes for granted the very thing we set out to prove — namely, that one possesses an adequate and accurate grasp of one's own doxastic system. All of this strongly suggests that coherence cannot be the criterion of truth. And since those who endorse the original objection to correspondence truth either disregard the distinction between criterion and essence altogether or maintain that something cannot constitute the nature of truth if it is not its criterion as well, we may turn the objectors' logic against them and conclude that coherence cannot be the nature of truth. I conclude that the advocates of a coherence theory of truth cannot profitably exploit the comparison argument. It seems about as inimical to their view as they think it is to the cause of correspondence.

3.8 Correspondence: A Regulative Ideal of Inquiry? It would therefore appear that the comparison objection fails to unseat the correspondence theory of truth. Does that mean that all the passages we reviewed earlier, ranging from the classical period to present, are nothing but a catalogue of an error with an impeccable pedigree? Surely that would be jumping to conclusions. In this final section, I shall propose a different interpretation of the argument, according to which its purpose is not to refute correspondence theories — let us not forget that Peirce (like James and Dewey) is willing to admit "conformity of thought with its object" as the nominal definition of truth (GP 1.578) — but simply to call attention to the methodological limitations of correspondence accounts. On this reading, the argument is intended to establish a purely negative thesis: that no representationalist notion is fit to function as a regulative or action-guiding ideal. In other words, understanding truth as correspondence does not furnish inquirers with rules of action.

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To see how one might argue that correspondence is not a conception of truth capable of assisting us in our efforts to pursue it, recall what Kant said about regulative Ideas in the Critique of Pure Reason. Although the three so-called "Transcendental Ideas" — the concepts of the soul, of the world, and of God — are not objects of knowledge (as they correspond to no object of possible experience), Kant insists they are not to be dismissed as vacuous notions with which reason can dispense. On the contrary, there is a methodological function the Ideas are uniquely qualified to perform: Although we must say of the transcendental concepts of reason that they are only ideas, this is not by any means to be taken as signifying that they are superfluous and void. For even if they cannot determine any object, they may yet, in a fundamental and unobserved fashion, be of service to the understanding as a canon for its extended and consistent employment. The understanding does not thereby obtain more knowledge of any object than it would have by means of its own concepts, but for the acquiring of such knowledge it receives better and more extensive guidance. (Kant 1781:A329/B385) Kant thus attributes heuristic value to these concepts: he argues that the Ideas, used immanently as providing rules or maxims for the empirical employment of reason, must be employed if reason is to satisfy its interest in achieving the greatest possible degree of systematic unity and coherence. The Transcendental Ideas are therefore methodologically indispensable, since they "contribute to the extension of empirical knowledge without ever being in a position to run counter to it" (Kant 1781: A671 /B699). Let us apply this to the matter at hand: the quest for a methodological conception of truth capable of regulating the conduct of inquiry. Regulative ideals are similar in certain fundamental respects to commands, inasmuch as both are used to guide and direct conduct. Now we must distinguish between simply behaving in accordance with a rule (bare external conformity) and actual obedience (intentional conformity), since one could perform the action specified by an order without obeying that order (as when a command is given in a language one does not understand). It is therefore clear that real obedience — our concern — is possible for us only if we grasp the satisfactionconditions of the command, that is, understand what would count as a compliance. Pressing the analogy between commands and ideals, we arrive at the view that one cannot intentionally conform one's practice to a regulative ideal, or be said to follow deliberately the rules or prescriptions it lays down for conduct, unless one can understand what it would mean to succeed in doing what the ideal instructs us to do. To see how one might move from this claim to an anti-correspondence conclusion, let us suppose three things. First, assume that we as inquirers need a


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substantive conception of the goal of inquiry that will regulate our pursuit of it and foster its attainment. Second, assume that correspondence is proposed as such a conception. Understood in light of what we have said above, these two assumptions imply that correspondence will be adequate as a regulative ideal only if we understand what it would mean for us to succeed in achieving this aim. Yet it appears we have good reason to suspect we do not understand this — provided we grant, third, that the comparison objection is right to this extent: we cannot step outside of our language and compare our beliefs with reality. The idea, in short, is that we cannot conceive of the goal of inquiry as correspondence with reality, since we do not understand what we are aiming at — and so, in a strict sense, cannot be said to aim at it at all. Hence it is pointless to tell inquirers to represent reality — not because reality cannot be represented, but because it is not something to which we can effectively aspire. We might say that telling inquirers their objective is to represent reality makes as much sense as ordering a blind man to produce a faithful painting of a landscape. Even if our blind artist miraculously got things right, we would not say he was guided or directed by the external objects he was told to depict. How, then, can we regard ourselves as obeying the commandment "Represent reality!"? It is not at all clear that we can, if we assume that we can aim or intend to copy something only when we have access to the original — a when, for instance, an art student hones her skill by trying to reproduce Rubens's The Miracle of St. Ignatius, or a counterfeiter forges Mexican currency, or an impersonator mimics the speech and mannerisms of the Canadian Prime Minister. If, as these commonplace examples suggest, accurate representation is possible as a goal or object of striving only when the originals are available for inspection, and if we indeed lack direct access to the world to be represented, then correspondence cannot function as an effective actionguiding ideal. This, we might say, is the truth contained in the comparison objection, albeit in a disguised and distorted form.

3.9

Conclusions

(1) The comparison objection has long been central to the pragmatist critique of the correspondence theory of truth. In historical terms, the argument connects the pragmatists of the classical period with contemporary exponents of neo-pragmatism. It therefore indicates one respect in which pragmatism is a coherent (unified) movement. (2) The conclusion of the no-independent-access sub-argument seems plausible: we cannot verify beliefs by comparing them with an unconceptualized reality. Nevertheless, we must be careful not to exaggerate the implications

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of this negative thesis. In particular, we need to guard against three morals some have wrongly drawn. (3) First, the comparison objection does not refute foundationalism. We are still free to retain the leading foundationalist idea (i.e. that there are sources of epistemic justification other than relations among beliefs), provided we embrace the doctrine of epistemic supervenience. (4) Moreover, the comparison objection does not refute the correspondence definition of truth. At most, the absurdity of confrontation gives one reason to deny that the test or criterion of truth is correspondence. (5) Nor, it seems, can we use the argument to argue for a coherence theory of truth. For we can construct a variation on the original comparison argument which applies to coherence theories. (6) How, then, are we to understand the pragmatists' use of the comparison objection? The argument's real target, we might say, is correspondence construed not as a nominal definition of truth, but as a regulative ideal.

Notes 1. Nietzsche (1881: §438). 2. Cf. Berkeley (1707-8: Notebook B:46-7, 50-1, 378; Notebook A: 484), (1710: Section 8), (1713:1). 3. Cf. Royce (1892:361); Santayana (1923: vi, 98, 101-4, 179); Heidegger (1930: 182-3); Goodman (1960: 29), (1988:54). 4. Cf. Berkeley (1710: Section 23); Schopenhauer (1859 II: I, 5). 5. For more on Schopenhauer's use of this argument, see McDermid (2004d). 6. See the no-independent-accessargument, presented in §3.2. 7. Cf. Strawson(1950). 8. Note that I am not attributing this line of argument to Strawson. 9. Cf. Moser (1989:25—6). Moser's point is not that the correspondence theory is untenable; instead, he wants to convince us to drop talk of picturing and adopt what he calls the "minimal correspondence theory," according to which p is true just in case things are as p says. Cf. Mackie (1973: 22—3) on "simple truth." 10. Here is a list of some modern philosophers who have taken it seriously in some form: Montaigne (1592:11, 12); Spinoza (1677: Book II, P43); Locke (1690: Book IV, Ch. IV, Section iii); Berkeley (1710: Sections 86-7); Hume (1748: Section XII); Kant (c. 1770: Sections 92-3), (1781: A 104-5), (c. 1800: Introduction, Section 50); Emerson (1836: 62); Lotze (1864:1, 347; II, 628-30); Sigwart (1873:1, 306-9); Bosanquet (1888: 2-3); Bradley (1914: 108); Brentano (1917:24, 111); Santayana (1923: 167-70); Cook Wilson (1926:1, 61); Gilson (1932:30-1); Ewing (1933:197-8); Oakeshott (1933:9-27); Ducasse (1944:334).


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11. Cf. Scheffler (1982) for a review of the ensuing controversy. 12. Cf. Schiller (1907:123-4). 13. Cf. Dewey (1911:34), (1912/13:358-9), (1916: 181). Alan Ryan suggests this complaint was Dewey's fundamental objection to traditional correspondence accounts (Ryan 1995: 337). 14. Cf. Russell (1939); Dewey (1941). Sleeper (1986:78-86) chronicles the major epistemological disagreements between the two; a thorough review of their dispute is given by Burke (1994: 166—76; 240—5), who defends Dewey against Russell's objections. 15. "Wondering at how something in experience could be asserted to correspond to something by definition outside experience, which it is, upon the basis of epistemological doctrine, the sole means of'knowing,' is what originally made me suspicious of the whole epistemological industry" (Dewey 1941:344). 16. Cf. Rorty (1979:293). 17. For an analysis of Goodman's claims, see Scheffler (1980), (1997). 18. Cf. Rescher (1973a: 5—9) for another presentation of the comparison objection. Note, however, that Rescher claims his goal is not to "abandon a correspondence theory of truth, but merely [to] endow it with a suitable interpretation" (Rescher 1973b:169). 19. For more on Davidson's use of the comparison objection, see McDermid (2004a). Davidson no longer thinks this a sound objection against correspondence. Cf. Davidson (1987), (1990) for second thoughts on the position defended in his earlier essay (1986). 20. See McDermid (2001) for further discussion of direct access. 21. See Feldman (2003: 49—52) for a perspicuous reconstruction of the regress argument. 22. "I have been accused of maintaining that statements can be compared with facts. I plead guilty. I have maintained this . . . It is my humble opinion that we can compare anything to anything if we choose" (Schlick 1935: 65—6). Cf. Hempel (1935b) for commentary. 23. Cf. Sellars (1963); McDowell (1996). Compare this with what Popper (1972: 61-3), (1983:99-102) says about "the bucket theory of mind." 24. This label is more a matter of convenience than scholarship, since we find the argument in earlier idealist writings — as in Fichte (1800), not to mention Kant (1781). Cf. the section on "Sense-Certainty" in Hegel (1807), as well as the Introduction. Taylor (1972) and Solomon (1983) provide instructive commentary on the arguments in these sections. Variants on the basic objection can be found in T. H. Green (1878), F. H. Bradley (1914), Sellars (1963), Williams (1977), Blackburn (1984), and Bonjour (1985). 25. The conflation Hegelians find in Givenism can be traced back to the British Empiricists, who used "idea" in a double sense, to encompass both objects of sense experience and truth-bearers or propositional-like entities. Green (1878) made much of this, as does Bennett (1971: 20ff). On the Given more generally, cf. Chisholm (1982: 126-47). 26. On this, cf. Hookway (1985), Scheffler (1986), and West (1989).

42 27.

28. 29. 30. 31.

32.

33.

34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41.

42. 43. 44.

The Varieties of Pragmatism Some have seen Peirce as the grandfather of modern coherentism. Thus Skagestad remarks that "[i]t is no exaggeration to say that Peirce revolutionized the theory of knowledge by rejecting foundationalism" (Skagestad 1981: 18; see 17—23) — a verdict with which Gallic (1952:59—83) would appear to agree. See Schiller (1912:85—95) for a discussion of non-Euclidean geometry. Cf. Schiller (1907: 188). On James's goal of reforming empiricism without turning Kantian, see Perry (1935 I: 543-54; 555-63; 564-72). Here his favorite target was T. H. Green, whose critique of empiricism (1878) James dubbed "intellectualist" (James 1907:111) — h i s preferred abusive epithet for anti-pragmatists. (It is significant that Dewey, whose esteem for Hegel James never shared, applauds "T. H. Green's devastating critique of sensationalism" (Dewey 1938: 510)). This is a constant theme injames's thought: as Ralph Barton Perry observed long ago, "[TJraditional empiricism broke down, according to James, because of the false view that the mind is merely a passive repository of experience" (Perry 1935 I: 564). But James did not think this meant one ought to abandon empiricism and follow Kant, as his "The Pragmatic Method" (1898) and Essays in Radical Emporium (1912) make clear. "If to have feelings or thoughts in their immediacy were enough, babies in the cradle would be psychologists, and infallible ones. But the psychologist must not only have his mental states in their absolute veritableness, he must report them and write about them, name them, classify and compare them and trace their own relations to other things . . . And as in the naming, classing, and knowing of things in general we are notoriously fallible, why not also here?" (James 18901: 189). Sprigge (1993:228-42) and Myers (1986:461-80) discuss James's views on mysticism. Neither, however, relates James's treatment of mystical states to his repudiation of the Given. Cf. James (1902: 339, 340, 347, 351, 355). Cf. James (1902: 341-44). Cf. James (1902: 353). Dewey also opposes the very idea of foundations. His case against immediate knowledge appears to flow from his holism; see Dewey (1929: 183—4). See Bernstein (1966) and Quinton (1977) for characterizations of Dewey's antifoundationalism. Precisely what Dewey meant by the "spectator theory" is a matter of some debate, as is the extent to which his attack on it succeeded. See Dicker (1977) and Kulp (1992), who disagree on both counts. Here we pass over the details of Dewey's complex socio-historical account of the genesis of the spectator theory. But see Chapters 1 and 2 of The Questfor Certainty (1929). Cf. Dewey (1938: 142-60) for a critique of immediate knowledge. Cf. Chapter 7 of Dewey (1929), in which Dewey makes it plain that his agreement with Kant is more negative than positive. Cf. Dewey (1917: 12—13). "There is no knowledge self-guaranteed to be infallible" (Dewey 1929: 193).


43

45. Hence the justice of Quinton's verdict that Dewey was "the chief continuator of Peirce's anti-Cartesianism" (Quinton 1977: 2). 46. Cf. Wittgenstein (1953: II xi). For reflections on "seeing as," see Hanson (1961), Chapter I. 47. Cf. Quine( 1950: 78-9), (1960:3, 124), (1969:24). 48. For a handy exposition of the bucket theory, see Popper (1972:60—7; 341—2). Cf. Popper (1983: 99-102). 49. Cf. Goodman (1952). 50. Schlick, Neurath's immediate target, accepted this assumption — or something very close to it. Cf. Schlick (1934) and Scheffler (1982). 51. Cf. Lewis (1929) and (1946). For a more liberal view — akin to what Laurence Bonjour (1985) has referred to as weak foundationalism — see Alston (1989). 52. Peirce may be an exception, however: there is some reason to suppose that what he wanted to contest was not foundationalism per se, only what he thought was an overly stringent and restrictive characterization of knowledge's foundations. See Almeder (1980: 82ff) and Delaney (1993: 89), both of whom maintain Peirce was interested only in opposing strong foundationalism. 53. Quine (1969: 18, 24) may favor the weaker of the two arguments. 54. This theme is prominent in his recent writings, and I believe that it (not a worry about certainty) is Rorty's fundamental objection to foundationalism. See Rorty (1998b), which is critical of John McDowell's (1996) sophisticated attempt to revive the core of empiricism in a way that can accommodate the Sellarsian claim that all awareness is a linguistic affair. Rorty thinks that McDowell's resolution is unnecessary: we should just give up on the idea that experience can exert rational control over inquiry, and "turn away from the very idea of human answerability to the world" (Rorty 1998b: 142-3). This is something Rorty applauds Robert Brandom (1994) for doing: Brandom, he says, "helps us to tell a story about our knowledge of objects that makes almost no reference to experience" (Rorty 1998a: 122). We will return to the idea of "answerability" in Chapter 7. 55. Cf. Van Cleve (1985); Sosa (1980a) and (1980b). 56. This corresponds to what Jaegwon Kim (1987) has called weak supervenience. Kim argues that we need a stronger notion of supervenience which can do justice to the intuition that the relation of determination or dependence must be constant over possible worlds. However, the point I am trying to make doesn't hinge on the precise characterization of supervenience; I have chosen the weaker formulation because it is widely accepted and so not likely to provoke needless disagreement. 57. Here I follow the terminology of Van Cleve (1985). 58. Cf. Popper (1959). Chapter 5 ofHaack (1993) contains a vigorous critique. 59. "The essential point is that in characterizing an episode or a state as that of knowing, we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says" (Sellars 1963: 169). There is some indication (e.g. his remarks, on p. 131, about the epistemological analogue of the naturalistic fallacy) that Sellars subscribes to our principle (1) because he feared that to do otherwise would be to maintain that the normative could be reduced to the descriptive.

44

60. 61. 62.

63.

64.

65.

66. 67.

68.

The Varieties of Pragmatism But supervenience does not entail the reducibility of the supervenient properties to the subvenient base. Indeed, it was this feature of the concept which originally made it attractive to those seeking to defend some form of non-reductive physicalism. See Davidson (1970). Cf. Rorty (1979:143, 152). Cf. Davidson (1986: 311). Cf. Rescher (1973a), especially Chapters I and II, for a detailed account of this distinction, repeatedly stressed by Russell (1907), (1908), (1912). Neither writer uses it to combat the objection under consideration, however. (Ironically, Rescher's book, entitled The Coherence Theory of Truth, offers only a coherence theory of justification). Unless we refuse to acknowledge the distinction between questions about truth and questions about justification. Rorty is undeterred by all this: he asserts without argument or explanation that "there is no pragmatic difference between the nature of truth and the test of truth, and . . . the test of truth . .. [is] not 'comparison with reality'" (Rorty 1982a:xxix;cf. also 1995a: 281-2). "The internalist assumes that, merely by reflecting on his own conscious state, he can formulate a set of epistemic principles that will enable him to find out, with respect to any possible belief he has, whether he is justifiedin having that belief. The epistemic principles that he formulates are principles that one may come upon and apply merely by sitting in one's armchair, so to speak, and without calling for outside assistance. In a word, one need consider only one's state of mind" (Chisholm 1989:76). Defenders of externalist theories of the sort alluded to here include Armstrong (1973), Goldman (1986), Nozick (1981), and Sosa (1991); the basic idea goes back at least to F. P. Ramsey (1929), if not to Santayana (1923). For reservations about this approach, cf. Chisholm (1989) and Haack (1993). Cf. Greco (2000) for an intellectual virtue-based treatment of skepticism. Dewey is a notable exception. Since he denied that coherence could guarantee truth, he was never attracted by a coherence theory even during his early idealist phase, as Morton White points out (White 1943: 79). Cf. Blanshard (1939, Vol. II), especially Chapters XXV-XXVI. It is tempting to add Rorty's name to this list, given his penchant for saying things such as "there is no way to get outside of our beliefs and our language so as to find some test other than coherence" (Rorty 1979: 178) — a remark which inspired Davidson, who cited it with approval during his own coherentist phase (Davidson 1986:310). Consider, too, Rorty's more recent suggestion that we "think of the skeptic as having pressed the philosopher back from a more ambitious notion of truth as accurate representation to the more modest notion of truth as coherence among our beliefs" (Rorty 1984a: 30). Since, in Rorty's writings, "the skeptic" almost invariably means someone wielding the comparison objection, it is easy to get the impression that Rorty wants to erect a coherence theory on the ruins of correspondence. This, however, is inconsistent with the pronounced deflationary strain in his writings, according to which we (i.e. neo-pragmatists) ought to resist the urge to replace the correspondence theory with a rival account, on the


69. 70. 71. 72.

73.

74.

75. 76.

77.

78.

45

grounds that "truth is not the sort of thing one should expect to have a philosophically interesting theory about" (Rorty 1982a:xiii). On this point, then, Rorty differs sharply from Putnam, who regards constructive theorizing about truth as a legitimate project; see the latter's (1985) critique of Rorty's attempt to get along without a substantive notion of truth. For more on Rorty's positive views — or lack thereof — about truth, see Appendix A. Putnam equates rational acceptability with coherence (Putnam 1981:55). For more on Putnam's case for a coherence theory of truth, see Appendix B. Though not a neo-pragmatist, Simon Blackburn (1984: 235) describes a similar move. Cf. Putnam (1981:55), (1986b: 114-15). This is a problem not just for those who take coherence as the nature of truth, but also for internalists who hold a coherence theory of justification. Bonjour (1985) has shown a fine awareness of the difficulty described here, and has attempted to meet it by invoking the "doxastic presumption," according to which a subject does in fact hold (more or less) the set of beliefs he takes himself to hold. But this move has been effectively criticized; see, for instance, Sosa (1988a). For the record we should point out that Blanshard falls into the latter class; unlike many of his coherentist brethren (e.g. Neurath), he carefully distinguishes between criterion and essence. Nevertheless, he believed that "the only test of truth that is not misleading is the special nature or character that is itself constitutive of truth" (Blanshard 1939, Vol. II: 268). This is not the last word on the coherence theory, of course. There is much more to say, but here is not the place. For critical treatments, see Ewing (1933), Chapter V; Khatchadourian (1961); and Walker (1989). See Appendix C. Peirce's attitude towards the correspondence theory changed over his career. Altshuler (1982) and Hookway (1985) argue that Peirce rejected correspondence, whereas Skagestad (1981), Almeder (1985), and Misak (1991) present what I take to be a more forceful case for the opposing view, acceptance of which is presupposed here. This is particularly evident in Apel (1987) who, like Peirce, doesn't so much reject correspondence as find that (unlike consensus) it is not methodologically useful ["methodologisch brauchbaren"] (Apel 1987: 141). For a different view, see Alston (1996:92-6).

4

Neither Worldmakers nor Mirrors: The Constructivist Objection

Denying realism amounts to megalomania (the most widespread occupational disease of the professional philosopher).

— Karl Popper

4.0 Introduction Unless the argument of the previous chapter totally missed the mark, it is safe to say that the comparison objection fails to discredit correspondence as the definition of truth. The present chapter focuses on another classic challenge to the correspondence theory — an argument which, like the comparison objection, is rooted in philosophy's past but still employed in contemporary debates about truth. The basic argument — I call it the Constructivist objection for reasons that shall soon become apparent — runs roughly thus: The correspondence theory of truth assumes that our thoughts and theories must fit or conform to the way things are "out there," in the world they purport to describe. As enlightened post-Kantians, however, we think that "the trail of the human serpent is over everything" (James 1907: 33). That is to say, we find the empiricist stress on passive sensibility and pure receptivity grossly misplaced; we think it is high timefor philosophy to acknowledge the cognitive contributions of the knowing subject, whose mind is not a mirror but rather a creative source of form, structure, and synthesis. Accordingly, no theory of truth which overlooks the extent to which subject-derived factors construct and order our knowledge of the world can be reckoned adequate.

In what follows, I shall argue that the brand of constructivism espoused by the classical pragmatists — unlike that advanced by some contemporary neopragmatists — is actually consonant with the cause of realist correspondence. Before we can expound and appreciate the grounds for this verdict, we should renew our acquaintance with realism and its recent rivals.

4.1 Realism and Its Cultured Despisers According to Crispin Wright, realism incorporates two thoughts — one modest, one presumptuous — between which there is potential for tension.

Neither Worldmakers nor Mirrors

47

The core of the modest thought is the admission that the world is not constituted by our thought or language. Humbled thus by the world's independence, we are constrained to confess that (pace Protagoras) we are not the measure of things; our theories and thoughts must fit or conform to reality, not the other way around. Yet this metaphysical humility is coupled with epistemic presumption on the part of the classical realist; for he holds that the independent world of which he speaks is something we can aspire to represent and to know. In sum, our discourse may grasp and capture a domain of objects not created or constituted by it. While there is no strict incompatibility between the claims of modesty and presumption, understanding how the two can coexist peacefully has not been a simple matter. Not all philosophers have been as sanguine as the traditional realist about the idea that reality's independence can be upheld without sacrificing its knowability. Haunted and perturbed by this tension, some philosophers have denied the world's knowability in order to honor its independence; in other words, they have opted for skepticism. Others, equally persuaded that something has to give, have elected to deny reality's independence in order to preserve its knowability; idealists or anti-realists, they attempt to cut reality down to (our) size, and make a metaphysical sacrifice on the altar of epistemology. Neo-pragmatists are by and large an immodest lot. For when we survey their contributions to the contemporary American scene, it seems we encounter opposition to realism's declarations of independence at virtually every turn. We find it in Kuhn's parade of incommensurable paradigms, each framing a different world; in Goodman's ludic insistence that "there is no way the world is," coupled with his paradox-mongering talk of worldmaking; in Davidson's firm rejection of "the concept of an uninterpreted reality, something outside all schemes and science" (Davidson 1974: 198); in Rorty's notso-fond farewell to an ungrateful world in-itself, which is "sublimely indifferent to the attentions we lavish upon it" (Rorty 1972: 13); and in Putnam's internal realism, according to which there is no ready-made world, and objects do not exist independently of conceptual schemes. Witness, too, the war Habermas has waged further afield on "objectivism, that is, the objectivistic self-understanding of the sciences, which suppresses the contribution of subjective activity to the preformed objects of possible knowledge" (Habermas 1968: 212). It is abundantly clear, therefore, that anti-realist sentiments permeate the pages of the correspondence theory's neo-pragmatist critics. And this is by no means a coincidence: the condemnation of realism is supposed to support and sustain the crusade against correspondence. Putnam speaks for many of his neo-pragmatist brethren when he says that correspondence truth cannot survive metaphysical realism's (alleged) fall from grace:

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The Varieties of Pragmatism If objects are, at least when you get small enough, or large enough, or theoretical enough, theory-dependent, then the whole idea of truth's being denned or explained in terms of a "correspondence" between items in a language and items in a fixed theory-independent reality has to be given up. (Putnam 1982b:41)

If metaphysical realism is untenable, in other words, there is no objective, theory-independent reality for us to represent — no extra-linguistic world to which our beliefs or sentences can correspond. So it seems there is a route from anti-realism to the rejection of the correspondence theory of truth. "Fair enough,'' it will be said, " but isn' t this a rather queer dialectical strategy? After all, metaphysical realism seems to many no less commonsensical than the correspondence theory. What, then, is so objectionable about realism?" What, indeed? A small ocean of ink has been spilled over this vexed question. The realist's detractors have chronicled his alleged sins with subtlety and verve — just as his indignant friends have sought to restore his good name and to impress upon all the importance of being modest. Predictably, this spat has spawned a spate of increasingly nuanced articles and books — works whos refinement makes a succinct yet informative resume of their contents rather difficult. Nevertheless, we can and should say something to convey the basic flavor of this debate. Here, therefore, are thumbnail sketches of nine prominent neo-pragmatist objections to realism, drawn from the writings of the usual suspects — Rorty, Goodman, Putnam, Davidson, and Kuhn: The Comparison Argument (Extended Version): According to Rorty, Goodman, and Putnam, we have no access to an unconceptualized reality. On inspection, therefore, the world of the metaphysical realist turns out to be an ineffable Something-We-Know-Not-What. Why not avoid such absurdity by abandoning realism? The New "Master Argument": Goodman has suggested that since nothing can be said about the world apart from some frame of reference used to describe it (i.e. some theory or language), the idea that there is a world independent of such frameworks is senseless. Rorty and Kuhn have said much the same. The Argument from Conceptual Relativity: Putnam maintains that metaphysical realists cannot accommodate the phenomenon of conceptual relativity: since objects exist relative to conceptual schemes, it is senseless to ask what exists absolutely, independent of the choice of a scheme. The Model-Theoretic Argument: According to metaphysical realism, a theory that is epistemically ideal (i.e. that satisfies all operational and theoretical constraints) could nevertheless be false. Putnam, invoking the LowenheimSkolem theorem, has argued that this realist claim cannot be correct.


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The Argument from Facts: According to Davidson, realists must pledge allegiance to a version of the correspondence theory of truth which affirms the existence of facts. Yet if Davidson's Slingshot Argument is sound, there is at most only one fact to which all true sentences correspond. Hence the correspondence theory is drained bone-dry of content — as are realism and its competitors. Consequently, "it is futile either to accept or reject the slogan that the real and the true are 'independent of our beliefs' " (Davidson 1990: 305). 20 The Argumentfrom Massive Error: If the world is as independent of our epistemic capacities as realists think, then the vast mass of our beliefs could be false; but since Putnam and Davidson have assured us that such massive error is unthinkable, the realist's ultra-objective world is a "world well lost" (Rorty 1972:3). The Argument from The History of Science: To some, reflections on the history of science seem to undermine the case for scientific realism. The problem is neatly posed by Putnam: since entities posited by past scientific theories have turned out not to exist, why suppose the posits of our current theories will not meet with the same ignominious fate? The Argument from Incommensurability: According to Kuhn, there is no way to compare scientific paradigms: there is no fixed and neutral observational input untainted by theory, and terms employed in different theories may mean different things. Scientists working in incommensurable paradigms toil away in different worlds, and there is no knowable reality utterly independent of theory. 23 The Argument from Anti-Essentialism: According to Rorty, the realist notion of a way things are in themselves, apart from everything else, is indefensible. Talk of how a thing is in itself makes sense only if things have intrinsic or nonrelational properties; yet this is an idea ruled out by the anti-essentialism Rorty recommends. Equipped with the above panoply of arguments, neo-pragmatists have become a force to be reckoned with. Two observations should be made about the movement as a whole, however. First, our cadre of neo-pragmatists agrees that metaphysical realism must go; but they do not agree about what (if anything) should take its place. Some advocate full-blooded anti-realism (e.g. Putnam, Goodman, Kuhn), whereas others carefully refrain from preaching or propagating any positive rival doctrine. Thus Rorty's Polonius-like recommendation is that we neither realists nor anti-realists be; he thinks both positions are answers to a question — "What makes our sentences true?" — which is underwritten by just the sort of representationalist assumptions about language he abhors. Davidson, too, has refused to characterize himself as an anti-realist — and his repudiation

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of epistemic theories of truth and his critique of the very idea of a conceptual scheme distinguish him from Goodman and Putnam. Second, it should be added that the neo-pragmatists' opponents are not an extinct species, nor even an endangered one. In the last three decades, realism has had many lucid and persuasive advocates: William Alston, Michael Devitt, John Haldane, Thomas Nagel, Karl Popper, John Searle, J. J. G. Smart, Ernest Sosa, Roger Trigg, Peter Van Inwagen, Gerald Vision, and Bernard Williams (to name only a few). But realism, no matter how ably defended, just isn't the stuff of which tabloid headlines are made; it is too respectable and unassumingly sober, too dull and humbling, to qualify as newsworthy. The immodest and empowering doctrine of anti-realism makes for infinitely better copy. 27

4.2

Against Modesty: Kant and the Copernican Revolution

Though revolutionary, the anti-realist thought that the known world is inescapably shaped by our discourse and our categories is far from new. The idea that the mind is endowed with world-forging powers in virtue of its spontaneous activity has been a major theme in modern philosophy since Kant, who urged that "the understanding does not draw its (a priori) laws from nature, but prescribes them to it" (Kant 1783: §36). It is thus to Kant we must look, if we wish to understand anti-realist immodesty. Because the difficulties in interpreting the details of Kant's transcendental idealism are formidable, all I can do here is outline those features of his position relevant to our treatment of the constructivist objection. Consider the proposition that every event must have a cause. Clearly, claims of this sort are not analytic: they are true neither solely in virtue of the meaning of their constituent terms, nor (in the more metaphorical language favored by Kant) are they judgments in which the predicate is "contained in" the subject (Kant 1781: A7/B11). Hence, claims of this stripe must be reckoned synthetic. Yet according to Hume, the synthetic and the a posteriori, like their contraries, are coextensive, leading us to expect that the propositions under consideration would be matters of fact, derived from experience. This is not the case, however: their universal and necessary character prevents us from claiming that they might be known a posteriori or established empirically. Such propositions thus belong to a class undreamt of in Hume's philosophy: the synthetic a priori. Since, according to Kant, the so-called "theoretical sciences of reason" — mathematics, natural sciences, and metaphysics — require judgments of this general sort, our original problem has been transformed: the attempt to explain how knowledge is possible raises a more general and daunting question — namely "How are a priori synthetic


51

judgments possible?" (Kant 1781:B19). Answering that question is a central task of the first Critique. Now it is hard to see how synthetic a priorijudgments (and hence knowledge itself) are possible if we assume that knowledge consists in passive conformity to external objects given independent of cognition. In light of this, Kant resolves to make a fresh start: he invites us to reverse the traditional (realist) point of view and suppose that "objects conform to our knowledge of them" (Kant 1781:Bxvi). His fundamental strategy was helpfully summarized by his self-styled (but not uncritical) disciple Schopenhauer. According to Schopenhauer, our knowledge of a world of spatiotemporal things that are causally related "would not be possible if our intellect were one thing and things another; but it can be explained only from the fact that the two constitute a whole; that the intellect itself creates that order, and exists only for it, but that things also exist only for it" (Schopenhauer 1859, Vol. II: I, 9). If Kant's proposal — what Schopenhauer called Kant's "Gopernican Revolution" — is accepted, certain general features of the objects of possible experience are necessarily determined or conditioned by the structure of our cognitive faculties — in which case the claim that some judgments about these objects are knowable a priori need no longer seem impenetrably mysterious. As Kant puts it: If intuition must conform to the constitution of the objects, I do not see how we could know anything of the latter apriori; but if the object (as object of the senses) must conform to the constitution of the faculty of intuition, I have no difficulty in conceiving such a possibility . .. [W]e can know apriori of things only what we ourselves put into them. (Kant 1781: Bxvii, xviii) Keeping this in mind, let us return to Kant's solution to the problem of knowledge. There are, he thinks, two faculties that make knowledge possible: sensibility, through which representations or intuitions are received, and understanding, through which intuitions are brought under concepts and synthetic judgments about objects are formed. Kant's view that both halves of these three dualisms — sensibility/understanding, receptivity/spontaneity, and intuitions/concepts — are required for knowledge is exemplified in his well-known remark that: Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. It is, therefore, just as necessary to make our concepts sensible, that is, to add the object to them in intuition, as to make our intuitions intelligible, that is, to bring them under concepts. These two powers cannot exchange their functions. The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through their union can knowledge arise. (Kant 1781: A51 /B76)

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Considered historically as an attempt to reconcile and synthesize elements in the rival traditions of rationalism and empiricism, Kant's position is tremendously significant; moreover, it continues to exert influence on contemporary debates in the theory of knowledge. For present purposes, it is more important to note that Kant's claim that intuition is a necessary and indispensable ingredient in knowledge figures in his argument for the thesis that our knowledge must be confined to the world of appearances (or phenomena). Since the function of the pure concepts or categories of the understanding is to synthesize the manifold of sensory intuition, the scope of their legitimate application is restricted to the realm of possible experience. We can have no intuitions (and no knowledge) of noumena, however: things in themselves are outside of space and time, which are the a priori forms of intuition. And so we are driven to conclude that: objects in themselves are quite unknown to us, and that what we call outer objects are nothing but mere representations of our sensibility, the form of which is space. The true correlate of sensibility, the thing in itself, is not known, and cannot be known, through these representations; and in experience no question is ever asked in regard to it. (Kant 1781: A29/B46) Empirical knowledge is therefore knowledge of subjectively conditioned mind-dependent phenomena; the noumenal realm of mind-independent things in themselves is epistemically inaccessible to us. But this latter claim creates an obvious problem: if things in themselves lie beyond the bounds of possible experience and are unknowable, how can Kant postulate them or conceive of them? This puzzled Kant's successors, who accused the founder of the critical philosophy of being something less than critical when it came to the question of noumena. Indeed, until the mid-nineteenth century German philosophy resembled a melodrama whose protagonist — the enigmatic Ding an sich — was a fugitive mercilessly pursued on every side by bounty hunters intent on leaving their harried victim no place to hide. The ruthless pursuer approached their quarry from different perspectives, however: whereas Schopenhauer denied that the thing in itself (which he identified with will) was totally unknowable, Fichte and Hegel sought to purify Kant's idealism of it altogether. Hegel's brand of idealism proved influential in Anglo-American philosophical circles in the late nineteenth century, where its discreet charm was sensed by many: T. H. Green, Bernard Bosanquet, Josiah Royce, F. H. Bradley, H. H. Joachim, and J. M. E. McTaggart.36 The greatest of Hegel's English-speaking epigoni was arguably the magisterial Bradley, renowned as a staunch opponent to the cause of realist correspondence. Observe how swiftly and terribly he disposes of the "copy" conception of truth:


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On any view like mine to speak of truth as in the end copying Reality, would be senseless. To copy is to reproduce in some other existence more or less of the character of an object which is before our mind. Now, apart from knowledge and truth, there can be no original before you to copy. And hence to make truth consist in copying is obviously absurd. This question I take to have been settled, once and for all time, by the post-Kantian criticism of the doctrine of the Thing-in-itself. (Bradley 1914:345) Here the correspondence theory of truth is portrayed as a casualty of the war between realists and idealists — a war Bradley thought his side had won handily. In this, Bradley was not alone: in the early twentieth century, this version of the construct! vist objection became part of the anti-correspondence arsenal of absolute idealists, who sought to extend Kant's Gopernican Revolution. In Joachim's coherentist tract The Nature of Truth, for instance, we are told that the correspondence theory is execrable partly because it is metaphysically naive (i.e. it assumes thought mirrors a reality outside thought): But Metaphysics cannot acquiesce in the severance of finite thinkers from one another, nor in the severance of the judging mind from that about which it judges ... [I]t is essential to the coherence-notion that there should be no severance, no unpassable gulf, between the judging mind and that about which it judges; but it is essential to the correspondence notion that this severance should be, and be maintained. (Joachim 1906: 120) A century on, the hostility Joachim and Bradley evinced towards metaphysical realism (construed as a condition of the possibility of correspondence) continues unabated in the work of Kuhn, Goodman, and Putnam — not to mention Rorty, who is on record as saying that "when the thing-in-itself goes, correspondence goes too" (Rorty 1994b: 87). Plusga change ...

4.3

Classical Pragmatism and Realism

Let us now survey what our three classical pragmatists — Schiller, James, and Dewey — had to say about realism. As we shall see, the triumvirate's perplexing remarks stand in an ambiguous relation to the idealist tradition inaugurated by Kant; for while some of their sayings read like dithyrambs celebrating world-spawning spontaneity, others are more subdued and prosaic expressions of respect for realism. Defying a quick and straightforward classification, their position cannot be properly understood without further elucidation and analysis, which I shall provide in §4.4—§4.10.

54 A.

The Varieties of Pragmatism Schiller

Schiller, Bradley's droll Oxonian nemesis, seems to have carried constructivism as far as anyone — or further. For Schiller writes as if truth and reality were man-made through and through: Taken strictly for what it professes to be, the notion of "truth" as a "correspondence" between our minds and something intrinsically foreign to them, as a mirroring of alien fact, has completely broken down. The reality to which truth was said to "correspond," i.e., which it has to know, is not a "fact" in its own right, which pre-exists the cognitive functioning. It is itself a fact within knowing, immanently deposited or "precipitated" by the functioning of our thought. (Schiller 1907: 154) Given that Schiller, a self-styled Protagorean, preferred "humanist" over "pragmatist'' as a self-description and fervently urged that man is the measure of things — truth and reality included — it is no wonder he was denounced as a relativist who, in the words of Santayana, possessed "the airs of a professed and shameless sophist" (Santayana 1953: 507). The Protagorean refrain is sounded repeatedly in Schiller's writings, and forms the leitmotif of "Axioms as Postulates": The world, as it now appears, was not a ready-made datum ... it is a construction which has gradually been achieved .. . The world is essentially J/A?y, it is what we make of it. It is fruitless to define it by what it originally was or by what it is apart from us; it is what is made of it. Hence .. . the world is plastic, and may be molded by our wishes. (Schiller 1902: 54, 60—1) The reaction against realism has rarely gone further — or so it initially seems. Yet it must not be forgotten that Schiller despised idealisms of all stripes — Berkeleyan, Kantian, and Hegelian — and gleefully exposed the shortcomings of stock idealist arguments, which he condemned as "fallacious or inadequate" (Schiller 1907: 465). The idea that Schiller was no friend to idealism gains in plausibility when we learn that he envisioned a sort of rapprochement between his humanist conviction that "the world is plastic" (Schiller 1902: 61), on the one hand, and commonsense realism, on the other. Indeed, Schiller seems partial to such realism: in Studies in Humanism, for instance, he remarks that "it would be a great calamity if any philosophy should feel it its duty to upset this assumption [i.e. realism]" (Schiller 1907: 459), adding that realism is an eminently sensible view: [T]he belief in the world theory of ordinary realism, in a "real world" into which we are born, and which has existed "independently" of us for aeons


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before that event, and so cannot possibly have been made by us or any man, has very high pragmatic warrant. It is a theory which holds together and explains our experience, and can be acted on with very great success . .. All we can say, therefore, is that so long as, and in so far as, our experience is such as to be most conveniently organized by the conception of a preexisting real world ... "independent" of us, it will also be convenient to conceive it as having been to a large extent "made" before we took a part in the process. (Schiller 1907:201-2) B.

James

James's position, too, seems ambiguous. On the one hand, he protested — perhaps too much — that he was a devout realist: "My account of truth is realistic, and follows the epistemological dualism of common sense . . . This notion of a reality independent of [us] . .. lies at the base of the pragmatist definition of truth" (James 1909: 218). 40 On the other hand, he viewed the neo-Protagorean Schiller as a kindred spirit. Like Schiller, James wanted to discard "the notion of a world complete in itself, to which thought comes as a passive mirror, adding nothing to fact" (James 1909:80); and he enthusiastically agreed that "[one] can't weed out the human contribution" (James 1907: 114). These humanist themes loom large in James's writings, occurring both early and late. Early, that is, as in this passage from "Remarks on Spencer's Definition of Mind as Correspondence": I, for my part, cannot escape the consideration, forced upon me at every turn, that the knower is not simply a mirror floating with no foot-hold anywhere, and passively reflecting an order that he comes upon and finds simply existing. The knower is an actor, and co-efficient of the truth on one side, whilst on the other he registers the truth which he helps to create. Mental interests, hypotheses, postulates, so far as they are bases for human action — action which to a great extent transforms the world — help to make the truth which they declare. In other words, there belongs to mind, from its birth upward, a spontaneity, a vote. It is in the game, and not a mere lookeron. (James 1878:21) And late, as in this excerpt from The Meaning of Truth: Up to about 1850 almost every one believed that sciences expressed truths that were exact copies of a definite code of non-human realities. But the enormously rapid multiplication of theories in these latter days well-nigh upset the notion of any one of them being a more literally objective kind of thing than another .. . The suspicion is in the air nowadays that the

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The Varieties of Pragmatism superiority of one of our formulas to another may not consist so much in its literal "objectivity," as in subjective qualities like its usefulness, its "elegance" or its congruity with our residual beliefs. Yielding to these suspicions, and generalizing, we fall into something like the humanistic state of mind. Truth we conceive to mean everywhere, not duplication, but addition; not the constructing of inner copies of already complete realities, but rather the collaborating with realities so as to bring about a clearer result. (James 1909:58,60)

Shades of the Gopernican Revolution? So it might appear — and yet James never felt anything resembling the reverence for Kant that informs Peirce's writings. In "The Pragmatic Method," an 1898 address in which James announced his conversion to pragmatism, he wrote: I believe that Kant bequeaths to us not one single conception which is both indispensable to philosophy and which philosophy either did not possess before him, or was not destined inevitably to acquire after him through the growth of men's reflection upon the hypotheses by which science interprets nature. The true line of philosophic progress lies, in short, it seems to me, not so much through Kant as round him. (James 1898: 139) James consistently resisted attempts to classify pragmatism as a mere variant on transcendental idealism. In Pragmatism, for instance, he acknowledges that the position he and Schiller occupy "[sjuperficially . .. sounds like Kant's view" while cautioning us not to confuse them, since [Bjetween categories fulminated before nature began, and categories gradually forming themselves in nature's presence, the whole chasm between rationalism and empiricism yawns. To the genuine "Kantianer" Schiller will always be to Kant as a satyr to Hyperion. (James 1907: 112) C.

Dewey

We have already mentioned Dewey's opposition to the spectator theory of knowledge, according to which "the operation of inquiry excludes any element of practical activity that enters into the construction of the object known" (Dewey 1929: 22). 44 What we have not yet stressed is the extent to which Dewey's critique of spectatorial accounts is indebted to a major text of post-Kantian idealism — to wit, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. According to Hegel, the metaphor of cognition as a (passive) medium creates an impassable gulf between subject and object, as does the rival image of cognition as an (active) instrument; for both images incorporate a hard-and-fast dualism


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according to which "the Absolute stands on one side and cognition on the other, independent and separated from it" (Hegel 1807: §74). Far from explaining how knowledge is possible, these ideas about cognition merely ensure it remains an unfathomable enigma — or so Hegel intimates. Like Hegel, Dewey maintained that "the whole relation of knower to known is radically misconceived in what passes as epistemology" (Dewey 1916: 279). Consider the following passages, in which he takes aim at the first metaphor targeted by Hegel: The discipline termed Epistemology assumes ... a self-enclosed island of mind on the one side, individual and private and only private; over against this is set a world of objects which are physically or cosmically there — and only there. Then it is naturally wondered how the mind can get out of itself to know a world beyond, or how the world out there can creep into "consciousness." (Dewey 1911: 8) [T]he counterpart of the idea of the invidiously real reality is the spectator notion of knowledge. If the knower, however defined, is set over against the world to be known, knowing consists in possessing a transcript, more or less accurate but otiose, of real things. Whether this transcript is presentative in character (as realists say) or whether it is by means of states of consciousness which represent things (as subject! vists say), is a matter of great importance in its own context. But, in another regard, this difference is negligible in comparison with the point in which both agree. Knowing is viewing from outside. (Dewey 1917:41-2) As long as theories of knowledge are framed in terms of organs assigned to mind or consciousness, whether sense or reason or any combination of the two, organs occupied, it is alleged, in reproducing or grasping antecedent reality, there will continue to exist such generalized skeptical philosophies. .. Theories which assume that the knowing subject, that mind or consciousness, have an inherent capacity to disclose reality, a capacity operating apart from any overt interactions of the organism with surrounding conditions, are invitations to general philosophic doubt. (Dewey 1929: 193-4) Dewey, it is plain, was keen to deny that inquirers mirror an independent world — "a reality fixed and complete in itself, in isolation from an act of inquiry which has in it any element of production of change" (Dewey 1929: 23). Instead of understanding inquiry as an attempt to copy an antecedent reality, he contended that inquiry actually constructs the objects of knowledge — a view which Peirce, for one, could never stomach.

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All this might suggest that Dewey advocated some form of Kantian or postKantian idealism. But matters are not so simple; for he insisted that realists were not the only ones guilty of accepting spectatorial accounts: Strangely enough, this is as true of idealism as of realism, of theories of synthetic activity as of those of passive receptivity. For according to them "mind" constructs the known object not in any observable way, or by means of practical overt acts having a temporal quality, but by some occult internal operation. (Dewey 1929:22-3) Here Dewey's phraseology — "synthetic activity," "passive receptivity," "constructs" — strongly suggests that, like Hegel before him, he is taking aim at Kantianism. And this makes perfect sense if we take Dewey to be following Hegel's lead in the Phenomenology. For Kant's idealist thesis — viz., that empirical knowledge is necessarily confined to phenomena constituted by subjects — assumes that what we know is structured by subjective forms of cognition, "under" or "through" which reality appears to us. But this assumption is underwritten by the second sort of metaphor scouted by Hegel: that of cognition as an instrument or organizing system, which alters what is given to it "by some occult internal operation" (Dewey 1929: 23). Here, too, the thought is that the "relation of knower to known" has been "radically misconceived" (Dewey 1916:279). Dewey's polemic against spectator theories thus applies to realisms and idealisms. Because of his critique's broad scope, and because Dewey went well beyond Hegel, it remains tantalizingly obscure what sort of positive position (if any) about realism we are entitled to ascribe to him. Here, as elsewhere, confusion and sore perplexity must be given their due. D.

An ambiguity in classical pragmatism

There is, then, a problem of interpretation before us. When Schiller professes that truth is a man-made artefact, when James ardently declares that the human serpent side-winds its sinuous way over all, or when Dewey inveighs against spectator theories of knowledge, they all express contempt for the old conceit that inquirers duplicate a prefabricated reality. In other words, our three pragmatists seem quite content to say, with Kant, that there is some philosophically significant sense in which we creatively shape what we are pleased to call our world. And yet we have also seen how the pragmatists pull back abruptly in an effort to distance themselves from Kant and his transcendental brethren. But where, precisely, do the pragmatists and the Kantian-inspired critics of realism part company? The main texts of the classical pragmatists yield no reassuringly neat and unequivocal answer to this question. To be


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sure, we are informed that the two camps are different; but the deeper hows or whys of this divergence are coyly skirted. Guriouser and curiouser, as Alice once said. Were the pragmatists taking aim at the sort of realism the correspondence theory supposedly presupposes, or were their shafts directed at some other target(s)? In order to make progress on this interpretative issue, I will now examine seven pragmatist truth-centred declarations which smack of anti-realist immodesty. Here is a list of these "modes" — a list which may double as a roadmap for the remainder of this chapter: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

The The The The The The The

Argument Argument Argument Argument Argument Argument Argument

from from from from from from from

Truth-Making (§4.4) Underdetermination (§4.5) the Mutability of Truth (§4.6) Selective Attention (§4.7) Facts (§4.8) Agency (§4.9) Postulation (§4.10)

These modes support morals which can be made to sound like anti-realist pronouncements. Nevertheless, I shall argue that when we attend carefully to the details of what the pragmatists were saying about the knowing subject's contributions to knowledge, we shall find that they were interested not so much in opposing metaphysical realism a la Kant as they were in advancing a novel and provocative array of theses in epistemology.

4.4

The Argument from Truth-Making

Our first pragmatist mode eventuates in a paradoxical claim: Truth is a manmade artefact — a human creation or product. The dense air of paradox thins and clears as soon as we understand the sense in which pragmatists avow that truths are "made." The Argument from Truth-Making sets out from the premise that truth is properly predicated not of reality or the facts, but of judgments or beliefs. This is stressed by James: "[Ojbjective realities are not true ... while the ideas are true of them" (James 1909: 155—6); "Truth . . . is a property of certain of our ideas" (James 1907: 91); "Reality as such is not truth" (James 1907a: 228); "[t]he facts themselves are not true. They simply are" (James 1907: 101). Next, we are reminded that there would be no judgments or thoughts unless there were minds or subjects to make or formulate them: "thought must always be somebody's thought" (Schiller 1910: 76); "every thought requires a thinker" (Schiller 1934: 229); "every thought is a personal act of which some thinker is the author" (Schiller 1934: 308). Let us follow the argument where it leads,

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then: if truth is indeed the exclusive property of items that are subjective or subject-dependent (i.e. beliefs, ideas, thoughts, etc.), then there is a sense in which truths are mind-dependent. Accordingly, we are told, humanism triumphs: "truth is human truth" (Schiller 1907: 143). In the hands of a suave rhetorician like Schiller, this line of thought can easily be made to sound like heady and agreeably scandalous stuff. Alas, it is not. It does not follow, from the supposition that truth-bearers are subjective (in the sense specified above), that truth itself is subjective or relative in any sense offensive to realist sensibilities. The realist will remind us that if truth is correspondence, then truth is a relational property — and that what makes (subjective) truth-bearers true or false is their relation to something objective (e.g. objects, states of affairs, the facts, reality, the way the world is). Hence we may concede that the existence of my belief depends on some mind (namely, my own); but we are still free to insist that whether that mundane belief is true or false — whether its content represents or matches reality — does not. Karl Popper, a defender of realist correspondence, makes this point with exemplary clarity: I am a realist. I admit that an idealism such as Kant's can be defended to the extent that it says that all our theories are man-made, and that we try to impose them upon the world of nature. But I am a realist in holding that the question whether our man-made theories are true or not depends on the real facts; real facts which are, with very few exceptions, emphatically not man-made. Our man-made theories may clash with these real facts, and so, in our search for truth, we may have to adjust our theories or to give them up. (Popper 1972: 328-9)50 We may avoid unnecessary confusion by distinguishing two senses of the ambiguous term "truths": (a) truths as truth-bearers (e.g. one's thoughts, belief-states, ideas, etc.); and (b) truths as truth-makers (e.g. facts, objects, the world, etc.). Since the subject-dependence of (a) does not entail the subject-dependence of (b), Schiller's wild-sounding dictum that "truth is human truth" — a thesis about (a) — turns out to be disappointingly tame; for it is consonant with the view that true beliefs must match a mindindependent reality (a thesis about (b)). There is nothing here with which a correspondence-besotted realist need take issue, as the above quotation from Popper makes plain.

4.5

The Argument from Underdetermination

However, there is another, more philosophically interesting sense in which classical pragmatists maintain that truths are human creations. That sense is


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embedded in a declaration bolstered by our second mode: Our theories, by their very nature, cannot be duplicates or reproductions of reality; instead, they are perforce the joint product of objective and subjective factors. At first blush, this sounds decidedly Kantian: subjects authoritatively impose form and order on malleable and indeterminate data, derived from the senses. Time to dust off your copy of the first Critique, you ask? Not at all. What we have here is a highly rhetorical and exuberant presentation of doctrines later made famous by Quine — namely, that empirical theories are epistemically constrained by the facts, but underdetermined by them; that such theories are therefore our creations, and not the sum of accumulated observations read off from the world; and, finally, that when choosing between theories which square equally well with the data, we ought to be biased in favor of the theory which best satisfies a range of "subjective" criteria (i.e. criteria explicated by reference to human interests). The gist of the pragmatist understanding of theory-choice is succinctly conveyed by Schiller: "Whenever we observe a struggle between two rival theories of events we find that it is ultimately the greater conduciveness of the victor to our use and convenience that determines our preference and its consequent acceptance as true" (Schiller 1912: 59). James, also a Quinean avant la lettre in these matters, warmly endorses this cluster of views as early as "The Sentiment of Rationality": "If, then, there were several systems excogitated, equally satisfying to our purely logical needs, they would still have to be passed in review, and approved or rejected by our aesthetic and practical nature" (James 1882:66). James articulated this theme more fully in later writings: Our theories are wedged and controlled as nothing else is. Yet sometimes alternative theoretic formulas are equally compatible with all the truths we know, and then we choose between them for subjective reasons. We choose the kind of theory to which we are already partial; we follow "elegance" or "economy." Clerk-Maxwell somewhere says it would be "poor scientific taste" to choose the more complicated of two equally wellevidenced conceptions; and you will all agree with him. Truth in science is what gives us the maximum possible sum of satisfactions, taste included, but consistency both with previous truth and with novel fact is always the most imperious claimant. (James 1907:98) The suspicion is in the air nowadays that the superiority of one of our formulas to another may not consist so much in its literal "objectivity," as in subjective qualities like its usefulness, its "elegance" or its congruity with our residual beliefs. Yielding to these suspicions, and generalizing, we fall into something like the humanistic state of mind. (James 1909: 60)

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James stresses, moreover, that since the criteria governing theory-choice cannot be formalized, ranked, or reduced to an algorithm, there may be room for reasonable disagreement as to what theory it is rational to accept. In this way, he says, "human arbitrariness has driven divine necessity from scientific logic" (James 1907: 30). The underpinnings of this claim are made explicit in Pragmatism: New truth is always a go-between, a smoother-over of transitions. It marries old opinion to new fact so as ever to show a minimum of jolt, a maximum of continuity. We hold a theory true just in proportion to its success in solving this "problem of maxima and minima." But success in solving it is eminently a matter of approximation. We say that this theory solves it on the whole more satisfactorily than that theory; but that means more satisfactorily to ourselves, and individuals will emphasize their points of satisfaction differently. To a certain degree, therefore, everything here is plastic. (James 1907:31; my emphasis) Similar opinions are set forth in The Meaning of Truth: For humanism, conceiving the more "true" as the more "satisfactory" (Dewey's term), has sincerely to renounce rectilinear arguments and ancient ideals of rigor and finality. It is in just this temper of renunciation, so different from that of pyrrhonistic skepticism, that the spirit of humanism essentially consists. Satisfactoriness has to be measured by a multitude of standards, of which some, for aught we know, may fail in any given case; and what is more satisfactory than any alternative in sight, may to the end be a sum of pluses and minuses, concerning which we can only trust that by ulterior corrections and improvements a maximum of the one and a minimum of the other may some day be approached. It means a real change of heart, a break with absolutistic hopes, when one takes up this inductive view of the conditions of belief. (James 1909:47) How, now, are these doctrines about theories and theory-choice related to the correspondence theory and to realism? Here two things, I think, must be kept in mind. First, to say that our theories are not copies or duplicates of reality is to say (inter alia) that they transcend observational data; in other words, theories are not sums of facts or aggregates of perceptual reports. But the recognition that our theories represent our intellectual handiwork is perfectly compatible with the thought (central to the correspondence theory) that the truth and falsity of those theories is an objective matter. After all, James does not deny there are world-derived constraints on empirical inquiry; he only claims such


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constraints are less restrictive than the tradition had supposed. There is, James urges, some flexibility or slack in the system which gives inquirers a measure of freedom; as a result, what theory it is rational for us to accept — to take-astrue, that is — is partly up to us. But it obviously does not follow from this that what is true is up to us, or that whether a theory is true is independent of the relation it bears to a theory-independent world; that move is a grotesque non sequitur. Hence the correspondence theory of truth is not undermined by underdetermination alone. Second, note that the pragmatists have pulled off a philosophical coup: they have taken a theme central to Kant's idealism — viz., that we create or forge the framework through which we cognize reality — and have ingeniously reinterpreted it in purely epistemological terms. A theory is human creation, they say; but the world on which we impose our theories and which those theories attempt to map is not. This mimics the Gopernican Revolution — but (a) without the high metaphysical cost (since the mind-independence of the known world is unimpugned); and (b) without committing us to the claim that our basic conceptual framework or repertoire is a priori and fixed (since theories are formulated and modified in the light of experience). Hence we can fruitfully see classical pragmatism as taking insights originally embedded in an idealist epistemology and transplanting them within the framework of a realist metaphysic which gives modesty its due. Some later philosophers of science have followed pragmatism's lead in this matter; an outstanding example is Popper, who again sums things up helpfully: Theories are our own inventions, our own ideas; they are not forced on us but are our own self-made instruments of thought: this has been clearly seen by the idealist. But some of these theories of ours can clash with reality; and when they do, we know that there is a reality; that there is something to remind us of the fact that our ideas may be mistakes. And this is why the realist is right. (Popper 1969: 117) 55 What is crucial, both for Popper and for us, is the insight that we can cleave to realism while spurning the bucket theory of mind; we can think of our theories as "human inventions — nets designed by us to catch the world" (Popper 1982:42), without denying that what those nets catch or enfold exists independently of them.

4.6 The Argument from the Mutability of Truth And now for our third pragmatist mode, which supports the following contention: Truth is not absolute, but mutable; not static or fixed, but fluid and evolving.

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What is meant here by "absolute" truth? Schiller provides a helpful gloss: "an absolute truth is one which could not under any circumstances become false" (Schiller 1912: 271). This jibes well with what James has to say on the subject: "The 'absolutely' true, meaning what no farther experience will ever alter ..." (James 1907: 100). What prompts the puzzling denial of truth's absoluteness, it seems, is a thorough-going fallibilism: the view that no theory or statement is certain, incorrigible, or permanently immune from revision. When the pragmatist surveys the history of human opinion and inquiry, he is struck by a curious fact: the allegedly irrefragable verities of one era have the uncanny habit of becoming the quaint fables and myths of the next. As Schiller put it, "What truths have lasted like the Alps, or even like the Pyramids? All human truth, as it actually is and historically has been, seems fallible and transitory" (Schiller 1907: 205). And where Schiller waxes poetic, James offers concrete illustrations drawn from the history of science: "Ptolemaic astronomy, Euclidean space, Aristotelian logic, scholastic metaphysics, were expedient for centuries, but human experience has boiled over those limits" (James 1907: 100).57 To adopt this Peircean attitude of "contrite fallibilism" (GP 1.14) is to give up "the pretence of finality in truth" (James 1907: 28). All claims acquire a provisional or hypothetical character: our corpus of beliefs is "everlastingly in process of mutation" (James 1907: 101), as we strive to square antique convictions with the novel input experience importunately thrusts upon us. The moral Schiller exhorts us to draw from this — "Let Truth mean . .. our best answer for the time being" (Schiller 1912: 275) — is embraced by James with equanimity: "[W]e have to live today by what truth we can get today, and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood" (James 1907: 100). Dewey, too, stresses the corrigibility of all our thoughts and theories; so persuaded was he that our beliefs may "require revision" (Dewey 1911:47) that he prudently preferred to speak of warranted assertibility in lieu of truth: "The strongest warranted assertion is the hardest of hard fact, but neither the warranty, not the hardness, nor even the factuality itself ranges beyond the reach of inquiry — for what is 'hard fact' at 'one' time is not assuredly 'hard' for 'all' time" (Dewey 1949: 87).58 Our pragmatists thus caution us against epistemic complacency: no matter how well-founded or entrenched a given judgment or theory is at present, it may have to be given up in the future: "owing to the fact that all experience is a process, no point of view can ever be thelast one" (James 1909: 90). Schiller condemns the conviction that we have actually arrived at the absolute truth on any matter; indeed, he regards smug ascriptions of certainty as "pernicious" (Schiller 1907:209) because they have the power to bring inquiry to a premature halt: "For if a recognised 'truth' is regarded as 'absolute' .. . [alteration will become impossible, the effort to improve it will be


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discouraged and will cease; in short, the path of progress will be blocked" (Schiller 1907:211). Hence if the road of inquiry is to be kept open, we must forego claims to certainty; for it is only by becoming fallibilists that we will be poised to make progress, as long as there is progress to be made. It would therefore be a piece of haughty folly not to allow for the possibility that much of our current worldview will be deposed by something else, just as it replaced the now outmoded lore of our prescientific forebears. As James puts it: "it would be absurd to affirm that one's own age . . . cannot be beyond correction by the next age" (James 1902: 282). Schiller, unsurprisingly, concurs: the notion of an absolute or unrevisable truth is, he says, "an ill-considered prejudice" (Schiller 1912: 275). But Schiller andjames are both circumspect enough to add that the demise of absolutism does not mean that truth is unknowable; it means that truth should be reconceived "as essentially progressive and improvable, and therefore as superseded by new truth and turning into 'error' so soon as something superior to the old dawns upon any human soul" (Schiller 1912: 275). Yet if, under the influence of fallibilism, we conceive of truth in this way — as something inquirers pursue and approach gradually, through a lengthy series of approximations — then we can admit that "truth will admit of degrees" (Schiller 1907: 158; cf. 193). And this intuitive notion of truth-likeness or verisimilitude is consistent with the claims of correspondence; for there is nothing in the correspondence theory of truth which prevents us from assessing the truth-content of empirical theories in terms of the degree of fidelity with which they represent an extra-linguistic world. Hence when our pragmatists heap scorn on "absoluteness" and expatiate on truth's "mutability" or "plasticity," they are only engaging in innocuous pro-fallibilism propaganda. There need be no contretemps between the pragmatist and the realist, then, since the latter can accommodate fallibilism with a clean metaphysical conscience. To admit our assignment of truth-values is provisional is not to say that truth itself is relative to our perspective in any sense that would compromise its objectivity. It is merely to recognize that rational inquirers need to revise their views about the world, and to allow that epistemic justification (unlike truth) is a property beliefs or statements can lose (i.e. something may be justified or warranted assertible at one time, but not at another). Moreover, the realist qua realist need not quarrel with the suggestion that inquirers may get closer to the truth about the world; indeed, one might even argue that the conception of scientific inquiry as a fallible but self-correcting and progressive enterprise makes little sense unless some form of realism is true. Regardless of whether that latter claim is defensible, however, the basic point about the compatibility of realist correspondence and fallibilism remains: we can deny truth's "absoluteness" without thereby giving up on the idea that true statements represent a mindindependent world.

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The Varieties of Pragmatism 4.7

The Argument from Selective Attention

The upshot of the fourth mode, favored by James, was typically expressed in metaphors: The mind does not copy or reproduce reality; it is less like a mirror or blank slate than it is like a sculptor, who by carving creates a statue out of stone. Even before The Principles of Psychology,James accused defenders of the copy theory of truth of subscribing to an inadequate conception of the mind as analogous to "absolutely passive clay, upon which experience rains down" (James 1890 I: 403). This may sound too amorphous to oppose, let alone refute; nevertheless, James claimed the idea behind the metaphors was inconsistent with the thesis, articulated in the Principles, that perception is conditioned by interests and carves out an order from "the data it receives very much as a sculptor works on his block of stone" (James 1890, Vol. I: 288). Let us take a closer look. The literal core of the metaphors of copying or mirroring is the idea that the mind represents reality with scrupulous fidelity, neither omitting nor adding anything to what is given or presented to sense. However, James denied that our minds are purely receptive and passive in perception: on his view, the chaotic complexity of the sensory manifold — the "blooming buzzing confusion" (James 1890, Vol. I: 488), with its unruly profusion of undifferentiated elements — is reduced to something manageable through the imposition of a scheme of categories which reflect human interests and purposes. Hum a n interests are therefore granted a quasi-transcendental status: they function as necessary conditions of the possibility of perceptual experience, determining which sensations we shall now attend to and which we shall ignore. This phenomenon of selective attention was something James castigated the British Empiricists and like-minded philosophers for ignoring: Strange to say, so patent a fact as the perpetual presence of selective attention has received hardly any notice from psychologists of the English empiricist school. The Germans have explicitly treated of it, either as a faculty or as a resultant, but in the pages of such writers as Locke, Hume, Hartley, the Mills, and Spencer, the word hardly occurs ... The motive of this ignoring of the phenomenon is obvious enough. These writers are bent upon showing how the higher faculties of the mind are pure products of "experience"; and experience is supposed to be of something simply given. Attention, implying a degree of reactive spontaneity, would seem to break through the circle of pure receptivity which constitutes "experience," and hence must not be spoken of under penalty of interfering with the smoothness of the tale. But the moment one thinks of the matter, one sees how false a notion of experience that is which would make it tantamount to the mere presence


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to the senses of an outward order. Millions of items of the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind — without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos. Interest alone gives accent and emphasis, light and shade, background and foreground — intelligible perspective, in a word. It varies in every creature, but without it the consciousness of every creature would be a gray chaotic indiscriminateness, impossible for us to conceive. (James 1890, Vol. I: 402-3) If James is right, then the traditional empiricist notion of perceptual experience must be rethought; the mind can no longer be conceived of as a mirror that impartially reflects reality, or as a blank slate patiently awaiting Nature's imprimatur. Dewey heartily agreed: writing shortly after the publication of The Principles of Psychology, he continued James's reform of empiricism by criticizing the reflex-arc concept in psychology. According to advocates of the reflex-arc model, perceptual experience can be understood in terms of a straightforward distinction between stimulus and response: the child sees light (stimulus), then reaches for the candle (response), is burned by the flame (stimulus), then withdraws his injured hand (response). According to Dewey, this dualistic model will not do. One problem with it, he charges, is that it overlooks the extent to which stimuli are related to directed action, as opposed to being unsought data passively received. The adventures of the aforementioned child, for instance, begin with an act — the act of looking or seeing: Upon analysis, we find that we begin not with a sensory stimulus but with a sensori-motor coordination, the optical-ocular, and that in a certain sense it is the movement which is primary, and the sensation which is secondary, the movement of body, head and eye muscles determining the quality of what is experienced. In other words, the real beginning is with the act of seeing; it is looking, and not a sensation oflight. (Dewey 1896: 137) Three decades later, we find Dewey standing by this understanding of perception as essentially active and selective. In The Questfor Certainty, he argues that empiricism's preferred way of referring to experiential input — as "data" or "the Given" — is symptomatic of a deep conceptual confusion: namely, a commitment to a conception of perception as a passive affair. Instead, Dewey says, epistemologists must never lose sight of the fact that observation involves a discriminative taking-in of things — a taking-in which cannot be comprehended without reference to the purposes and preconceptions of the observer. He writes:

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The Varieties of Pragmatism The history of the theory of knowledge or epistemology would have been very different if instead of the word "data" or "givens," it had happened to start with calling the qualities in question "takens." Not that the data are not existential qualities of the ultimately "given" — that is, the total subject-matter which is had in non-cognitive experiences. But as data they are selected from this total original subject-matter which gives the impetus to knowing; they are discriminated for a purpose: namely that of affording signs or evidence to define and locate a problem, and thus give a clew to its resolution. (Dewey 1929: 178)

Thus we can appreciate that for Dewey, as for James, perception is not so much a state as it is a purposive activity; to observe means, above all, to look for something: the beast in the jungle, the figure in the carpet, the needle in the haystack, Pierre in the cafe. The eye may be naked, but it is neither innocent nor ignorant: like an operative on a special fact-finding mission, it is after something.69 Since observers thus must focus and seek in order to find, the empiricist's categorical imperative — "Observe!" — is a commandment devoid of sense. This very Jamesian and Deweyan thought was hammered home with humor by Popper: The fact that observation cannot precede all problems may be illustrated by a simple experiment which I wish to carry out, by your leave, with yourselves as experimental subjects. My experiment consists in asking you to observe, here and now. I hope you are all co-operating, and observing! However, I feel that at least some of you, instead of observing, will feel a strong urge to ask: "WHAT do you want me to observe?" If this is your response, then my experiment was successful. For what I am trying to illustrate is that, in order to observe, we must have in mind a definite question which we might be able to decide by observation. (Popper 1972: 259) 70 According to both Popper and our pragmatists, observations are shot through with expectations and anticipations. If they are not mistaken, observation is not wholly disinterested: unlike the undiscriminating surface of a looking glass, observers must become skilled in the twin arts of emphasis and exclusion, and are bound to fix their attention on this element instead of that. Here relevance — not ripeness — is all. But relevance is a relative affair; what we deem relevant is relative to a given set of background assumptions or problems. And so there is a curious sense in which observation depends on theory — a sense in which theory is prior to the activity of observing. For, according to this view, theories are not derived from data discovered independently of them; on the contrary, facts and data will elude us unless we peep


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through the thick lens of theory. This means that our pragmatists must disagree with Sherlock Holmes: it is not always a "capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence." James's claims about the role selective attention plays in observation and perception are suggestive and arresting; but we must be careful not to misconstrue their metaphysical and epistemological implications. By denying that the mind is passive in perceptual experience, James hoped to free epistemology from a picture which had long captivated empiricists: that of observations as immaculate reflections in an invisible mirror, and of theories as edifices erected on an independently discerned stratum of fact. But it is as clear as the midday sun in Guadalajara that the rejection of this empiricist picture is compatible with the idea behind correspondence theories of truth. That is to say, we can allow that which facts we seize upon or notice is partly a function of subjective factors (interests, expectations, prior beliefs, or theoretical commitments) without denying that statements or theories are true or false in virtue of the way things stand in the world. Nor can James be accused with justice of subverting metaphysical realism: unlike some post-Kantians who exalt spontaneity at the expense of receptivity, James stresses that what we attend to is not a mere artefact of our perspective: "The things we attend to come to us by their own laws. Attention creates no ideas; an idea must already be there before we can attend to it" (James 1890, Vol. I: 450).76

4.8 The Argument from Facts According to the fifth constructivist mode, the world does not impose itself upon a passive mind. The reason? There is no realm of hard, inflexible facts —facts invested with an absolute authority which cannot be gainsaid and which irresistibly compels us to acknowledge or admit them. First, a friendly word of warning. We must not jump to conclusions and identify this claim about facts with either of the following metaphysical theses, which it superficially resembles: (a) the Nietzschean thesis that "there are no facts, only interpretations" (Nietzsche 1886—88: §481); that is, that there is no perspective-independent reality to which our judgments are answerable; or (b) the ontological thesis — advanced by Strawson, Quine, Davidson, Rorty, and others — that there are no facts; that is, no special class of entities in the world to which whole statements can correspond or fail to correspond. When we turn to the texts, we find that pragmatist opposition to facts is rooted not in theses (a) or (b), but in considerations of a very different (i.e. epistemological) sort. The basic thought can be simply put: what "facts" I can acknowledge — that is, what I can believe or take-as-true — is rationally

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constrained by my standing body of beliefs. If a would-be fact or datum cannot be integrated with ease into this system, or be made to fit harmoniously with previously acquired beliefs, I may be justified in refusing to recognize it in refusing, that is, to regard it as afact. For, all other things being equal, rational subjects will prefer those changes in belief that do not demand a massive (and confusing) overhaul of their doxastic system to those that do. (Suppose, for instance, the litmus paper does not turn pink in a solution of sulfuric acid. Surely, the pragmatist opines, it is more rational to suppose that (say) the paper sample is defective or that the solution has been mislabeled than to declare open season on all our beliefs about acids and bases. Beliefs of the latter sort are, after all, far more entrenched and central to our conceptual scheme than an isolated experiential claim occupying a place on its distant periphery). Despite James's frequent and lucid endorsements of this epistemic conservatism, some have overlooked it. There is no sound excuse for ignoring it, however. For instance, James clearly articulates the desideratum of conserving and deferring to accepted opinion three times in as many paragraphs in "What Pragmatism Means": The individual has a stock of old opinions already, but he meets a new experience that puts them to a strain .. . The result is an inward trouble to which his mind till then had been a stranger, and from which he seeks to escape by modifying his previous mass of beliefs. He saves as much of it as he can, for in this matter of belief we are all extreme conservatives. So he tries to change first this opinion, and then that (for they resist change variously), until at last some new idea comes up which he can graft upon the ancient stock with a minimum of disturbance of the latter, some idea that mediates between the stock and the new experience and runs them into one another most felicitously and expediently. (James 1907:31) An outree explanation, violating all our preconceptions, would never pass for a true account of a novelty. We should scratch round industriously till we found something less excentric. The most violent revolutions in an individual's beliefs leave most of his old order standing. (James 1907: 31) The point I now urge you to observe particularly is the part played by the older truths. Failure to take account of it is the source of much of the unjust criticism leveled against pragmatism. Their influence is absolutely controlling. Loyalty to them is the first principle — in most cases it is the only principle. (James 1907:31) Other isolated remarks scattered throughout Pragmatism second the leading idea of the passages just cited: "The new idea ... gets itself classed as true, by


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... grafting itself then upon the ancient body of truth" (James 1907:32); "[W]e keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can" (James 1907: 78); "True ideas are those that we can assimilate ..." (James 1907: 92); "[N]ew ideas of ours must no less take account of ... the whole body of other truths already in our possession" (James 1907: 96); "We must find a theory that will work ... It must derange common sense and previous belief as little as possible" (James 1907:98). A similar view is propounded in The Meaning of Truth: "If a novel experience, conceptual or sensible, contradict too emphatically our pre-existent system of beliefs, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is treated as false" (James 1909: 134).79 Where does this emphasis on conservatism in matters epistemic lead? Once we say, with Schiller, that "the 'facts' we recognise are always relative to the 'truths' we predicate" (Schiller 1907: 123) — that is, that we cannot ascribe truth to any claim that cannot be made to cohere or conform with our background beliefs — then the hallowed idea (cherished by Mr. Gradgrind and by tough-minded empiricists) that disputes can be settled via a brusque, no-nonsense appeal to "the facts" will seem crude and suspect. Although would-be facts may indeed be stubborn things, we have the epistemological resources needed to put up a formidable and principled resistance to them. Schiller is beautifully explicit on this point: facts, he says, are "far from being rigid, irresistible, triumphant forces of nature" (Schiller 1907:371): Now facts, we are apt to think, are mighty things, and able to force their way into all minds by sheer weight. But nothing could be more mistaken: a mere fact is a very feeble thing, and the minds of most men are fortresses which cannot be captured by a single assault, fortresses impenetrable to the most obvious fact, unless it can open up a correspondence with some of the prejudices within, and enter by a gate which their treasonable support betrays to the besieger. Or, to drop metaphor, the mind will either not receive, or gradually eject and obliterate elements which it cannot assimilate, which it cannot harmonize with the rest of its mental furniture, be they facts ten times over ... (Schiller 1910: 370) It is a popular superstition that the advancement of truth depends wholly on the discovery of facts, and that the sciences have an insatiable appetite for facts and consume them raw, like oysters; whereas, really, the actual procedure of the sciences is almost the exact opposite of this... [T]he sciences are anything but heaps of crude facts. They are coherent systems of interpretation of what they have taken as "fact," and they, very largely, make their own facts as they proceed. Nor are "facts" facts for a science until it has prepared them for assimilation, and can swallow them without unduly straining its structure. (Schiller 1907: 370)

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Like Hans-Georg Gadamer,80 then, James and Schiller reinstate the epistemological rights of "prejudice" — though not, of course, in the pejorative sense of that ill-used word. For, according to the pragmatist view just sketched, judgments one has already made condition and constrain the range of judgments one can now make; and what it is rational to accept must be understood partly by reference to what one has already accepted. Hence the mind is not, as Lockean-inspired empiricism would have it, a tabula rasa on which the world inscribes what it will, without our cooperation or consent. Nor, for that matter, is the Cartesian method of doubt apt to prove fruitful; for if we cannot determine what is worthy of belief without taking into account its relation to other (actual) beliefs, how can we possibly make appraisals of credibility once we have bracketed all our old beliefs? It is surely no accident that Peirce — a honourary coherentist — denounced such doubt as spurious and perverse. In "Some Consequences of Four Incapacities," he contends that the innovations wrought by Descartes — "the father of modern philosophy" (CP 5.264) — compare unfavorably with scholasticism. Having observed that Descartes "teaches that philosophy must begin with universal doubt; whereas scholasticism had never questioned fundamentals" (CP 5.264), Peirce then asserts that Cartesians are afflicted with lafolie de doute: We cannot begin with complete doubt. We must begin with all the prejudices which we actually have when we enter upon the study of philosophy. A person may, it is true, in the course of his studies, find reason to doubt what he began by believing; but in that case he doubts because he has a positive reason for it, and not on account of the Cartesian maxim. Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts. (CP 5.265) But in truth, there is but one state of mind from which you can "set out," namely, the very state of mind in which you actually find yourself at the time you do "set out" — a state in which you are laden with an immense mass of cognition already formed, of which you cannot divest yourself if you would; and who knows whether, if you could, you would not have made all knowledge impossible to yourself? (CP 5.416) Peirce's remarks uncannily presage Neurath's recommendation that inquirers imagine themselves as mariners who, unable to overhaul their boat in dry dock, can only engage in piecemeal repairs while adrift on the high seas. As Quine put it in Word and Object — penned almost a century after Peirce's "Some Consequences" — there is no "cosmic exile" (Quine 1960:275), no standpoint outside our present conceptual scheme from which we can impartially appraise or survey it: "Unlike Descartes, we own and use our beliefs of the moment, even in the midst of philosophizing, until by what is vaguely


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called the scientific method we change them here and there for the better" (Quine 1960: 24—5). But this break with Gartesianism does not mean relativism carries the day: though truth-ascriptions are indeed relative to our "beliefs of the moment," Quine insists that the truth or falsity we attribute to sentences is still an objective affair: "Within our own total evolving doctrine, we can judge truth as earnestly and absolutely as can be; subject to correction, but that goes without saying" (Quine 1960:25). Let me conclude with a pair of clarificatory remarks which connect our treatment of the Argument from Facts with some lessons learned earlier in Part I. First, the holism and conservatism favored by our pragmatists do not lead directly to a coherence theory of truth. To see this, consider the following propositions: (a) What sentences S is justified in holding true depends (at least in part) on how well such claims fit with S's previously acquired beliefs — that is, on their coherence with sentences already held true by S. (b) The nature of truth consists not in correspondence to fact, but in systematic coherence; not in a relation between beliefs and the world, but in a relation among beliefs. It is evident that (a) does not entail (b); there is no inconsistency in endorsing the former proposition while denying the latter. Hence we cannot infer a coherence theory of truth from (a) — unless, that is, we blithely disregard the distinction between justification and truth, or between truth's criterion and its definition. Second, we must not think that (a) means we are stuck with all our old beliefs, come what may. As fallibilists, pragmatists such as James and Quine do not assume entrenched beliefs are somehow sacrosanct; that we can never throw off their yoke, should it prove heavy and oppressive. From the pragmatist point of view, loyalty to one's older beliefs is one epistemic desideratum among many, before which it may have to give way graciously. In other words, pragmatism's commitment to epistemic conservatism must be seen in context — namely, against the background of its commitments to fallibilism and to an understanding of theory-choice as a non-algorithmic procedure involving a plurality of standards among which there is no pre-established harmony or hierarchy.

4.9 The Argument from Agency The sixth mode leads to the following conclusion: We do not mirror facts so much as make them; thought'sfunction is not to copy the world, but to re-create or shape it. Though vague, this dictum is one to which James was addicted. We can appreciate what he was driving at, however, if we turn to "The Sentiment of

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Rationality." There we make the acquaintance of an Alpine climber who must extricate himself from a potentially fatal predicament: Suppose, for example, that I am climbing in the Alps, and have had the illluck to work myself into a position from which the only escape is by a terrible leap. Being without similar experience, I have no evidence of my ability to perform it successfully; but hope and confidence in myself make me sure I shall not miss my aim, and nerve my feet to execute what without those subjective emotions would perhaps have been impossible . . . In this case (and it is one of an immense class) the part of wisdom clearly is to believe what one desires; for the belief is one of the indispensable preliminary conditions of the realization of its object. There are cases wherefaith creates its own verification. Believe and you shall be right, for you shall save yourself; doubt, and you shall again be right, for you shall perish. The only difference is that to believe is greatly to your advantage. (James 1882: 80) Is James's suggestion — namely, that certain kinds of beliefs can be self-verifying or self-fulfilling — defensible? It would certainly seem that a person's beliefs about her future condition can contribute causally to the production of the very state of affairs she desires or fears: victory may elude the insecure athlete who doubts her ability to perform, just as a patient may not recover unless she is convinced her condition shall improve. So the thesis that some beliefs can function as conditions of their own truth seems plausible enough. Does it follow from this that reality is not mind-independent? Absolutely not. Though some states of affairs are not independent of our beliefs (precisely because those beliefs caused them), this kind of causal dependence of world on mind does not threaten the metaphysical realist, for whom the world is independent of mind or language in the stronger sense of not being constituted by them. Hence, we can accept James's causal claim about our fabulous fa c t making powers without compromising our commitment to realist modesty. And James, it seems, fully appreciated this. In "The Will to Believe," for instance, he allows that "in our dealings with objective nature we obviously are recorders, not makers, of the truth . .. Throughout the breadth of physical nature facts are what they are quite independently of us" (James 1896: 26). Unfortunately, James's penchant for colorful rhetoric may suggest — at least to some — that he took the mind's power to fabricate facts to be a cogent objection to realism.How might we account for such (apparent) slips? I submit that James was a victim of a metaphor, all traces of which he wanted to extirpate — namely, the metaphor of the mind as an impotent mirror whose representations are mere epiphenomena. This representationalist image of the mind effectively suppresses the distinction between metaphysical and causal senses of independence; for the causal traffic between a mirror and the


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inanimate objects reflected in it paradigmatically runs in only one direction. And so once our power to make facts has shattered the mirror-metaphor for us, it becomes easy (if unwise) to leap from an unpretentious observation — viz., that subjects are also agents who can change the world they seek to know — to a grand philosophical "discovery," couched in highfalutin Kantian rhetoric, about the mind's power to remake the world in its own image. We find examples of this Janus-like tendency to combine the haughty Romantic countenance of German idealism with the homelier visage of commonsense at both ends of James's lengthy career. Consider, as Exhibit A, the passage already cited from his first published philosophical article, "On Spencer's Definition of Mind as Correspondence": I, for my part, cannot escape the consideration, forced upon me at every turn, that the knower is not simply a mirror floating with no foot-hold anywhere, and passively reflecting an order that he comes upon and finds simply existing. The knower is an actor, and co-efficient of the truth on one side, whilst on the other he registers the truth which he helps to create. Mental interests, hypotheses, postulates, so far as they are bases for human action — action which to a great extent transforms the world — help to make the truth which they declare. In other words, there belongs to mind, from its birth upward, a spontaneity, a vote. It is in the game, and not a mere lookeron. (James 1878:22) This is nowhere near as revolutionary as it may sound to the untutored ear. The position scouted in the first sentence is described in purely metaphorical terms ("the knower is ... simply a mirror with no foot-hold anywhere"); the basic rightness of the correspondence intuition of truth is (arguably) recognized tacitly in the second sentence (in which it is conceded that the knower does, after all, "register" the truth); and, finally, the Kantian overtones of the entire passage are muted as soon as we realize that the knower transforms the world — or "creates the truth" — through "action" (as opposed to some a priori or subjective constitution of the objects of knowledge). And now for Exhibit Z. More than three decades later, in a Mew York Times interview — the point of which, ironically, was to clear up some misunderstandings surrounding pragmatism — James made remarks which bring his double vision into focus yet again: It is this perception, that truth is a resultant, and that minds and realities must work together in producing it, that has launched the pragmatist writers on the second act of their career. Reality as such is not truth, and the mind as such is not a mere mirror. Man engenders truth upon reality .. . Our minds are not here simply to copy a reality that is already complete.

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They are here to complete it, to add to its importance by their own remodeling of it, to decant its contents over, so to speak, into a more significant shape. In point of fact, the use of most of our thinking is to help us to change the world ... (James 1907a: 228) Since the blunt and undefended assertion that "thought can change the world" seems plausible in the way James evidently intended it to be only if the phrase "change the world" is taken as a causal claim, James's conclusion amounts to little more than an artful (if melodramatic) presentation of the idea that knowers are also agents. But since we can "change the world" in James's sense by opening a window or by turning the pages of a book, realists hardly need to stampede, panic-stricken, and take cover. Do James's musings about thought's power to change the world have any significant epistemological upshot, then? If they do, I suspect it consists in adumbrating what Dewey dubbed "the experimental theory of knowledge" — a view that "installs doing as the heart of knowing" (Dewey 1929: 36). According to this conception of knowledge, knowing subjects are inquirers: prompted by the irritation of actual doubt (not its Cartesian counterfeit), their goal is to solve a concrete problem — to "fix belief" or "settle opinion," as Peirce put it. But inquirers are not detached Olympian onlookers aloof from the fray; they are engaged agents who extract facts from Nature and learn about the world by intervening in it. This is obvious in the case of the scientist toiling away in her laboratory, surrounded by test tubes, microscopes, cyclotrons, and the like; but it is equally true of her non-scientific counterpart: the humble humdrum perceiver, bereft of fancy instruments or generous research grants. In both cases, the pursuit of truth involves experimentation ; that is, actions performed deliberately in order to acquire data — data needed to assess and refine our conjectures and hypotheses. As Dewey says, The rudimentary prototype of experimental doing for the sake of knowing is found in ordinary procedures. When we are trying to make out the nature of a confused and unfamiliar object, we perform various acts with a view to establishing a new relationship with it, such as will bring to light qualities which will aid in understanding it. We turn it over, bring it into a better light, rattle and shake it, thump, push, and press it, and so on. The object as it is experienced prior to the introduction of these changes baffles us; the intent of these acts is to make changes which will elicit some previously unperceived qualities, and by varying conditions of perception shake loose some property which as it stands blinds or misleads us. (Dewey 1929: 87) So what we as inquirers must do — to put it crudely, but vividly — is push reality around; we must find out how things react when provoked and


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manipulated; we must take liberties with the world and see what it will tolerate before it complains — and shoves back. By daring reality to put up a fight (as it were), we learn what we cannot get away with; we learn what approaches will not work, and what theories cannot be imposed on the world. We also learn what we must take into account in order to do better in the future (i.e. to come closer to the truth); as a result, inquiry is a potentially self-correcting process. This view of inquirers as experimenters employing the method of trial and error is an insight partly obscured by Schiller's wild Protagorean conceits — the making of truth, the plasticity of reality, and so forth — in "Axioms as Postulates"; but it is there nonetheless. Schiller writes: I observe that since we do not know what the world is, we have to find out. This we do by trying. Not having a ready-made world present to us ... we have to make experiments in order to construct out of the materials we start with a harmonious cosmos which will satisfy all our desires (that for knowledge included). For this purpose we make use of every means that seems promising: we try it and we try it on. For we cannot afford to remain unresistingly passive, to be impressed, like the tabula rasa in the traditional fiction, by an independent "external world" which stamps itself upon us. If we did that we should be stamped out. (Schiller 1902: 55) For Schiller, then, scientists and non-scientists alike must affect or act on reality in order to learn about it: "Experience is experiment, i.e. active. We do not learn, we do not live unless we try. Passivity, mere acceptance, mere observation (could they be conceived) would lead us nowhere, least of all knowledge" (Schiller 1907: 191). Dewey was to say much the same thing almost a quarter century later, in The Questfor Certainty: In the old scheme, knowledge, as science, signified precisely and exclusively turning away from change to the changeless. In the new experimental science, knowledge is obtained in exactly the opposite way, namely through deliberate institution of a definite and specified course of change. The method of physical inquiry is to introduce some change in order to see what other change ensues, the correlation between these changes, when measured by a series of operations, constitutes the definite and desired object of knowledge. (Dewey 1929:84) Now heed what follows: if knowers must be inquirers, and if inquirers must be agents, then knowing subjects as such must be agents; they must have the power to transform reality through deliberate and purposive activity — to bring about changes in the world they seek to know, in order to know it

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better. But if this is correct, then the antique dualism supporting the spectator theory — the rigid distinction between knowledge and action, or theory and practice — totters and collapses with a resounding crash. And so, Dewey concludes, modern experimental science makes it impossible to take old-fashioned spectator theories of knowledge seriously: The central and outstanding fact is that the change in the method of knowing, due to the scientific revolution begun in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, has been accompanied by a revolution in the attitude of man toward natural occurrences and their interactions. This transformation means, as was intimated earlier, a complete reversal in the traditional relationship of knowledge and action. Science advances by adopting the instruments and doings of directed practice, and the knowledge thus gained becomes a means of the development of arts which bring nature still further into actual potential service of human purposes and valuations. The astonishing thing is that in the face of this change wrought in civilization, there still persist the notions about mind and its organs of knowing, together with the inferiority of practice to intellect, which developed in antiquity as the report of a totally different situation. (Dewey 1929: 85) We are now in a position to understand why Dewey held that "the relation of knower to known is radically misconceived in what passes as epistemology" (Dewey 1916: 279). Traditional epistemologists — be they realists or idealists — have long been obsessed with the relation between the knowing subject and reality; but for the most part they have been content to assume — wrongly, according to Dewey — that the relation between knower and known can be understood as one holding between a subjective consciousness and objects. This fundamental assumption binds together the dueling realists and idealists of ill-famed textbook feuds; indeed, it is because they agree on this that they disagree in the way they do. The realist plays up the mind's passivity and receptivity as virtues which enable it to be transparently faithful and true to an external world; whereas his idealist counterpart is wont to accentuate the mind's activity and spontaneity, as endowments which empower it to constitute the domain of phenomena known. Dewey's point is that the assumption common to such realists and idealists is untenable: the acquisition of knowledge cannot be adequately understood so long as we persist in seeing the knowing subject as just that — a mere subject — instead of as an agent who manipulates and modifies her environment through practical activity. None of this, it must be stressed, requires us to jettison metaphysical realism or the formal definition of truth as correspondence. We may allow that empirical knowledge grows through experimentation; and we may happily agree with Dewey that "all experimentation involves overt doing, the making of


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definite changes in our environment or in our relation to it'' (Dewey 1929: 86). However, it obviously does not follow from the fact that inquirers acquire knowledge of the world by changing it through action that (i) the known world is not independent of us (in the realist's non-causal sense of the term), or that (ii) true assertions do not match or mesh with the way that world is. And so devotees of the experimental theory of knowledge are still perfectly free to claim (a) that human knowledge is of a non-human, mind-independent world; and (b) that the truth or falsity of scientific theories and everyday beliefs depends on their relation to that world. There is no reason, therefore, to throw out the realist correspondence baby with the stagnant bathwater that is the spectator theory of knowledge-acquisition.

4.10

The Argument from Postulation

Here is the upshot of the seventh and final mode on our agenda: The so-called "world" of physical objects is a human creation or invention; it is the projection or product of our thought, not something given or found. Such incautious talk may bring to mind Schopenhauer's startling idealist Credo: "The world is representation" (Schopenhauer 1859, Vol. I:§1, 3). But — as paradoxical as it sounds — the idea that the "world" (mind those quotation marks!) is our creation is actually part of pragmatism's ingenious and prescient attempt to vindicate realism. From the pragmatist perspective, realism is a theory; for "the 'reality of the external world' is not an original datum of experience" (Schiller 1907:201). Realism is, however, the best theory available to us; and we are justified in accepting it in virtue of its explanatory power and efficacy. In short, we are right to posit an objective world in order to make much-needed sense of our experience (which would otherwise approach a chaotic sensuous rhapsody or "blooming buzzing confusion"). But let us be perfectly clear about one thing: viewing material objects in this way — as practically indispensable posits — is not tantamount to saying that such items are helpful supreme fictions, or that they owe their reality to human thought and language. As Quine famously said, "[t]o call a posit a posit is not to patronize it" (Quine 1960: 22); that is, to call x a posit is not ipso factoto impugnx'sontological credentials or status. Underlying this approach to realism is an influential idea familiar from the work of Peirce — namely, that explanatory power augments warrant: ceteris paribus, if a theory adequately explains the data, then there is reason to regard that theory as true (though such reasons are clearly defeasible). The Argument from Postulation thus turns on an inference to the best explanation: a form of non-deductive reasoning in which — as Gilbert Harman observes — "one infers, from the fact that a certain hypothesis would explain the data, to

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the truth of that hypothesis" (Harman 1965: 89). When viewed against this background, our commonsense belief in a mind-independent reality seems epistemologically akin to the physicist's commitment to unobservable entities: in both cases, we are dealing with theoretical posits whose postulation is justified to the extent that they render experience more intelligible. Indeed, Quine urged that science uses the same method as commonsense — though in a more cautious and self-conscious fashion: The positing of these extraordinary things [i.e. molecules and such] is just a vivid analogue of the positing or acknowledging of ordinary things: vivid in that the physicist audibly posits them for recognized reasons, whereas the hypothesis of ordinary things is shrouded in prehistory. (Quine 1960: 22) On this view, what ultimately grounds our belief in an objective world is the (putative) fact that we can most satisfactorily organize and manage our experience by postulating enduring mind-independent objects. This is precisely how Schiller defended commonsense realism — with its "notion of 'things,' which serves us so effectively" (Schiller 1934: 341): [Realism] manifestly is a theory of very great pragmatic value. In ordinary life we all assume that we live in an "external" world, which is "independent" of us, and peopled by other persons as real and as good, or better than ourselves. And it would be a great calamity if any philosophy should feel it its duty to upset this assumption. For it works splendidly, and the philosophy which attacked it would only hurt itself. (Schiller 1907:459) Sense and science alike require us to believe that the existence of the world is not solely dependent on its appearance in any one's consciousness. This assumption is made for practical purposes by all of us, and works so well that we have no occasion to doubt its truth. (Schiller 1910: 263) James, too, is quick to concede that realism is an hypothesis, as opposed to the necessary conclusion of a Kantian-style transcendental argument; but he is equally quick to stress its acceptance is warranted because no competing theory can help us cope as well with sensory experience: The greatest common-sense achievement, after the discovery of one Time and one Space, is probably the concept of permanently existing things. When a rattle first drops out of the hand of a baby, he does not look to see if it is gone. Non-perception he accepts as annihilation until he finds a better belief. That our perceptions mean beings, rattles that are there whether we hold them in our hands or not, becomes an interpretation so luminous of

Neither Worldmakers nor Mirrors81

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what happens to us, that once employed, it never gets forgotten. It applies with equal felicity to things and persons, to the objective and to the ejective realm. However a Berkeley, a Mill, or a Cornelius may criticize it, it works; and in practical life we never think of "going back" upon it, or reading our incoming experiences in any other terms. We may, indeed, speculatively imagine a state of "pure" experience before the hypothesis of permanent objects behind its flux had been framed; and we can play with the idea that some primeval genius might have struck into a different hypothesis. But we cannot positively imagine today what the different hypothesis could have been, for the category of trans-perceptual reality is now one of the foundations of our life. Our thoughts must still employ it if they are to possess reasonableness and truth. (James 1909: 63—4) The ensemble of perceptions thus thought of as either actual or possible form a system which it is obviously advantageous to us to get into a stable and consistent shape: and it is here that the common-sense notion of permanent beings finds triumphant use. Beings acting outside of the thinker explain, not only his actual perceptions, past and future, but his possible perceptions and those of everyone else. Accordingly they gratify our theoretic need in a supremely beautiful way. (James 1909:87) Decades later, in "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," Quine echoes his pragmatist predecessors when he defends realism along recognizably similar lines. From the standpoint of Quinean naturalism, the philosopher wrestling with the problem of the external world is entitled to appeal to the same criteria scientists use to choose among rival theories. There is therefore nothing perverse in the suggestion that the philosopher's case for realism is akin to the physicist's case for positing atoms and their ilk: As an empiricist, I continue to think of the conceptual scheme as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries — not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience. (Quine 1951:44-5)

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The Argument from Postulation common to Schiller, James, and Quine is easily summarized. Since our commonsense categories are human inventions — in other words, a theory — whose function is to impose a coherent order on our experiences, and since realism discharges this function splendidly, it sration al to retain and use the idea of a mind-independent real i t y . The debt to Kant's invocation of postulates of practical reason is perhaps too obvious to call for much comment; still, it should be borne in mind that the postulates of our pragmatists are not absolutely necessary or fixed. Postulates, like the rest of our commitments, are best thought of as hypotheses potentially subject to revision and replacement — a potent reminder that the fallibilism favored by pragmatists goes all the way down.

4.11

Conclusions

(1) According to leading neo-pragmatists, the correspondence theory of truth cannot survive metaphysical realism's (alleged) demise. We cannot sensibly gloss truth as correspondence, they insist, unless there is a mind-independent world for our beliefs to represent; and they have argued strenuously against the proposition that there is such a world. (2) Neo-pragmatists are thus opposed to the idea that subjects copy or mirror an objective, mind-independent reality. So are classical pragmatists — but not because they are convinced there is no such reality. Whence, then, comes their opposition? In order to understand why the classical pragmatists resisted the mirror metaphor, we need to determine that metaphor's cash-value. (3) What, then, does a (normal) mirror typically do? Its basic function, of course, is simply to reflect all and only those objects placed before it. Entirely receptive and passive, mirrors re-present things without altering or interpreting them; they are not supposed to make any difference to the things reflected in them. If mind is to world as mirror is to object, the knower's task is not fundamentally active or creative, but reproductive and passive. (4) Mirror metaphors thus support a conception of knowledge and inquiry as matters of mimesis or duplication — "a mere beholding or viewing of reality" (Dewey 1920: 144). We have seen, however, that James, Schiller, and Dewey all deny we take dictation from Nature. From the standpoint of classical pragmatism, then, mirror metaphors are objectionable primarily because they downplay or deny the difference inquirers make — not to the constitution of reality, but to our evolving knowledge of it. (5) Hence the "constructivism" of the classical pragmatism boils down (more or less) to a set of theses in epistemology: theses about observation, theory, holism, underdetermination, epistemic conservatism, fallibilism,


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inference to the best explanation, and experimentation. Since these epistemological theses are compatible with realism, it would be unwise to see the pragmatist critique of mirror metaphors as anti-realist propaganda. (6) In sum, we would do well to heed the neglected words of Schiller: "Pragmatism . . . is not a metaphysics ... It is really something far more precious, viz. an epistemological method which really describes the facts of actual knowing ... It is only a method in the field of logic" (Schiller 1907: 11—12).104 When James tells us we cannot "separate the real from the human factors in the growth of our cognitive experience" (James 1907: 113), or when Dewey denies "knowing consists in possessing a transcript, more or less accurate but otiose, of real things" (Dewey 1917: 91), or when Schiller professes contempt for the idea that "the business of thought [is] fundamentally to copy reality" (Schiller 1907: 116), they were talking epistemology — not metaphysics.

Notes 1. Popper (1972:41). 2. Cf. Wright (1992: 1-2). 3. For more on the theme of anti-realism-as-hubris, see: Trigg (1980: 183, 196—7); Nagel (1986: 109; cf. 25-6, 92); Alston (1996: 263-4); and Searle (1998: 19-20, 32-3). Cf. Chesterton (1933:212, 220). 4. Cf. Wright (1992:2-3). 5. Unfortunately, British anti-realism deriving from Dummett (1978) lies off the course charted for this study. See Norris (2002) for an up-to-date overview. 6. Cf. Kuhn (1970). 7. Cf. Goodman (1960), (1978), (1988). 8. Cf. Davidson (1974). 9. Cf. Rorty (1972), (1980), (1981d), (1982a), (1986), (1988a), (1989), (1991a), (1994a), (1994b). 10. Cf. Putnam (1978), (1979), (1980), (1981), (1982a), (1982b), (1983a), (1986a), (1987), (1987a), (1995), (1999). 11. See§2.1. 12. Cf. Putnam (1981:63, 128), (1982b:41), (1983:177, 210, 272), (1987a:28); Goodman (1978: 94, 125), (1988:49, 154). Cf. AppendixB. 13. See the textual references for Rorty, Putnam, and Goodman given in §3.1 and §3.3. 14. See Alston (1979) for an insightful discussion. 15. I take this tag from Gallois (1974). 16. Cf. Goodman (1978). For criticisms of this style of argument, see Stove (1991) and Scheffler( 1999). 17. Cf. Rorty (1982a: xxxix); Kuhn (1970: 206). 18. Cf. Putnam (1987), (1987b). For criticisms, see Sosa (1993) and Searle (1998).

84 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38.

The Varieties of Pragmatism Cf. Putnam (1980). For criticisms, see Lewis (1984), Devitt (1991), and Alston (1996). Cf. Davidson (1969), (1990). For criticisms, see Sosa (1993) and Searle (1995). Cf. Lepore and Ludwig (2005: 49-55). Cf. Putnam (1981) and Davidson (1986); on Davidson, see Lepore and Ludwig (2005: 322-42). For criticisms, see Nagel (1986) and Van Inwagen (1988). Cf. Putnam (1978). For criticisms, see Devitt (1991). Cf. Kuhn (1970). For criticisms, see Vision (1988) and Devitt (1991). Cf. Rorty (1999). Cf. Rorty (1986: 146-50). Cf. Davidson (1974), (1990: 298; 307-9), (2000: 73). Nevertheless, realism can make pretty good copy. See Chesterton (1933: 219—21) for an eloquent encapsulation of classical realism's spirit. For more on the case for transcendental idealism, see McDermid (2003). Cf. Kant (1781:815-19). For more on the differences between Schopenhauer and Kant, see McDermid (2002), (2003). J. J. C. Smart's aphorism, which goes to the heart of the matter, deserves to be much better known: "Kant's Copernican Revolution was really an anti-Copernican counterrevolution" (Smart 1963: 151). Cf. Kant (1781: B29/A15). Cf. McDowell (1996). For a review of the difficulties, see Rescher (2000), Chapter 1. See Schopenhauer (1859); Fichte (1800); Hegel (1807). For scholarly studies of the movement, see Ewing (1933); Solomon (1983); and Safranski (1990). Not all were card-carrying Hegelians, to be sure. But see: Green (1878); Bosanquet (1888); Royce (1892) Joachim (1906); Bradley (1914); McTaggart (1921). Cf. Blanshard (1939). For early overviews of the movement, see Muirhead (1931); Cunningham (1933); and Ewing (1933). For a full discussion of Bradley's opposition to the correspondence theory, see Wollheim (1969), Chapter 4. For Schiller's estimate of Protagoras's relevance, see Chapters I, XIV, and XV in Studies in Humanism (1907).

39. Cf. Schiller (1907: 13, 459-60). See §4.10. 40. James thinks the accusation that "No pragmatist can be a realist" is one of the most widespread misunderstandings of pragmatism (James 1909: xvii; 100; 158; 190-7; 217-18; 238-45; 268-70; 274-5). Note also his 1907 letter to Dickinson Miller, in which he calls himself "a natural realist" (Hardwick 1993: 240). On James's natural realism, see Putnam (1999). 41. Though James reproved Schiller for his rhetorical excesses and for being "bumptious" in polemical exchanges with Bradley. In a letter (1907), however, James told Schiller of his reaction to the latter's Studies in Humanism: "[Your] essays on Freedom and the Making of Reality seem to me to be written with my own heart's blood — it's startling that two people should be found to think so exactly alike . . . I feel absolutely certain of the supersessive power of pragmato-humanism, if


42.

43.

44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49.

50. 51.

52. 53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58.

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persuasively enough set forth" (Hardwick 1993: 230-1). Cf. Lecture VII, "Pragmatism and Humanism," injames (1907). Peirce regarded Kant as "a merely confused pragmatist" (CP 5.525) whose influence he proudly acknowledged: "The first strictly philosophical books that I read were of the classical German schools; and I became so deeply imbued with many of their ways of thinking that I have never been able to disabuse myself of them . . . I devoted two hours a day to the study of Kant's Critic of the Pure Reason for more than three years, until I almost knew the whole book by heart, and had critically examined every section of it" (CP 1.4). Consider also the revealing entries injames's philosophical notebooks: see James (1878-84), (1880-84a), (1880-84b), (1896-1900), all of which are critical of Kant's idealism. See §3.3. Cf. Hegel (1807: §73). Peirce's remarks on this show him at his most splendidly dyspeptic: "It appears that there are certain mummified pedants who have never waked to the truth that the act of knowing a real object alters it. They are curious specimens of humanity, and as I am one of them, it may be amusing to see how I think" (CP5.555). Cf. Dewey (1930:8). As in the "modes" of the ancient skeptics. See Annas and Barnes (1985) for an accessible primer. Note that this is not a quotation, but a paraphrase of my own. I have tried to convey the gist of each mode in my own words; these initial paraphrases are then fleshed out with textual references and citations. Cf. Popper (1969: 117). Note the example Schiller uses: "the rejection of Ptolemaic epicycles in favor of the Copernican astronomy was not any sheer failure to represent celestial motions, but the growing cumbrousness of its assumptions and the growing difficulty of the calculations its'truth'involved" (Schiller 1912:60). Cf. Kuhn(1973). Compare this with John Henry Newman's discussion of the illative sense; see Newman (1870), Chapter 9. James has no patience with the objection that "pragmatists destroy all objective standards" (James 1907: 104) — he refers to this objection as "an impudent slander" (James 1907: 104) — and, by his own admission, this slack or freedom is slight: "Our theories are wedged and controlled as nothing else is" (James 1907: 98). Here it is worth recalling that he said only that " [t]o a certain degree, therefore, everything here is plastic" (James 1907: 31); wild-eyed relativism or unrestrained irrationalism ensue only if we ignore the qualification. Cf. Popper (1969: 95-6, 180-1). On the bucket theory, see §3.3. Schiller, too, offers examples; see his (1934: 47), for instance. Dewey, it seems, was concerned not to deny correspondence but to work out an account of what is involved in calling something true that would be consistent with

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59. 60. 61.

62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72.

73.

74.

75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

The Varieties of Pragmatism fallibilism. This, I think, is something Tiles (1988: 105) implicitly acknowledges in his discussion of Dewey's preference for the term "warranted assertibility." He also thinks it pernicious because of its political and social consequences. Cf. Schiller (1912:271), (1934:309). See Schiller (1907: 208-12), (1910: 133), (1934: 186-7). See Dewey's position as outlined in §3.3. "[T]o admit one's liability to correction is one thing, and to embark upon a sea of wanton doubt is another. Of willfully playing into the hands of skepticism we cannot be accused. He who acknowledges the imperfectness of his instrument, and makes allowance for it in discussing his observations, is in a much better position for gaining truth than if he claimed his instrument to be infallible" (James 1902:282). Cf. Putnam (1981:55). Popper (1972:41—2) suggests that only the realist can make sense of a radical fallibilism. Cf. James (1890 I: 289) and (1907: 79). According to James, interests "are the real a priori element in cognition" (James 1878:11). Cf. Dewey (1896). Cf. Dewey (1896: 137). Compare this with Gibson's (1966) understanding of perception. Cf. Schiller (1907:370). Cf. Popper (1969:46, 128). Cf. Dewey (1896: 140). This, of course, was precisely Popper's point: "I believe that theory — at least some rudimentary theory or expectation — always comes first; that it always precedes observation" (Popper 1972: 258). Cf. A Study in Scarlet: " 'No data yet,' he [Holmes] answered. 'Itis a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.' " (Conan Doyle 1927: 27). To be sure, it does rule out simplistic theories on which correspondence is construed as copying. Hence it seems Charlene Haddock Seigfried errs when, in the course of her discussion of the role of interests in cognition, she writes: "If accepted, this argument for the understanding of an otherwise chaotic world by the imposition of subjectively motivated interests should effectively eliminate all correspondence theories" (Seigfried 1978:22). One immediately thinks of Fichte, for instance, or Nietzsche. Cf. James (1890, Vol. 1:594). Thesis (a) automatically excludes realism; thesis (b) does not. See Feldman (2003: 143—4) for an introduction to such conservatism. Cf. James (1909: 65, 87-8). Cf. Gadamer (1960). Cf. §3.3. See §3.6.


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83. It will be recalled from §4.6 that Schiller thinks conservatism without fallibilism is blind. Without the latter doctrine, epistemic conservatives turn reactionary; for they cut themselves off from the possibility of making revolutionary advances — of discovering genuine "new truth" (Schiller 1907:211). So the road of inquiry would be blocked. 84. This background was described and explored in §4.5 and §4.6. 85. James (1907: 33, 37, 83-7, 93, 97-8, 100, 105, 114, 128), (1909:23,41,50-1,57, 80,89, 110, 127).Cf. Dewey (1925:24-6). 86. Cases of this latter sort intrigued James. Cf. James (1902: 95-121) on the "mind cure" movement. 87. That is, there would still be mountains, rivers, trees, stars, and the like even if there were no conscious subjects, minds, speakers, conceptualizers, or languageusers. Cf. James (1909: 68-9). 88. Cf. Schiller (1907:392). 89. That realism can easily be confused with James's bete noire — "intellectualism" (defined as the view that "our mind comes upon a world complete in itself, and has the duty of ascertaining its contents; but has no power of re-determining its character, for that is already given" (James 1911: 221)) — would seem to account for more than a few of the idealist-flavored pronouncements James issued in Pragmatism. See James (1907:28-30, 34, 87, 114-20). The precise meaning of "intellectualism" nevertheless remains rather obscure. Cf. Sprigge (1993: 181-91) and James (1910). 90. See Dewey (1910). 91. Compare this with W. S. Franklin's definition of physics, quoted approvingly by James: "[PJhysics is the science of the ways of taking hold of bodies and pushing them" (James 1907:27). 92. This explains a "paradoxical fact" noted by Schiller — namely, that "those who have most experience of the fallibility of human truth are least disposed to be sceptical about it" (Schiller 1907:212). 93. See §4.3. 94. Thus Dewey asserts that realist and idealist epistemologies "make one common assumption. They all hold that the operation of inquiry excludes any element of practical activity that enters into the construction of the object known" (Dewey 1929:22). 95. I am not suggesting Dewey was confused about this. See Appendix C. 96. Hence I agree with Dicker (1977) and Tiles (1988), who deny that Dewey's critique of the spectator theory of knowledge is inconsistent with realism. 97. Cf. Quine (1953: viii). 98. Cf. Schiller (1907:201-2), already cited. 99. James's case for the hypothesis of realism appeals to just the sort of conservatism discussed in §4.8. When James says the hypothesis of mind-independent things is entrenched and ancient, the implication is plain: to deny this hypothesis would greatly inconvenience us, since we would need to replace that hypothesis with a new and unfamiliar way of interpreting our experiences.

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100. But why is realism the best explanation? Here pragmatists are less explicit and precise. For some recent discussions of this pro-realist line of reasoning, see: Lycan (1988); Moser (1989); Vogel (1990); and Carruthers (1992). Cf. Strawson (1985: 7—8; 20), who suggests this sort of argument is the best reply to skepticism we have though he is unconvinced by it, holding skepticism to be irrefutable. 101. Cf. James (1907: 112); Schiller (1907: 202). Cf. §4.6. 102. See§4.4-§4.10. 103. The pragmatist reaction against the mind-as-mirror motif can profitably be seen as one chapter in much longer and richer story — a story about the impact of Romanticism, both on our self-understanding and on our understanding of our relation to the world; for a sense of this story's outlines, see the classic study by Abrams (1953). Especially relevant in the present context is Abrams's discussion (1953: 57—69) of the way the metaphors for mind change dramatically in the wake of Kant's Copernican Revolution, when poets stop talking about mirrors and blank slates and speak instead of lamps, projectors, fountains, and windharps (as in Wordsworth and Coleridge). However, Kant does not get all the credit for this shift away from images of passive reproduction; as Abrams points out, the lamp metaphors favored by the Romantics can be found in earlier authors (e.g. Plotinus). 104. Moreover, anyone who reads his constructivist-sounding papers "The Making of Truth" and "The Making of Reality" (Schiller 1907: 179-203; 421-51) with a modicum of care and charity will realize that the core doctrine Schiller propounds belongs to epistemology. See, too, what Schiller (1907:428) claimed about "Axioms and Postulates."

5

Towards a Pragmatist Epistemology

[MJost philosophical schools have more of the truth than one would have believed.

G. W. Leibniz 1

5.0

Introduction

It is time we brought together the main morals of the tale told in the preceding chapters. What, then, have we learned about pragmatism in Part I? I shall frame my answer to this question in terms of the three senses of coherence discussed in Chapter 2. These are: (1) (2) (3)

Coherence as Rationality. Coherence as Systematicity. Coherence as Unity.

5.1

Coherence as Rationality

Detractors of the classical pragmatists tend to treat them as the philosophical equivalent of snake-oil salesmen: eager to purvey cheap panaceas for metaphysical and epistemological ills, long on rhetoric and fulsome promises, but shrewdly reticent about backing up their hazy and inflated claims. This image of pragmatism as disreputably therapeutic, however, is hard to reconcile with what Part I has revealed. Whatever else Schiller, James, and Dewey might be guilty of, they do not simply tell us that we are in the grip of a bad picture and then attempt to change the subject. On the contrary, we have seen that the classical pragmatists advance substantive theses on a varied range of topics in epistemology — foundationalism, the Given, fallibilism, holism, epistemic conservativism, the role of explanatory inference, the relation between theory and observation, and so forth — and that they defend these theses with insightful arguments.3 On the question of how central argument is to philosophical inquiry, then, James, Schiller, and Dewey have much more in common with (say) Mill, Russell, Ryle, or Popper than they do with Emerson, Heidegger, Foucault or Derrida (with whom it is now modish to compare them).

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5.2

Coherence as Systematicity

We may still wonder how tightly the thematic strands comprising the fabric of classical pragmatism are woven together. Do their claims form anything like a system — that is, a broad and consistent set of propositions among which a number of significant interconnections or reinforcing links obtain? That classical pragmatism qualifies as systematic in this sense becomes evident when we review the three central epistemological themes Part I has uncovered: (1) the repudiation of the passivity of the mind; (2) fallibilism; and (3) anti-foundationalism.

(1)

Repudiation of the passivity of the mind

Time and again, we have seen that classical pragmatists had no use for the idea that the mind merely copies or duplicates a ready-made world. Though vigorously expressed, these curt and furious denials are a bit hard to interpret, because the condemned metaphor of mirroring is exasperatingly vague. In order to discover what theses James, Schiller, and Dewey hoped to safeguard by resisting an apparently innocuous figure of speech, I have tried to disentangle the distinct strands the copy metaphor knits together. And what we have found in Part I, I submit, is that the pragmatist repudiation of the passivity of the mind assumes six major forms: (la) The Myth of the Given. Drawing on the Kantian insight that empirical knowledge requires sensible and conceptual elements, classical pragmatists stress the theory-laden and judgmental character of observation. 5 (1 b) Selective attention.Our minds cannot faithfully register or reflect everything present or available in sensation. Perception necessarily involves selection and discrimination: in order for a subject to have an experience at all, sensory input must be organized (filtered) by human interests. 6 (Ic) Inquiry and the primacy of practice. Knowers are inquirers; and inquirers are not impotent voyeurs, but agents who intervene in Nature. Since knowledge-acquisition thus requires action (in the form of experimentation), the dichotomy between theory and practice dissolves. 8 (Id) Under determination of theory. Underdetermined by observation, theories or worldviews are human creations which transcend the humble input the world throws our way. Accordingly, we cannot sensibly choose among empirically equivalent theories without appealing to criteria reflecting human interests.9 (le) Epistemological holism. We cannot rationally regard statements as true unless we can find some way to assimilate them or make them cohere with the


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rest of our beliefs. Hence the mind is neither a tabula rasa which reality scrawls on with a free hand, nor is it a dark chamber into which the light of the world 10 floods through the apertures of the senses. ( I f ) Explanationism and the external world. Realism is a hypothesis (i.e. a theory underdetermined by the data); nevertheless, it constitutes the best overall explanation of our sensory experience. And since the explanatory power of that hypothesis warrants its acceptance, we are justified in believing in a mind-independent world. 11

(2)

Fallibilism

The next pragmatist theme is fallibilism: the claim that no empirical theory or belief is certain and immune from revision. We saw five forms of support for this view in Part I: (2a) History of inquiry. The history of science is full of laws and theories alleged apodictic which subsequent ages found reason to replace or revise. If this can happen to the work of Euclid and Newton, why envision a happier 12 fate for our choicest cogitations? (2b) Observation as theory-laden. According to ( l a ) , observation is theoryladen. But if observations are conditioned thus by theories, observational statements cannot constitute an incorrigible class. (Here fallibilism trickles 13 down from theory to observation). (2c) Conceptual mediation. If ( l a ) is true, our access to reality is mediated by concepts and categories. But true certainty is possible only if we have direct access to the world (i.e. access unfiltered by language or descriptions, which could be misapplied). 14 (2d) From under determination to uncertainty. The underdetermination thesis (Id) brings in its train the recognition that a multiplicity of theories could be formulated which would fit the available data. How, then, can we be certain 15 that our current theory is the right one? (2e) Conduct of inquiry. To believe our current theory is beyond epistemological reproach would be to block the road of inquiry; for such a complacent meta-belief would prevent us from formulating a better theory (if such 16 there be).

(3)

Anti-Foundationalism

Pragmatists are also critical of the foundationalist claim that the body of a subject's justified beliefs exhibits a two-tiered structure. But whence this animus towards foundationalism? In Part I, we have seen five major sources:

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(3a) Foundationalist justification as confrontational. This derives from ( l a ) . Because we have no discourse-independent access to the world, we cannot jus17 tify beliefs by checking them against an unconceptualized reality. (3b) Against the quest for certainty. Skepticism is our inevitable lot unless we deny either (i) that nothing is immune from revision (i.e. thesis (2)), or (ii) that knowledge rests on an incorrigible foundation. 18 (3c) Holism. Drawing on ( l e ) , pragmatists contend that the epistemic status of a belief cannot be assessed in isolation from its place in the whole of which it forms a part. How, then, can any beliefs be justified immediately or non-inferentially? 19 (3d) The problem of priority. Because of ( I b ) and ( l e ) , pragmatists deny observation is epistemically prior to (all) theory. Consequently, they distance themselves from those empiricists who maintain theories are derived from an 20 independently known experiential basis. (3e) The problem of method. Unlike Cartesians — who erect the towering edifice of human knowledge on a foundation of unrevisable judgments — knowers do not begin de novo. Instead, inquirers work within an inherited scheme whose 21 components they modify gradually and as they see fit.

5.3 Coherence as Unity Finally, how alike are neo-pragmatism and classical pragmatism? Where do their views converge, and where do they diverge? First, some conspicuous similarities. One bright thread running through the work of the classical pragmatists, on the one hand, and neo-pragmatists (and their congeners), on the other, is (la); such anti-Givenism unites Wittgenstein, Popper, Sellars, Kuhn, Rorty, Goodman, Rescher, Putnam, Davidson, Habermas, and Apel. Theses ( I d ) and ( l e ) also figure prominently in the writings of some contemporary pragmatists: Quine, most notably, but also Kuhn. Quine, Kuhn, and Popper also endorse (2) — as, it would seem, do Rorty and Davidson. The anti-foundationalism of Peirce, Schiller, James, and Dewey is also alive and well in the writings of post-Deweyan pragmatists and sympathizers. Witness the acceptance of (3a) in the claim that foundationalism rests on the Myth of the Given (Sellars, Popper, Kuhn, Goodman, Rorty, Davidson, and Putnam); of (3b) in the critique of unrevisable basic beliefs (Quine, Goodman, Rescher) and privileged representations (Rorty); of (3c) in the holism that manifests itself in forms ranging from the metaphorical (e.g. Quine's image of the web of belief, Wittgenstein's suggestion that "[IJight dawns gradually over the whole" (Wittgenstein 1969: §141)) to the more systematic (e.g. the


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development of a positive epistemology in Sellars, Rescher, and Davidson); and of (3d) in Popper, Sellars, and Kuhn. Nevertheless, our study has turned up some significant disagreements between classical pragmatists and neo-pragmatists. Here are five: (1) First, the linguistic turn has changed the framework in which problems about representation are posed and pursued. Whereas our classical pragmatists tended to dwell on experience and consciousness in a manner reminiscent of old-fashioned empiricists, neo-pragmatists focus more on language; and they urge that once we understand how language works and means, our self-image as heroic mappers of an alien domain loses its intuitive appeal.22 (2) Second, neo-pragmatists seem much more hostile towards metaphysical realism than their more modest predecessors. The new breed boldly takes arms against a sea of realists — either by making much of our world-making powers (Goodman, Kuhn, Putnam) or by declaring the realism debate pointless (Rorty, Davidson). Once again, a different (and less aggressive) line was taken by the old guard, whose descriptions of the subject-derived factors which condition knowledge are consistent with realism and the correspondence theory. (3) Third, neo-pragmatists are bent on eradicating the correspondence theory of truth; as we have already noted, Rorty, Goodman, Kuhn, Putnam, Habermas, and Davidson want to root out the correspondence intuition, not refine it. James and Dewey, however, did not share this ambition; they took themselves to be elucidating the vague notion of correspondence, not extirpating it.24 (4) Fourth, James, Schiller, and Dewey were Bacon's heirs — or at least proud to be his bastards. Like the author of the Mew Organon, the classical pragmatists were intensely concerned with thepractice of inquiry; they thought very hard about the growth of knowledge, the relation between theory and observation, the continuity between scientific and non-scientific inquiries, as well as about the way human agency — in the form of experimentation — can make experience bear epistemological fruit. These are issues in which Rortyean neo-pragmatism has no significant interest or investment. What Rortyeans take from Bacon is the equation of knowledge with power; the rest is silence.26 (5) Fifth, classical pragmatists unapologetically engage in constructive philosophical theorizing — something the therapeutically-inclined Rorty refrains from doing. To be sure, James, Schiller and Dewey are also critical of inherited philosophical problems and distinctions; but they still think there is much of substance to be said about truth, verisimilitude, fallibilism, evidence, observation, explanation, and theory-choice. From Rorty's perspective, there is no point in advancing theses on these topics; epistemology, he opines, is simply a lost cause. To understand why Rorty thinks this, and to determine whether he is right, is the task of Part II.

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The Varieties of Pragmatism Notes

1. Cited in Ross (1984:75). 2. See §2.4. 3. The main pragmatist arguments can be found in: §3.0; §3.2; §3.4; §3.8; §4.4-§4.10. 4. See §3.1; §3.3; §3.8; §4.0; §4.1; §4.4-§4.10. 5. See§3.1-§3.3;§4.7. 6. See §4.7. 7. According to Dewey, the pragmatist understanding of knowledge-acquisition "has behind it the whole weight of the experimental practices by which science has been actually advanced" (Dewey 1929: 175). 8. See §4.9. 9. See §4.4; §4.5; §4.10. 10. See §4.8. For the image of the camera obscura, see Locke (1690: Book II; Ch. IV, Section xvii). 11. See§4.10. 12. See §4.6 13. See§3.2-§3.3. 14. See§3.2-§3.3. 15. See §4.5. 16. See §3.3; §4.6. 17. See§3.1-§3.3. 18. See §3.4; §4.5; §4.10. 19. See §3.4; §4.8. 20. See §4.7. 21. See §4.8; §3.3. The objection is that foundationalism is false when taken as a descriptive account of how knowledge is acquired. The foundationalist may reply that it was never his intention to furnish us with such an account. 22. Cf. Rorty (1999:35, 95). 23. See§2.1. 24. See Appendix C. 25. Kuhn, obviously, is a different story; so are Quine and Popper. 26. For instance, see Rorty (1982a: xvii), (1999:35,50).

PART II Neo-Pragmatism and Epistemology


6

Rorty's Brave New Pragmatism

Nay, what is Philosophy throughout hut a continual battle against Custom; an everrenewed effort to transcend the sphere of blind Custom, and so become Transcendental?

— Thomas Garlyle

6.0

1

Introduction

According to Rorty, philosophy's history is best understood as a story, not of different solutions to the same problems, but of long lulls of journeyman labor punctuated by the odd revolution that ensues when some creative genius — Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Frege — comes up with a new vocabulary and a fresh set of gripping conundrums. Far from vanquishing grizzled old-timers in a fair fight, members of the philosophical avant-garde typically do not try to solve the moth-eaten problems bequeathed to them by the tradition; instead, they aspire to evade and transcend them. This they do by endeavoring to change the subject. As Rorty puts it: "Interesting philosophical change (we might say 'philosophical progress,' but this would be question-begging) occurs not when a new way is found to deal with an old problem but when a new set of problems emerges and the old ones begin to fade away" (Rorty 1979: 264). Given this historicist understanding of philosophy, it is perhaps not surprising to learn that when Rorty recommends we shelve the problems of epistemology, he does so on the grounds that the vocabulary required for their formulation has turned out to be more trouble than it is worth. To understand why Rorty takes this line, we must revisit the brilliant and intrepid antiepistemology campaign initiated in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and continued in subsequent writings.

6.1

The Mirror Crack'd: Or, From Epistemology to Ironism

In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Rorty contends that epistemology was made possible by three developments in early modern philosophy: Descartes' conception of one's mind as a domain to which one has privileged introspective access and in which certainty is attainable; Locke's attempt to found a new discipline by making the Cartesian mind a subject of inquiry; and Kant's

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transcendental turn, which transformed the quasi-empirical "physiology of the human understanding . . . of the celebrated Locke' (Kant 1781: Aix) into a rigorous a priori discipline. Rorty, as is well-known, wants us to reject the product of this nefarious triple alliance: the idea that philosophy (as epistemology) is a "foundationaP discipline qualified, in virtue of its privileged understanding of the mind and its powers of representation, to judge the rest of culture from its lofty Olympian perch — competent, that is: "to underwrite or debunk claims to knowledge made by science, morality, art, or religion . . . [to] divide culture up into the areas which represent reality well, those which represent it less well, and those which do not represent it at all" (Rorty 1979:3). To discredit this constellation of ideas, Rorty appeals to the work of Quine and Sellars. For him, the moral common to the former's assault on the twin dogmas of empiricism and the latter's expose of the Given as a myth is the anti-representationalist idea that "justification is not a matter of a special relation between ideas (or words) and objects, but of conversation, of social practice . .. [W]e understand knowledge when we understand the social justification of belief, and thus have no need to view it as accuracy of representation" (Rorty 1979: 170). Rorty argues that the Quine—Sellars approach to knowledge and justification subverts traditional epistemology-centred philosophy: if criteria of justification are at bottom based upon nothing deeper than custom, then the attempt to explain the possibility of knowledge iiberhaupt by reference to ahistorical non-contingent constraints is futile — "a self-deceptive effort to eternalize the normal discourse of the day" (Rorty 1979: 11). So holism forces philosophy to surrender its imperialistic Kantian pretensions of dividing up culture into distinct provinces whose borders philosophers can fix with rigor and patrol with authority. Yet what becomes of philosophy once we break with the Kantian understanding of it as a super-discipline entrusted with grounding our practices or forms of life? It is at this point that Rorty turns to Dewey, "the most useful and significant figure in twentieth century philosophy" (Rorty 1999:49). Why Dewey? Because Dewey not only sloughed off the Kantian tradition; he also articulated a new vision, in which the naturalist lion could lie down with the historicist lamb. Well before Quine's espousal of naturalism, Dewey pleaded that there can be no first philosophy in the absence of a fixed Archimedean point or a God's eye view, external to our inherited scheme; accordingly, philosophers are fated to begin in media res, like the epic poets of yore. But since he was also Hegelian enough to insist that the content of philosophical reflection is historically conditioned, he concluded that there were no perennial problems of philosophy — no eternal and inevitable enigmas about Knowledge or Being which reason must confront in order to stay true to itself. Yet Dewey


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knew only too well how attached professional philosophers had become to the cluster of Kantian problems; as a result, he anticipated his anti-Kantian proposal would affront and confound the rising generation of epistemologists and metaphysicians. In Reconstruction in Philosophy he wrote: Modern philosophic thought has been so preoccupied with these puzzles of epistemology and the disputes between realist and idealist, between phenomenalist and absolutist, that many students are at a loss to know what would be left for philosophy if there were removed both the metaphysical task of distinguishing between the noumenal and phenomenal worlds and the epistemological task of telling how a separate subject can know an independent object. (Dewey 1920: 150) Unlike his hidebound adversaries, the Deweyan denies philosophy is over once old-fashioned epistemology and metaphysics are thrust thus into the outer darkness. Instead of trying to contemplate reality sub specie aeternitatis, philosophers should seek engagement with matters of urgent human concern — matters which Dewey, exhibiting his peerless penchant for bland ver6 biage, baptized "the problems of men." These Deweyan meta-philosophical themes are creatively appropriated by Rorty. Citing with approval Hegel's dictum that philosophy is "its own time apprehended in thought," Rorty adds: "[i]n a post-Philosophical culture it would be clear that is all philosophy can be" (Rorty 1982a: xli). The postPhilosophical pragmatist or ironist is acutely aware of the contingency of language — aware, that is, of "the mortality of the vocabularies in which supposedly immortal truths are expressed" (Rorty 1982a:xli). She is a thoroughgoing historicist who, in the manner of Foucault and Kuhn, abjures the idea that the vocabularies of different cultures and epochs can sensibly be used to support a tale of humanity's gradual approach to a predetermined focus imaginarius; accordingly, she discards the realist intuition that "deep down beneath all the texts, there is something which is not just one more text but that to which various texts are supposed to be adequate" (Rorty 1982a: xxxvii). We might say that her motto — if she clung to such curios — would be that coined by E. M. Forster: "Only connect!" (Forster 1910: 183). For her metier is that of recontextualizing texts and vocabularies in such a way that we can connect them in new, imaginative ways; adept at the art of misreading, she creates ways of relating what no one had hitherto seen as related. Nabokov and Tarski, Searle and Proust, Wittgenstein and Orwell, Quine and Kundera, Jefferson and Heidegger, Freud and McDowell, Plato and Whitman — all these (and many more) are grist for her redescriptive mill. But the labor of recontextualization is endless; there are always more texts to peruse, new developments to weigh, and alternative ways of connecting things. 11

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The neo-pragmatist's project, then, is fundamentally hermeneutic or interpretative, as opposed to epistemological. As a professional amateur whose polymathic sensibility is at once Alexandrian and post-modern, her ambition is to compare and contrast vocabularies, nimbly playing texts and worldviews off against one another whilst refraining from inquiring into their fit or adequacy to something extra-linguistic. Since "[ijronists agree with Davidson about our inability to step outside our language in order to compare it with something else" (Rorty 1989:75), we should eliminate questions about the relation between language and reality by eschewing the representationalist notions that give such questions their bite. To buttress this anti-representationalism, Rorty draws on a wide variety of sources: the Nietzschean conception of language as metaphorical, 13 Dewey's critique of the spectator theory, Wittgenstein's repudiation of his early Tractarian picture theory of language, 15 and Davidson's rejection of the dualism of scheme and content. 16 To follow their example, it seems, would be to make what Wittgenstein once called "the real discovery .. . the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to" (Wittgenstein 1953:1, 133). For Rorty thinks of anti-representationalism as a sort of industrial-strength intellectual solvent capable of dissolving intractable philosophical problems. Here, for the sake of illustration, are two examples: (i) First, dropping the idea that language mirrors nature lets us obviate the entire realism/anti-realism problematic. For this debate assumes that it makes sense either to assert or to deny that beliefs or sentences are made true by something (facts, states of affairs, the world); realist and anti-realists split into opposing camps over the nature of these truth-makers (specifically, the extent to which they are independent of our epistemic or linguistic powers). Rorty credits Davidson — who thinks "[njothing, no thing, makes sentences and theories true: not experience, not surface irritations, not the world" (Davidson 1974: 194) — with showing that this idea of truth-makers is "empty and misleading" (Rorty 1986: 128). And this is what one should expect: since "making true" and "representing" are two sides of the same coin, the former notion cannot be retained once the latter is discarded. 18 Note, then, that Rorty does not regard himself as an anti-realist; indeed, he regrets that Dummettian philosophy of language has reinvigorated "the flabby controversy between realism and anti-realism" (Rorty 1993: 460). His attitude towards the debate is reminiscent of the dim view logical positivists took of the dispute between theists and atheists; for he thinks that the question in question is so ill-posed that we ought not to take sides, but to guard against the confusions that invested it with apparent significance in the first place.19 That is why he is content to "toss the topic of realism versus idealism into the dustbin of history" (Rorty 1998c:282).


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(ii) Moreover, denying that language reflects reality's intrinsic structure renders otiose debates about which "one of the many languages in which we habitually describe the world" we ought to privilege (Rorty 1989: 6); that is, what vocabulary (e.g. physics, poetry, metaphysics, commonsense) comes closest to capturing reality as it is in itself. Such debates are idle because "there is no sense in which any of these descriptions is an accurate representation of the way the world is in itself" (Rorty 1989: 4). A fortiori, scientific theories do not (as Quine asserted) 'limn the true and ultimate structure of reality'; instead, like vocabularies generally, they are simply "instruments for coping with things rather than representations of their intrinsic natures" (Rorty 1981c: 198). Anti-representationalism thus eventuates in a species of pluralism: neo-pragmatism, far from being a form of Quinean scientism: sees science as one more human activity, rather than as the place at which human beings encounter a "hard," non-human reality. On this view, great scientists invent descriptions of the world which are useful for purposes of predicting and controlling what happens, just as poets and political thinkers invent other descriptions of it for other purposes. (Rorty 1989: 4) By jettisoning the idea "that one can say how things really are, as opposed to how they might best be described in order to meet some particular need" (Rorty 1998 I: 34), neo-pragmatism thereby elides the Diltheyan distinction between the Matur- and the Geisteswissenschaften and makes it difficult to draw invidious epistemological or metaphysical contrasts between, say, physics and poetry.20 All vocabularies are creative interpretations of the world, and cannot be measured by their relative fidelity to something absolute and nonhuman. The only applicable standard is utility, very broadly conceived: Pragmatism .. . views science as one genre of literature — or, put the other way round, literature and the arts as inquiries, on the same footing as scientific inquiries. Thus it sees ethics as neither more "relative" or "subjective" than scientific theory, nor as needing to be made "scientific." Physics is a way of trying to cope with various bits of the universe; ethics is a matter of trying to cope with other bits. (Rorty 1982a: xliii) Rorty's take on vocabularies is thus reminiscent of Garnap's treatment of so-called "external questions." 21 For Garnap, such questions — questions, that is, about the adoption of a linguistic framework — are not theoretical, but practical; as such, they are to be decided by an appeal to utility, to what best serves human interests and purposes. For Rorty, the choice of a vocabulary is similarly a practical matter, as opposed to one about getting reality right. Anti-pragmatists, aghast, may fume with contempt or snort with

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derision; but this, Rorty opines, only goes to show how deeply divided the two camps are on the meta-philosophical level: "the metaphilosophical question about pragmatism is whether there is something other than convenience to use as a criterion in science and philosophy" (Rorty 1993:456). It is plain how our arch anti-representationalist proposes to answer this query: instead of talking about "isomorphism, symbolism, and mapping," he recommends we focus on "utility, convenience, and likelihood of getting what we want" (Rorty 1980: 163).23

6.2

In Praise of Ethnocentrism: From Objectivity to Solidarity

Coping, not copying, is henceforth to be our watchword. Yet viewing language in this way — as a mutable toolbox, not a static mirror — may seem to have unwelcome implications. For how can we make sense of the objectivity at which inquiry aims, once we deprive ourselves of the time-honoured idea that language can fit or reflect the world? Once correspondence is debunked, what becomes of truth and knowledge? In Philosophy and the Mirror of Mature, Rorty outlined an ingenious answer to this objection: he argued that since "there is no way to get outside our beliefs and our language" (Rorty 1979: 178), we must acknowledge that "our only usable notion of 'objectivity' is 'agreement' rather than mirroring" (Rorty 1979:337). This strategy, refined and elaborated upon in subsequent writings, is unabashedly revisionist: we are to "reduce objectivity to solidarity" (Rorty 1985a:22) by talking about agreement with one's cultural peers instead of agreement with reality, as correspondence gives way to conformity with the justificatory practices of one's culture. Rorty insists, however, that the norms informing these practices cannot themselves be rationally grounded (in the sense of finding some independent basis or non-circular argumentative justification for their adoption): "[T]here is no standpoint outside the particular historically conditioned and temporary vocabulary we are presently using from which to judge this vocabulary" (Rorty 1989:48). But if this is so — if "there is nothing to be said about truth or rationality apart from descriptions of the familiar procedures of justification which a given society — ours — uses" (Rorty 1985a: 23) — then epistemology seems doomed. For epistemology, we are told, is "rooted in the urge to see social practices of justification as more thanjust such practices" (Rorty 1979: 390); it assumes there is some Archimedean point from which we can pass judgment on our practices. Far from being confined to matters epistemological, this revisionist approach — Rorty calls it "ethnocentrism" — is extended to politics as well. Once we admit "[tjhere is no such thing as 'first philosophy' " (Rorty 1989: 55), we should concede that philosophy is not prior to politics any more


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than it is prior to science. So we should not seek to justify the adoption of a political vocabulary by relating it to some ahistorical ideal or by deducing it from self-evident principles. Instead of trying to justify liberal democracy by appealing to standards external to democratic practices, we should see our commitment to such practices and institutions as a decision or proposal — "not attempts at accurate representation, but rather attempts to forge a moral identity" (Rorty 1998 I: 13). Poets and visionaries are indispensable guides in the latter task of collective self-creation; but jargon-juggling obscurantists and logic-chopping fuddy-duddies are not: Whitman and Dewey, I have argued, gave us all the romance, and all the spiritual uplift we Americans need to go about our public business .. . For purposes of thinking about how to achieve our country, we do not need to worry about the correspondence theory of truth, the grounds of normativity, the impossibility of justice, or the infinite distance which separates us from the other. For those purposes, we can give both religion and philosophy a pass. We can just get on with trying to solve what Dewey called "the problems of men." (Rorty 1998 I: 97) Rorty thus urges that our political commitments neither require nor permit philosophical grounding, and he applauds John Rawls's post- Theory of Justice work for showing us "how liberal democracy can get along without philosophical presuppositions" (Rorty 1988c: 179). This sense of the priority of the political also informs Rorty's critique of rank-and-file Foucauldian unmaskers, whom he chides for their self-indulgent pessimism, their detachment, their lack of interest in concrete reform, and their tendency to overestimate the practical importance of their theoretical analyses.28 According to Rorty, the beloved philosophic pastime of grounding our practices — be they political or epistemic — is therefore idle or worse. Unlike his representationalist adversaries, the Rortyean neo-pragmatist inveighs against the idea that human thought and conduct are answerable to something outside us: the Given, necessary truths, an in-itself reality, intrinsic properties, essences, Platonic Forms, incorrigible foundations, ahistorical intuitions, self-evident moral principles, and so on. To regard any of these items as rational constraints on thought or conduct would be to invest something non-human with authority over us — an investment Rorty thinks it won't pay to make, and which he opposes on both Nietzschean and Deweyan grounds. Yet without the funding derived from this investment, epistemology and metaphysics will be forced to declare bankruptcy. No wonder Rorty has been accused of proclaiming the end of philosophy; no wonder, too, he has denied doing so. Like his hero Dewey, he protests that his goal is not to abolish philosophy but to transform it — namely, by proposing an

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alternative to "three hundred years' worth of efforts to bridge the gap the Cartesian, representationalist picture of knowledge led us to imagine' (Rorty 1990: 374). In other words, what Rorty wants to draw to a close is philosophy-as-epistemology. But — again, like Dewey — Rorty is too cognizant of his discipline's history and resilience to suppose that philosophy grinds to a halt whenever an influential research program reaches a dead end. So Rorty may adroitly turn the tables on detractors who accuse him of calling for the end of philosophy and charge them with taking an unbecomingly parochial view of their subject — a view which perversely identifies philosophy with a sorry provincial cul-de-sac known as Erkenntnistheorie.

6.3 Rorty on Justification: Three Theses We are now in a position to summarize Rorty's principal views on knowledge and epistemic justification. Here we need to pick out three elastic strands woven into the silky fabric of the neo-pragmatist's garment: an antifoundationalist strand, a holist strand, and a contextualist strand. Jl. The Anti-Foundationalist strand. Foundationalism is false: "only a belief can justify a belief" (Rorty 1998b: 141). To suppose some beliefs are justified by non-beliefs in the manner of traditional empiricism is to confuse justification with causation a la Locke. We must completely abandon this idea of world-derived justification, "give up the notion of an 'epistemic relation to something in the world,' and just rely on the causal relations which bind utterances together with the utterers'environment" (Rorty 2000: 18). J2. The Holist strand. Since "you can't validate an assertion by confronting an object ... but only by asserting other sentences" (Rorty 1989b: 110), justification should be reconceived holistically: "there is no such thing as justification which is not a relation between propositions" (Rorty 1979: 183). To assess the epistemic status of a belief, then, we need to take into account its place in the web of which it forms a part. J3. The Contextualist strand. Epistemic criteria cannot be justified by appealing to something outside or above the practices of one's own culture: "[Tjhere is nothing to be said about truth or rationality apart from descriptions of the familiar procedures of justification which a given society — ours — uses" (Rorty 1985a: 23). Since epistemic authority ultimately reposes on community agreement, "talk about responsibility to Truth, or to Reason, must be replaced by talk about our responsibility to our fellow human beings" (Rorty 1999: 148). Theses J1 and J2 complement each other well — so well, in fact, that we may choose to see them as different aspects of the same view. What sets Rorty apart from the anti-foundationalist pack is not his endorsement ofjl and J2 — both


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are affirmed by Lehrer, Bonjour, Reseller, and Davidson — but his unflinching advocacy of the ethnocentric thesis, J3. If epistemic justification is ultimately a matter of convention and context, requiring "no more than conformity to the norms of the day" (Rorty 1979: 367), and if rationality "is what history and society make it" (Rorty 1981c: 204), then the project of uncovering objective and ahistorical standards of rationality is quixotic. And that, we have seen, is precisely what Rorty thinks: he is keen to convince us that "we can eliminate epistemological problems by eliminating the assumption that justification must repose on something other than social practices and human needs" (Rorty 1977: 82). If he is right about this — if "we need to restate our intellectual ambitions in terms of our relations to other human beings, rather than in terms of our relation to non-human reality" (Rorty 2000: 25, n3) — then epistemology may soon seem as absurd to the discerning as a belief in the divine right of kings. Has Rorty discredited the very idea of a theory of knowledge? Chapters 7 and 8 defend a negative answer to this question. Yet before we try to make the world safe for epistemology, let us pause to acquaint ourselves with the company Rorty keeps.

6.4

Epistemology on the Defensive: From Nietzsche to Habermas

Rorty, it should be noted, is hardly alone in pronouncing epistemology moribund: Anglo-American and Continental philosophers alike have been busy composing sonorous obituaries for years. Prominent examples of such death notices abound, and even a desultory review of them makes it clear that we are dealing with a significant trend. Consider: Nietzsche's snide jibe that "[pjhilosophy reduced to a 'theory of knowledge' " is "philosophy in its last throes, an end, an agony, something inspiring pity" (Nietzsche 1886: §204). Dewey's opposition to the quest for certainty, not to mention his undisguised disdain for that "species of confirmed intellectual lock-jaw called epistemology' ' (Dewey 1908: 219), which he associated with spectator theories of knowledge. Heidegger's conviction that the Cartesian problem of knowledge is fraudulent: "The 'scandal of philosophy' is not that this proof [i.e. of the external world] has yet to be given but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again" (Heidegger 1927: 249). Merleau-Ponty's opposition to traditional assumptions about how we are related to the world we perceive: "To ask oneself whether the world is real is to fail to understand what one is asking" (Merleau-Ponty 1945: 344).

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Gilbert Ryle's skepticism about skepticisms informed by the Myth of the Ghost of the Machine, with its picture of the mind as a subjective sphere in which even the most naive and innocent of realists is imprisoned for life. 32 Wittgenstein's anti-Cartesian view of the mind and his suggestion that our relation to basic Moorean truisms — "Here is one hand" — is non-epistemic in nature (i.e. they are not the sort of things we can know or fail to know). 33 Peter Winch's Wittgensteinian contention that epistemology's true task is "to elucidate what is involved in a form of life as such" (Winch 1958: 41), so that it has much more in common with sociology than is usually recognized. J. L. Austin's contextualism, which condemns as unanswerable any question about the overall structure of knowledge or justification: "If the Theory of Knowledge consists in finding grounds for such an answer, there is no such thing" (Austin 1962: 124). Michael Oakeshott's eloquent repudiation of the Kantian idea that the philosopher's role in the "conversation of mankind" should be that of grand inquisitor or examining magistrate.34 Gadamer's brand of philosophical hermeneutics, in which understanding is inescapably shaped and conditioned by the horizon of one's own culture and its prejudices.35 Theodor Adorno's tortuous animadversions on the foundationalist pursuit of primacy, immediacy, or what is absolutely first. 36 Kuhn's view that scientific revolutions involve Gestalt-like shifts between incommensurable paradigms, and his blurring of the distinction between the contexts of justification and discovery.37 Quine's naturalist proposal to transform epistemology into a branch of empirical psychology devoted to studying the relation between sensory input and cognitive output. 38 Paul Feyerabend's anarchic hostility towards the scientific method, when understood as some formalizable and internally coherent set of canons or precepts. 39 Stephen Stich's advocacy of the thesis that "all cognitive value is instrumental or pragmatic — that there are no intrinsic, uniquely cognitive values" (Stichl990:21). Michael Williams's insistence that skeptics draw surreptitiously on arcane commitments alien to "our ordinary ways of thinking about knowledge" (Williams 1996:32). Michel Foucault's archaeology of knowledge, according to which rationality and justification are internal to an episteme, or mutable framework of discursive norms. 40 Charles Taylor's critique of the modern idea that knowers are essentially detached or disengaged subjects — not agents embedded in the world.41


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Habermas's announcement that epistemology must be supplanted by a theory of communicative action, now that "[a]ll attempts at discovering ultimate foundations, in which the intentions of First Philosophy live on, have broken down" (Habermas 1984: 2). 42 To be sure, these elegies for epistemology are written from very different philosophical perspectives; no two of them say precisely the same thing. But they prove Rorty is not exactly a voice crying in the wilderness.

6.5 Part II: A Structural Overview What, then, is my plan of attack? Simple: divide and conquer — or (more accurately, but less heroically), divide and defend. For we shall attempt to counter two influential anti-epistemology arguments wielded by Rorty: first, the anti-foundationalist arguments, a heterogeneous family of objections to the idea of epistemology as foundational (Chapter 7); second, the anti-representationalist argument, according to which epistemology is wedded to an untenable representationalist conception of language or thought (Chapter 8). Notes 1. 2. 3.

4.

5. 6. 7.

8.

Carlyle (1834: 196). Cf. Rorty (1981e), (1984b), (1998c). To say there was no epistemology prior to Descartes may seem counterintuitive; as Michael Williams asks, "[Wjhat were the ancients doing when they discussed knowledge, if not epistemology?" (Williams 2000: 193). For reflections on Rorty's views about epistemology's late birth, see Williams (2000). Or — perhaps — which Dewey? For Rorty thinks two souls were lodged within Dewey's breast: the prophet who imagined a more poetic and democratic culture, and the conscientious professor who lived up to his professional responsibilities by debating with his traditionalist colleagues, more or less on their terms. Rorty makes no secret of his preference for the first Dewey — "the Emersonian visionary" — over the second — "the contributor to the Journal of Philosophy" (Rorty 1999:96). Or the historicist lion with the naturalist lamb; experience has taught me that dogmatism and bestiaries don't mix. Cf. Dewey (1946), (1946a). According to Brandom, one of Rorty's most impressive philosophical achievements is that of keeping both naturalism and historicism "fully in view at all times" (Brandom 2000a: 171). This achievement is, of course, very much in the spirit of Dewey. Cf. Rorty (1982a: xiv—xv) for the Philosophy/philosophy distinction.

108 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25.

26.

27. 28.

The Varieties of Pragmatism "I use 'ironist' to name the sort of person who faces up to the contingency of his or her most central beliefs and desires — someone sufficiently nominalist and historicist to have abandoned the idea that those central beliefs and desires reach back to something beyond the reach of time and chance" (Rorty 1989:xv). A term Rorty (1981d: 151) takes from Bloom (1975). Cf. Rorty (1999:110). Cf. Rorty (1982a: xxxix; cf. xl-xli). Cf. Rorty (1989: 17, 27-9), (1991b: 2-3). Cf. Rorty (1977:86-7), (1978:94), (1979:39, 159), (1980:162-163), (1981c: 193), (1991a: 1, 12-17). Cf. Rorty (1976c), (1979: 136,295), (1981a: 110-14), (1989: 11-13,21-2,53-5), (1989a). Cf. Rorty (1972), (1986), (1989: 9-10; 13-20), for instance. Cf. §4.1. For a critical look at Rorty's views about realism, see Farrell (1994), Chapter 4. Cf. Rorty (1986:126-9, 146-50), (1991a:4). This may be why Putnam says that "when [Rorty] rejects a philosophical controversy . . . his rejection is expressed in a Carnapian tone of voice: he scorns the controversy" (Putnam 1987a:20). Rorty, for his part, accuses Putnam of being "too kind to the problematic and vocabulary of modern philosophy" (Rorty 1993:445). Cf. Rorty (1981c), (1985b), (1988b), (1991a). Cf. Carnap (1950). Cf. Rorty (1982a: xxi, xxxvii), (1989:4-7, 20-1), (1991b:4), (1999:72). This is not to say that Rorty and Carnap are in full agreement; they are not. As Williams (1996: 366, n68) observes, Rorty can be seen as criticizing Carnap's views about framework selection from the standpoint of a more thoroughgoing pragmatism. Cf. Rorty (1979: Chapter VIII), (1980:165-6), (1982a), (1985a), (1987), (1989:44-69; 189-98), (1993:450-5). Cf. Rorty (1988a:50). Rorty does not advance ethnocentrism as a theory of truth; indeed, he is of the opinion that "truth is not the sort of thing one should expect to have a philosophically interesting theory about" (Rorty 1982 a: xiii). Ethnocentrism instead seems to involve an account of what it is to call something true. In effect, we are being offered a non-cognitivist approach to truth: " 'true' . . . is merely an expression of commendation" and " 'truth' is simply a compliment paid to the beliefs which we think so well justified that, for the moment, further justification is not needed" (Rorty 1985a: 23—4). See Appendix A. Those interested in the political implications of Rorty's pragmatism may consult the following: Geras (1995); Gutting (1999), Chapter 1; Malachowski (2002), Chapter 5; Bernstein (2003); and Elshtain (2003). See Misak (2000) for another perspective on pragmatism's bearing on moral and political theory. Cf. Rorty (1988c). See Rorty (19981:37, 138-9). Cf. Rorty (1999:3-5).

Rorty's Brave New Pragmatism 29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

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Nietzschean, because if God is dead, so are secular substitutes for Him; Deweyan, because American democracy is a radically anti-authoritarian form of life in which human beings are answerable only to each other. Cf. Rorty (1989: 20—1), (19981:34-5), (1998a), (1998b). Cf. Rorty (1976c: 32-6), (1979:394), (1990), (1991b:6), (1995b:198). Cf. Rorty (1993:446-7). Cf. Ryle (1949: 212-13). Cf. Wittgenstein (1953: Iliv) and (1969). Cf. Oakeshott (1962). Cf. Gadamer (1960). Cf. Adorno (1973), (1983). Cf.Kuhn (1970), (1973), (1977). Cf. Quine (1969). See§7.10. Cf. Feyerabend (1987), (1993). Cf. Foucault (1966). Cf. Taylor (1995), Chapter 1; (2003), (2005). Cf. Habermas (1984), (1987a), (1990), (1992).

7

Anti-Foundationalism — From the Ground Up

We read that the traveller asked the hoy if the swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had. But presently the traveller's horse sunk in up to the girths, and he observed to the boy, "I thought you said that this bog had a hard bottom." "So it has," answered the latter, "butyou have not got half-way to it yet."

— Henry David Thoreau 1

7.0

Introduction

In §6.4, we noted an arresting trend: namely, that of a many-sided opposition to assumptions supposedly implicit in modern, epistemology-centred philosophy. Prominent among these assumptions is the idea that epistemology is a foundational discipline. But just what are the "foundations" alluded to here, and what reason is there to think they have sunk, softened, or given way? The lack of consensus about how such questions are to be answered has frustrated attempts to rebut the charges of epistemology's anti-foundationalist critics head-on, and an unfortunate stalemate has ensued. What is to be done? To get to the bottom of this imbroglio, we should begin by identifying three kinds of foundations the theory of knowledge has allegedly failed to furnish:4 Fl. The thesis that there are two kinds of justified beliefs: basic beliefs and non-basic beliefs. Foundationalists in this sense are philosophers opposed to the dictum that "only a belief canjustify a belief' (Rorty 1998b: 141). F2. The thesis that our standards of epistemic rationality are objectively valid, as opposed to being culture-bound. Foundationalists in this sense yield to "the urge to see social practices of justification as more than just such practices" (Rorty 1979:390). F3. The thesis that philosophy can "divide culture up into the areas which represent reality well, those which represent it less well, and those which do not represent it at all" (Rorty 1979: 3). Foundationalists in this sense think philosophy can and should rank sectors of culture based on their ability to mirror reality. Armed with these distinctions, the controversy over foundations becomes less intractable; for we can now discriminate with relative ease among


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neo-pragmatist arguments for the view that epistemology cannot be founda5 tional. We can find — or so I believe — three such arguments in Rorty's oeuvre: (1) The Argument from Classical Foundationalism (against F l ) . (2) The Argument from Solidarity (against F2). (3) The Argument from Objectivity (against F3). My chief aim in this chapter is to state and scrutinize these arguments. But note that my purpose is purely negative: while I will contend that none of Rorty's objections succeeds, I will endeavor neither to demonstrate the validity of epistemology nor to offer any sustained positive arguments for Fl, F2, or F3.

7.1

The Argument from Classical Foundationalism

Let us begin with what may well be the most prominent of the objections: the Argument from Classical Foundationalism (aimed at Fl). Here is my reconstruction: Since Descartes, epistemology has been a necessary and central component in our conception of philosophy. However, since the possibility of a theory of knowledge is dependent upon the viability of a specifically foundationalist conception of epistemic justification, our reasonsfor being disenchanted with the latter are reasons to be pessimistic about the fate of epistemology itself — and about the entire tradition of modern philosophy.

Here I propose to set aside the very first, historical assumption (concerning the centrality of epistemology to philosophy since Descartes), and to focus instead on the remaining two premises. According to the first of these substantive assumptions, the failure of foundationalism means the failure of epistemology; according to the second, classical foundationalism cannot be salvaged.

7.2

Epistemology and Classical Foundationalism

Let us reflect for a moment on the idea that foundationalism is built into the very idea of a theory of knowledge. This thesis, or something very hard to distinguish from it, is evidently entailed by the conjunction of two Rortyean claims: first, that "the notion of a 'theory of knowledge' will not make sense unless we have confused causation and justification in the manner of Locke" (Rorty 1979: 152); second, that foundationalism is what we get when we conflate the logical space of reasons with the naturalistic space of causes and "coalesce the justificatory story and the causal story" (Rorty 1986: 148).

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Hence should the foundationalist program prove a dead-end, so would the theory of knowledge. At first blush, this claim seems preposterous. In the first place, there is surely more to epistemology than elaborating theories of epistemic justification.6 Epistemology, we might say, has many mansions; the theory of justification is just one of them — albeit a renowned and overcrowded one. In the second place, it should go without saying that foundationalism is not the only theory of epistemic justification on the market; there exist well-developed and wellknown alternatives to it. (What about coherentism, for instance?) And yet — to follow up on the second objection for a moment — does Rorty really mean to say that foundationalism is the only theory of epistemic justification? Perhaps not; perhaps the idea is rather that foundationalism is the only potentially defensibletheory of justification (i.e. that it is the only account that has half a chance of overcoming skepticism). Were Rorty to endorse this view, however, three problems would immediately arise. First, he would need to defend the bold claim that no non-foundationalist theory can vanquish skepticism — a claim contested by coherentists such as Davidson and Bonjour. Second, it would mean that our foe of foundations is — mirabile dictu — a foundationalist fellow-traveller prepared to countenance the dilemma posed by the regress argument (i.e. either embrace skepticism, or turn foundationalist). Third, it would mean Rorty effectively accepts skepticism; for under this interpretation he would be committed to the following claims: (i) that either foundationalism is true or skepticism is true; and (ii) that foundationalism is in fact false. All in all, then, this escape route hardly seems a promising one for him. There seems no reason, therefore, to suppose that the failure of foundationalism would mean the failure of epistemology. As Alvin Plantinga has said, inferring the end of epistemology from foundationalism's (supposed) failure would be akin to "announcing the demise of the nation state on noting a civil war in Yugoslavia" (Plantinga 1993: 183). Bearing this in mind, let us now ponder the argument's second key premise: the claim that classical foundationalism is folly.

7.3 The Foundationalist Citadel Assailed Has Rorty refuted foundationalism? That we should reply in the negative seems clear when we review the five main objections to it which I find scattered throughout Rorty's voluminous writings: A. The Argument from the Myth of the Given; 7 B. The Argument from Fallibilism;8

Anti-Foundationalism — From the Ground Up G. The Argument from Holism;9 D. The Argument from Answerability to the World; E. The Argument from Gontextualism. 11

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and

I shall summarize each argument in my own words, then essay a very succinct Respondedin my best pseudo-scholastic style. A.

The Argumentfrom the Myth of the Given

"Foundationalism rests on the doctrine of the Given. But that doctrine has definitely been discredited: perceptual experience, construed as a form of non-judgmental cognition, cannot possibly justify beliefs (though it assuredly may cause them). So classical foundationalism collapses." Reply: There are problems with both premises. In the first place, foundationalism per se does not rest on the Given; only certain (empiricist) versions of foundationalism do. Second, we have already argued that taking epistemic supervenience seriously can help us understand how experience, though itself non-judgmental, may justify judgments or beliefs. 12 B.

The Argumentfrom Fallibilism

"According to foundationalism, knowledge rests on a basis of 'privileged representations' (Rorty 1979: 165) that are absolutely certain. But if we are fallibilists, we hold that nothing is certain; all beliefs are potentially open to revision in light of further experience and reflection. Hence foundationalism is incompatible with the fallibilism that looms so large in the pragmatist creed." Reply: This argument mischaracterizes foundationalism. More specifically, it overlooks the distinction between weak and strong forms of the theory; for only the hardy few who champion the latter view are pledged to uphold the certainty of basic beliefs. But if foundationalists as a class need not commit themselves to the Cartesian idea that basic beliefs are certain, the first premise of the Argument from Fallibilism is false. C.

The Argument from Holism

"As good holists, we should allow that the epistemic or justificatory status of a belief cannot be determined without taking into account its relation to other beliefs. But such holism cannot be reconciled with the foundationalist's demand for basic beliefs. Ergo, foundationalism must go!" Reply:Actually, the holistic-sounding claim just mentioned — viz., that the (total) epistemic status of a belief cannot be determined without taking into

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account its relations to other beliefs — is not inconsistent with the foundationalist's claim that a belief may possess a positive epistemic status which owes nothing to the relations its bears to other beliefs. For instance, a foundationalist may hold that a basic belief has some degree of warrant or credibility all on its own, but he may also think that its epistemic status may be further augmented or enhanced if it fits or coheres well with other beliefs. So the foundationalist can acknowledge coherence as one source ofjustification; what he cannot 14 tolerate is the idea that it is the only such source.

D.

The Argument from Answerability to the World

"The foundationalist's picture takes it for granted that our judgments and thoughts are answerable to the world. 15 But we should outgrow the whole idea of such answerability; we need to realize that '[w]e have no duties to anything nonhuman' (Rorty 1998a: 127). Hence, we should pass on foundationalism.'' Reply:It is impossible to assess this argument unless we know what talk of "answerability to the world" is meant to convey. Unfortunately, its meaning is far from clear. If thought's answerability to the world is equated with the view that truth is correspondence to reality, 16 then the original objection is unsound; for foundationalists are by no means bound to embrace the 17 correspondence theory. Suppose, however, the claim that judgments are "answerable to the world" just means that our beliefs are rationally constrained (and not just prompted causally) by the world in the form of experiential input. Because this is another way of saying that experience cannot justify beliefs, the Argument from Answerability would then differ only verbally from the Argument from the Myth of the Given, whose gist it purloins with aplomb.

E.

The Argument from Contextualism

"According to foundationalists, a belief is either basic or derived simpliciter; its status as one or the other is fixed once and for all. But a body of beliefs as a whole has no such permanent, acontextual structure. So we must shun foundationalism — and, for that matter, any rival theory (such as coherentism) which similarly promises to lay bare the underlying structure of all our beliefs, taken as a comprehensive set or totality." Reply:Here three brief observations are in order. First, why should we deny our justified beliefs form a system with one set structure? As far as I can see, Rorty never defends this all-important premise, without which the Argument from Gontextualism is an absolute non-starter. Second, note that


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such contextualism has something in common with the ioundationalism it opposes — namely, a two-tiered model of justification. For the contextualist, too, admits there are basic beliefs; he insists, however, that their status as such is not absolute, but relative to a context. But in virtue of what does a belief acquire this exalted or privileged status? (Surely anyone prepared to pose and press a parallel query about the foundationalist's basic beliefs will grant that the contextualist owes us an answer here.) Third, suppose contextualists are right in thinking that classical theories of justification are misguided (inasmuch as they cling to the idea that our belief system has one set structure). Even so, it would not follow that there is nothing philosophically interesting to say about justification or knowledge; since these are notions the contextualist continues to employ, he presumably has as much of an interest as anyone in understanding how some propositions support or defeat others. How, then, can the contextualist's dismissal of foundationalism and its rivals spell the end of epistemology? To sum up. We have seen that Rorty's first anti-epistemology argument depends on two main assumptions: (i) that epistemology is a lost cause unless foundationalism is defensible; and (ii) that foundationalism is irremediably flawed. The first assumption is wildly implausible, however; and the second seems inadequately supported. And so I humbly submit that if epistemology is to be debunked, it will not be by the Argument from Classical Foundationalism.

7.4

The Argument from Solidarity

The second argument on the agenda is the Argument from Solidarity, directed against F2. Rorty has been wielding this objection for almost three decades now, and it forms an integral part of his brief for ethnocentric "epistemological behaviorism," which "explain[s] rationality and epistemic authority by reference to what society lets us say, rather than the latter by the former" (Rorty 1979: 174). The gist of the objection is that although traditional epistemology is "rooted in the urge to see social practices of justification as more than just such practices" (Rorty 1979: 390), what frustrates the philosopher is our inability to transcend our culture and justify basic shared norms by reference to something external. Hence the aspiration enshrined in Plato's Allegory of the Gave that of passing judgment on the practices of one's time and place by grasping absolute and ahistorical standards of rationality - is myth we must learn to

live without. In the wake of epistemology's disenchantment, justification becomes contextual and internal to our community — "a matter of conversation and of social practice, rather than an attempt to mirror nature"

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(Rorty 1979: 171) — and objectivity must be explicated via the notion of intersubjective agreement within our culture. But when Rorty informs us that "justification is relative to an audience" (Rorty 1995a: 283), or exhorts us to "reduce objectivity to solidarity" (Rorty 1985a: 22), what is he doing? Is he just changing the subject — that is, abruptly recommending something new, without appealing to carefully reasoned argument?

7.5 Why Solidarity? Haack contra Rorty According to Susan Haack, Rorty offers no good reason to think that epistemic criteria are (purely) social and conventional. His case for the latter claim, Haack thinks, rests on a stark and overly simplistic disjunctive assump io n about the nature of truth: either truth is conventional and accessible (i.e. what you can defend against all comers), or it is absolute and remote (i.e. true representations scrupulously mirror inaccessible things-in-themselves). Since the latter view is obviously beset with problems, Haack's Rorty ends up equating truth with what your cultural peers will let you get away with. But in that case, it seems the only way to preserve the standard conceptual connection between truth and justification is to say that our epistemic standards are similarly a matter of communal agreement. Haack's refreshingly no-nonsense response to Rorty is that of Hamlet to Horatio: there are more senses of truth than are dreamt of in the neo-pragmatist's philosophy. Taking Rorty's two views of truth as extremes, Haack discusses four intermediate positions: (i) the Peircean notion of a hypothetical ideal theory; (ii) Ramsey's redundancy theory; (iii) Tarski's semantic concep20 tion of truth; and (iv) the correspondence theories of the logical atomists. Because Rorty fails to consider the alternative accounts of truth Haack puts forward, the first premise of the anti-epistemology argument she attributes to him seems wrong-headed: "[Rorty's] argument for abandoning epistemology rests, at bottom, on nothing more than a manifestly false dichotomy of extreme realism versus extreme irrealism about truth" (Haack 1993: 191). And so Haack concludes — reasonably enough — that "the legitimacy of epistemology seems pretty secure" (Haack 1993: 191). Has Haack said all that needs to be said on this topic? I don't think so — though I hasten to say that I, too, think the argument she finds in Rorty is unsubtly sophistical. But Haack's decision to stake all on the attribution of that pitiable sophism, in which the concept of truth plays such a central role, seems problematic to me for three reasons. First, Rorty subscribes to no theory of truth, let alone the conventionalist-consensualist account ascribed to him by Haack.21 Second, Rorty does in fact criticize more moderate


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correspondence theories of truth of the sort Haack mentions. Third, it would seem that Rorty's case against F2 (and for J3) actually derives from considerations about justification, not truth — or so I shall now attempt to show.

7.6

Another Plea for Solidarity

As I see it, Rorty's case for J3 rests on an argument that is more nuanced than the one Haack scouts. Here's a thumbnail sketch of the objection, which originates within the very tradition it is supposed to overthrow: Epistemology, unlike history or anthropology or the sociology of knowledge, is defined by the normative character of its goal. It seeks, that is, to discover what principles or procedures of justification are objectively correct or rational — as opposed simply to cataloguing or describing the rules and norms by which members of a given culture or discipline actually reason. But the most basic standards of justification by means of which particular epistemic evaluations are made cannot themselves be justified; for there is no (noncircular) way for us to defend them. So justification is ultimately a matter of conformity with established community standards; it is relative to something that cannot be rationally justified or grounded. Hence, epistemology cannot attain the goal it has set for itself.

Here we can see Rorty drawing inspiration from the Wittgensteinian idea that the process of justification inevitably comes to an end, at which point we can only invoke the primacy of practice and confess "This is simply what I do." (Wittgenstein 1953: I §217). Once we grant this, we must regard as futile philosophical attempts to ground our form of life by appealing to something prior and deeper. Recall, too, Wittgenstein's diagnosis of the depth metaphors to which epistemologists as a caste are partial: The difficult thing here is not to dig down to the ground; no, it is to recognize the ground that lies before us is the ground. For the ground keeps on giving us the illusory image of a greater depth, and when we seek to reach this, we keep on finding ourselves on the old level. Our disease is one of wanting to explain. (Wittgenstein 1956: VI 31) On the interpretation I offer, then, Rorty opposes F2 on the grounds that there is no way for us to justify standards of justification without begging the question; once ultimate commitments are challenged, "their user has no noncircular argumentative recourse" (Rorty 1989: 73). This predicament recalls the problem of the criterion, first formulated by the ancients and then revisited by Montaigne in the sixteenth century and by Roderick Ghisholm in the twentieth. Rorty's argument thus raises meta-epistemological issues which deserve sustained attention — far more, alas, than I can give them in the

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context of the present work. Because of this, I shall confine myself to voicing just three reservations about the Argument from Solidarity.

A.

Circularity

First, why conclude that our fundamental standards of justification are unjustified in the absence of a noncircular argument for them? True, we are all accustomed to condemn circular arguments; we are mightily unimpressed, and rightly so, when Smith informs us that he knows Jones always tells the truth, because "Jones himself told me so." But are all circles created equal? Consider the following scenario, described by Ernest Sosa. Suppose you defend an epistemological theory according to which there is one justification-making feature, X, that all justified beliefs possess. Gall this general thesis about justification P. Suppose, now, you are called upon to justify your belief that P; to specify, that is, what it is that warrants you in accepting it. Your response? That P is justified in virtue of the fact that P possesses X. Since your justification of P presupposes P, here there is indeed circularity of a kind; but note that it is unavoidable by the very nature of the case. It thus must be distinguished from what we encounter in cases where reasoning in a circle is due to a sheer lack of logical acumen (as with dull and credulous Smith, above). 26

B.

Neo-Pragmatism or Post-Modern Pyrrhonism?

Suppose, however, we grant that our fundamental standards of justification cannot be justified. In that case, why shouldn't we just embrace skepticism 27 of the Pyrrhonian (as opposed to the Cartesian) stripe? That conclusion, it would appear, follows more directly than the contextualism Rorty wants to defend. Note, moreover, what Rorty has in common with Sextus Empiricus and his 28 skeptical cohorts. Like the Pyrrhonists, Rorty thinks there is no way to defend our basic epistemic criteria via argument without begging the question. And just as the Pyrrhonists enjoined us to follow Nature and conform undogmatically to the established customs of our society, our neo-pragmatist counsels an ironic detachment from the norms and vocabulary of the day; employ them we may and must, but always bearing in mind their contingent and human-all-too-human character. Is Rortyean ethnocentricism just Pyrrhonism, then, arrayed in gaudy post-modern garb? Not quite. Ancient ataraxia is still nowhere in sight; but at least we are relieved of the burden and strain imposed by absolutist cravings for objectivity — and we are encouraged to take up the convivial and edifying pursuits of self-creation, conversation, and the cultivation of solidarity.


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Aside from suggesting (at least to the jaded) that there is little new under the philosophical sun, these parallels raise a serious question. If ancient Pyrrhonism and Brave New Pragmatism are similar in the ways suggested, why hail the latter as liberating us from the decadent tradition of epistemology? If anything, the Argument from Solidarity seems to return us, willy-nilly, to that 29 tradition's rich origins with a renewed sense of respect and engagement. C.

Which Foundationalism?

Finally, suppose the Argument from Solidarity succeeds — that is, that it establishes that species of contextualism (i.e. J3) to which Rorty subscribes. According to such contextualism, some assertions are justified by societal approval, that is, by the willingness of one's cultural peers to take one's word for it: "I view warrant as a sociological matter, to be ascertained by observing the reception of S's statement by her peers" (Rorty 1993: 449). But this means that — as incredible as it sounds — Rorty countenances the existence of basic or foundational beliefs: beliefs, that is, justified by something other than their relations to one's other beliefs.30 (To be sure, here the non-doxastic source of justification is not a Cartesian Gogito, or an old-fashioned empiricist appeal to sense-data; but it is a non-doxastic source nonetheless.) Hence Rorty's contextualism, the result of the attack on F2, eventuates in a version of Fl. It is an irony worth savoring: Rorty's attempt to eradicate one kind of foundationalism has led him to accept (albeit unwittingly) another kind which he also affects to spurn and despise. Gould it be that neo-pragmatism — Rorty's attempt to see how things hang together without foundations — itself hangs together none too well?

7.7

The Argument from Objectivity

We come at last to the Argument from Objectivity. This time, Rorty's target is F3: the view of philosophy as a discipline entitled "to underwrite or debunk claims to knowledge made by science, morality, art, or religion . . . on the basis of its special understanding of the nature of knowledge and of the mind" (Rorty 1979: 3). Here is my summary of Rorty's case against this view: To say that epistemology-centred philosophy is a foundational discipline is to acknowledge its authority to put the other disciplines in their place; it is to say that philosophy, and philosophy alone, is qualified to fit other areas of culture into a permanent hierarchy based on how objective their respective vocabularies are (i.e. the relative accuracy with which science, morality, art, and religion represent reality). However, once we turnpragmatist and eschew the whole idea of representing reality, it will no longer make sense to think of

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some vocabulary (e.g. that of physics) as more objective than another (e.g. commons ens e, or poetry) ; instead, we will say that one vocabulary is more useful than another for some particular purpose. And so neo-pragmatists will no longer be tempted to think of philosophy in this (foundational) way.

Here my reply must be exceedingly brief, because the Argument from Objectivity raises issues that cry out for extended treatment — treatment I offer in the next chapter. Allow me to explain.

7.8 Who's Afraid of Representationalism? Confronted with the Argument from Objectivity, it is tempting to say that Rorty is simply confused. "Surely," the exasperated critic will plead, "we can reflect on the nature of epistemic justification without having to think of philosophy as a pretentious Kantian super-discipline" — as "a meta-practice which will be the critique of all possible forms of social practice" (Rorty 1979: 171). And perhaps this is all that needs to be said. Still, it is a matter of historical record that philosophers of diverse persuasions — Thomists and Logical Positivists, German Idealists and Scientific Realists, among others — have declared some areas of culture to be more objective or absolute than others. Rorty's quarrel, of course, is not with the peculiarities of this or that philosopher's "epistemico-ontological hierarchy" (Rorty 1999: 176); it is with the very idea of such a hierarchy — an idea which can be traced back to Plato's Divided Line and which Rorty thinks is built into epistemology itself. And what is wrong with the idea of such a peckingorder? It rests, we are told, on "representationalism" — an -ism that dares not speak its name among reputable neo-pragmatists. Two simple questions about this diagnosis must not be suppressed. First, is this anti-representationalist diagnosis accurate? Second, why is representationalism such an unmitigated disaster? It all depends, obviously, on what "representationalism" means. And just what, pray tell, does it mean? In Chapter 8 I will argue that Rorty is culpably unclear on this crucial point, so I shall postpone discussion of the idea that epistemology is inherently and objectionably representationalist until then. (Should the suspense prove unbearable, please consult §8.2—§8.6 immediately.)

7.9

An Objection Considered

Before we leave the Argument from Objectivity, however, let us try to deepen our understanding of it by considering an objection to its neo-pragmatist conclusion.


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Suppose we convert to neo-pragmatism and stop evaluating the claims of science, art, morality, religion, and their ilk by representationalist standards or criteria. Couldn't there still be a sense in which we might think of philosophy as a foundational discipline? That is, why not say that philosophy, as pursued by the new pragmatists, is a discipline qualified to rank the various areas of culture on the basis of their utility (as opposed to their pictorial adequacy or fidelity)? Post-epistemological philosophy could accordingly reinvent itself as The Strict Science of the Useful, whose authoritative and rigorous verdicts about what works (and what doesn't) cannot be gainsaid. Here the canny neo-pragmatist will call our attention to a simple fact: evaluating vocabularies on the basis of their utility is significantly unlike evaluating them for representational accuracy or correspondence to reality. In the latter case, there is but one standard — namely, "How Things Really Are" (Rorty 1999: 262) — which is identified with something non-human and permanent. In the former case, our pragmatist protests, this is just not so. For one thing, human purposes are subject-dependent — unlike the realist's world. For another, our purposes are many, not one; there is no single specific purpose which can function as the standard against which all vocabularies must be judged. Furthermore, many human purposes are contingent historical products; old ones may fade away or mutate, while new ones emerge and evolve in unforeseeable ways. From the vantage point of the neo-pragmatist, this parlous flux and lack of fixity means the idea of a permanent hierarchy of cultural domains is a mere will-o'-the-wisp. Hence our neo-pragmatist will say — mixing metaphors with impunity — that tools are not in the same boat as mirrors. He is now free to go on and insinuate tactfully that philosophers as such have no special qualifications or competence for making judgments of utility — to urge, that is, that down-toearth claims about what works in a given domain can be responsibly entered without appealing to the sort of abstruse philosophical theory on which the representationalist's judgments about objectivity are based.

7.10

Pragmatism and Epistemology: Quine versus Rorty

Let us take stock. We have now discussed three Rortyean objections to the view that epistemology is foundational — the Argument from Classical Foundationalism, the Argument from Solidarity, and the Argument from Objectivity — and we have urged they will not do. But what (positive) moral would Rorty's arguments, if sound, support? In order to better understand Rorty's anti-foundationalism, I now want to juxtapose his free-spirited stance with the views of another post-Deweyan pragmatist and foe of old-time epistemology: Quine.

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When it comes to matters epistemological, there is much Quine and Rorty share: a predilection for holism; deep misgivings about old-fashioned foundationalisms (i.e. Fl); a lively faith that the end of epistemology is at hand when Fl falls from grace; the emphatic repudiation of the Kantian idea of philosophy as sovereign or prior to science and culture; and the desire to dismiss skepticism, while admitting there is no noncircular way to validate our worldview. Given this striking state of accord, may we conclude that nothing significant separates Rorty and Quine in this area? We may not. Although Rorty and Quine agree that traditional epistemology is a lost cause, they disagree about what should take its place. Quine's proposal is well-known: epistemology should be converted into a branch of science — namely, psychology — left to wrestle with answering the following (empirical) question: How is it that we humans form our beliefs about the world, given that said beliefs are dramatically underdetermined by the scanty sensory clues on which they are based? Thus the new naturalist, like the old-fashioned theorist of knowledge, scrutinizes the relation between evidence and theory; but he views that relation from a fresh and more profitable vantage point than did his a priorist predecessors — or so Quine maintains:36 Epistemology, or something like it, simply falls into place as a chapter of psychology and hence of natural science. It studies a natural phenomenon — viz., a physical human subject. This human subject is accorded a certain experimentally controlled input — certain patterns of irradiation in assorted frequencies, for instance — and in the fullness of time the subject delivers as output a description of the three-dimensional external world and its history. The relation between the meager input and the torrential output is a relation that we are prompted to study for somewhat the same reasons that always prompted epistemology; namely, in order to see how evidence relates to theory, and in what ways one's theory of nature transcends any available evidence (Quine 1969: 24). It should be observed, however, that Quine's pet epistemological project — that of studying the relation between "meager input" and "torrential output" in a naturalist spirit — depends on one version of the third dogma of empiricism: that is, a distinction between experiential data (empirical content), on the one hand, and, on the other, a set of theoretical posits (conceptual scheme) introduced to interpret the data. Since Rorty follows Davidson's lead in damning this dualism, neither philosopher can bless naturalized epistemology of a Quinean kind. Rorty is thus loath to accept Quine's proposal — but not, like so many of Quine's critics, because he is bothered by the lack of continuity between naturalized epistemology and what it supplants. No, the drift of Rorty's main complaint runs in the opposite direction: he finds Quine's break with the


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epistemological tradition much too amicable and half-hearted. According to Quine's new program, "epistemology still goes on, though in a new setting and a clarified status" (Quine 1969: 23). But Rorty does not want epistemology to go on; he calls for its abolition or extinction, not its reform or renewal. Hence whereas Quine thinks it worthwhile to reformulate old questions — questions about "how evidence relates to theory, and in what ways one's theory of nature transcends any available evidence" (Quine 1969: 24) — Rorty does not. As he sees it, "understanding modern philosophy requires a more radical break with the tradition than Quine wants to make" (Rorty 1979: 223).

7.11

Conclusions

(1) The Argument from Classical Foundationalism (against F l ) fails, primarily because there is no good reason to suppose that the very idea of a theory of knowledge depends upon the viability of a specifically foundationalist conception of epistemic justification. (2) Though intended to support contextualism, the Argument from Solidarity (against F2) seems hard to distinguish from an argument for metaepistemic skepticism (i.e. skepticism about our standards of justification). (3) The Argument from Objectivity (against F3) cannot be assessed without a better understanding of what "representationalism" means and why it is untenable. These questions will be taken up in Chapter 8. (4) Finally, Rorty's anti-foundationalist critique of epistemology has much in common with Quine's. But Quine still enthusiastically advocates theorybuilding, whereas Rorty thinks we should settle for therapy as a prelude to changing the subject.

Notes

1. Thoreau (1854:291). 2. Cf. Passmore (1985), Chapter 5; Nagel (1986: 9-12); Sosa (1987); Putnam (1987a: 18-29); West (1989), especially Chapter 5; Habermas (1990: 1-20), (1992:3-53). 3. Cf. Alston (1992: 145). 4. This classification owes something to Haack (1993), to whom I am indebted. Cf. Williams (2000), who tallies up the kinds of "foundationalism" Rorty opposes in a different way. 5. Rorty does not distinguish these arguments; the classifications and labels are my own. 6. Anyone eager for a game of Gettier (1963)? Shope (1983) chronicles past matches.

124 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

The Varieties of Pragmatism See the passages from Rorty cited in §3.1. Cf. Rorty (1979: 137, 171), (1981b: 184), (1999: 33). Cf. Rorty (1979: 170-1; 180-1). Cf. Rorty (1998b). Cf. Rorty (1979: 180-1), (1999:34, 151-2). Cf. §3.5. Cf. §3.4. Cf. Chisholm(1989:86). The notion of answerability derives from McDowell (1996: xii), whom Rorty cites (1998b: 138-9) in this connection. Cf. Rorty (19981:27-9). For instance, they may embrace minimalism or deflationism. Note that classical foundationalism is still seen by some as a live option. Cf. Fumerton (2001) andBonjour (2001). Cf. Rorty (1979: 174, 178, 367, 385), (1980: 165), (1981c: 204), (1985a: 23, 28-9), (1988a: 38), (1989: 48), (1991a: 12-13), (1993: 449). Cf. Haack (1993: 186). See Appendix A. Haack's interpretative claim finds some support in the primary sources; see Rorty (1979: 308), (1980: 165-6). But this does not mean we should not look for other arguments in support of the same conclusion. Again, see Appendix A. "What has to be accepted, the given, is — so one could say —forms of life" (Wittgenstein 1953: II xi; see also §50, §217, §324, §485). SeeChisholm (1977: 119-34), (1989:6-7). Cf. Montaigne (1592:11, 12). The scenario I describe here is drawn from Sosa (1987: 714—15). As Nagel says in another context: "The charge of begging the question implies that there is an alternative'' (Nagel 1997: 24). On ancient skepticism, see Annas and Barnes (1985), as well as Burnyeat (1983). Michael Williams also believes that Rorty's ironism resembles ancient skepticism, but he does not connect this point with the Argument from Solidarity in the way I do here. Instead, Williams calls attention to Rorty's views about the irony-inducing power of disagreement — viz., the idea that once a reflective person is faced with alternatives to her own final vocabulary, she will no longer be convinced that adherence to that vocabulary is ultimatelyjustifiable. See Williams (1996: 364-5), (2000: 210), (2003: 76). Especially when we recall how Pyrrhonism's resurgence in the sixteenth century shaped the agenda of modern philosophy. See Popkin (1979). To my knowledge, the first to see this was Sosa (1983: 93). Cf. Rorty (1979:3, 6, 9, 11, 162,392), (1982a), (1989:3-4,7-8, 11-13). Or, less dramatically, we might point out that Rorty hasn't shown this is not the case. Rorty (1999: 180). Cf. Rorty (1999: 186). For more on vocabularies and the ends they serve, see Brandom (2000a: 168-72).


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35. For Rorty's comments on Quinean naturalized epistemology, see Rorty (1979: 221-30). Cf. Rorty (1999: 44, n29). 36. For criticisms, see: Haack (1993), Chapter 5; Stroud (1984), Chapter 6. 37. Davidson (1989: 161-2) has called attention to this; cf. Davidson (1974: 191). Cf. McDermid (2004a). 38. Cf. Kim (1988), for instance.

8

Anti-Representationalism and Its Discontents

Kant calls it a "scandal to philosophy and to human reason in general" that there is still no cogent proof of "the existence of things outside of us" which will do away with all scepticism ... The "scandal of philosophy" is not that this proof hasyet to he given hut that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again.

— Martin Heidegger1

8.0 Introduction It would seem that Rorty's anti-foundationalist case against epistemology cannot be sustained. Even so, friends and defenders of epistemology must not rest on their laurels, because Rorty has another argument at the ready. This time, he informs us that epistemology is an answer to a question which will appear compelling only if we endorse the very representationalist ideas about language and mind which neo-pragmatists prudently abjure. As Rorty has put it: [T]o think of knowledge as something which presents a "problem," and about which we ought to have a "theory," is a product of viewing knowledge as an assemblage of representations — a view of knowledge which, I have been arguing, is a product of the seventeenth century. The moral to be drawn is that if this way of thinking about knowledge is optional, then so is epistemology, and so is philosophy as it has understood itself since the middle of the last century. (Rorty 1979: 136) This suffices to convey Rorty's general strategy. Here is a more detailed reconstruction of the objection, which we shall call the anti-representationalist argument: Since epistemology stems from the need to explain how knowledge is possible, refuting skepticism is the discipline's raison d'etre. But skepticism cannot be formulated unless language or thought constitutes a medium or tertium quid standing between mind and world. We need not adopt this representationalist picture, however; it is "optional." Hence, the problem of skepticism is similarly optional. Epistemology can therefore be set aside; for its central problem rests on theoretical commitments we can safely eschew.


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At one fell swoop, Rorty's anti-representationalist argument promises to get rid of Cartesian evil demons and of a discipline devoted to their exorcism. Can it make good on these ambitious claims? Focusing almost exclusively on the second and third premises of the anti-representationalist argument, I shall argue that Rorty's main thesis (viz. that skepticism presupposes representationalism) is vitiated by equivocation, and that one plausible interpretation of that thesis indicates that our ironist may ironically be a skeptic malgrelui. First, however, we must clarify Rorty's basic claims by (a) outlining his stance towards epistemology and skepticism; and (b) disambiguating "representationalism," epistemology's sordid original sin.

8.1

Epistemology and Representationalism

Here are four theses which summarize Rorty's intriguing views on skepticism and its relation to epistemology: 51. Epistemology and skepticism: Epistemology owes its existence to the need to refute skepticism: "Nobody would have wanted 'human knowledge' (as opposed to some particular theory or report) justified unless he had been frightened by scepticism" (Rorty 1979: 229). 4 52. The conditional correctness of skepticism: Skepticismis unanswerable: "nothing can refute the sceptic" (Rorty 1979: 294). Hence we must admit that skepticism is at least conditionally correct: provided we agree the skeptic's question is not ill-posed, we should concede that we lack knowledge of the world. 5 53. The evasion of skepticism: Nevertheless, we can avoid skepticism by showing that it depends on optional assumptions: "the sceptic cannot be answered directly but does not need to be" (Rorty 1995d: 157). What we must do, in short, is reject the vocabulary required for skepticism's formulation. 54. The anti-representationalist diagnosis: Skepticism presupposes the (optional) vocabulary of representationalism. To excise the intuition behind this vocabulary would be "to drop the picture which the epistemological sceptic needs to make his scepticism interesting and arguable" (Rorty 1986: 129). Theses SI—S4 supply the raw materials for Rorty's anti-representationalist argument. We immediately spot three of the argument's leading ideas: that the refutation of skepticism is epistemology's raison d'etre; that the skeptic cannot make his case without appealing to representationalism; and, finally, that the representationalist understanding of language or thought can unproblematically be set aside. Of the many questions raised by these bold claims, two stand out as especially pressing and urgent. First, what is representationalism? Secondly, why are we urged to eschew it? Because we cannot evaluate the

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anti-representationalist argument until we have answers to these queries, we must examine Rorty's characterization of representationalism with care.

8.2

The Varieties of Representationalism

How, then, are we to understand "representationalism"? Alas, Rorty never gives anything like the straight answer his authoritative antirepresentationalist pronouncements lead us to expect. Instead of identifying representationalism with a specific thesis or doctrine, he relies on suggestive re-descriptions of those philosophers whom he places in his pantheon of arch anti-representationalists: Nietzsche; James; Heidegger; 10 Dewey; 11 15 Wittgenstein; Goodman;13 Derrida; and Davidson. This catalogue is a queer and bewildering one; for it is very far from obvious that Rorty's heroes — some of whom make strange bedfellows — are all taking aim at the same target. Nor is the identity of Rorty's representationalist opponents immediately apparent: described in terms of metaphors and the odd historical allusion, the neo-pragmatist's foes are shadowy folk who invoke "[t]he whole vocabulary of isomorphism, picturing, and mapping" (Rorty 1980: 163), "see language-as-a-whole in relation to something else to which it applies" (Rorty 1982a: xix), or regard it as "a tertium quid between Subject and Object" (Rorty 1982a: xviii) or "a veil between us and reality" (Rorty 1986: 145). Vague and imprecise, such descriptions shed precious little light on specific articles of the representationalist creed. Shall we say, then, that the anti-representationalist argument is a lost cause? Not yet. A conscientious second look reveals that things are not hopeless; Rorty, I believe, uses "representationalism" to refer to no fewer than three well-known doctrines about the relationship between language and reality. Here is my list of these proscribed positions, along with a brief statement intended to convey the flavour of Rorty's opposition: Rl. Representationalism and truth: The thesis that truth consists in correspondence with reality. According to Rorty, Rl is an answer to a bad question; there is no point in asking how language fits, matches, mirrors or depicts an extra-linguistic world. Language is not a way of copying reality, but a way of coping with it. Once we view linguistic practices as adaptive in this quasi-Darwinian sense, we will appreciate that "[w]e understand all there is to know about the relation of beliefs to the world when we understand their causal relations with the world" (Rorty 1986: 128).16 R2. Representationalism and meaning: The (semantic) thesis that the meaning of statements is given by (realist) truth-conditions.


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Rorty claims R2 compares unfavorably with theories of meaning which take epistemic notions such as use or assertibility as their central concept. The real issue between the two factions, we are told, is "whether to treat language as a picture or as a game" (Rorty 1981d: 110). Here Rorty's sympathies lie with the later Wittgenstein, who took a dim view of his early picture theory and came to understand language as a set of social practices. R3. Representationalism and conceptual schemes: The dualism of conceptual scheme and empirical content, in which the former element stands in some special, non-naturalistic relation (organizing, structuring, facing, fitting) to the latter. Rorty applauds Davidson's critique of this dualism — the third dogma of empiricism. He concurs that without R3, we will appreciate that "[IJanguage is not a screen or filter through which our knowledge of the world must pass" (Davidson 1984: xviii). According to Rorty, to dispense with the idea of such a medium is to realize that "the tertia which have made us have skeptical doubts about whether most of our beliefs are true are just not there'' (Rorty 1986: 138). This completes our inventory of Rorty's despised representationalisms. How, now, does this catalogue help us come to grips with the antirepresentationalist argument?

8.3 A Tale of Two Conditions If the anti-representationalist argument is to carry conviction, its proponents must show that there is some form of representationalism, R, such that it satisfies two conditions: (i) The Indispensability Condition: R is indispensable to the case for skepticism about our knowledge of the external world; and (ii) The Optionality Condition: R is "optional" (i.e. either there are good rea19 sons not to adopt R, or there are not good reasons to adopt R). Astonishingly, Rorty never deigns to argue that any of R l — R3 fits the bill. True, he redescribes and exhorts and admonishes — but he never advances anything like a would-be proof of the claim that there is a form of representationalism satisfying conditions (i) and (ii). Unless that controversial premise is securely established, however, the anti-representationalist argument is devoid of probative force; it is a syllogism full of sound and fury, proving nothing. What to do? Again, it is tempting to give up on the anti-representationalist argument and move on. For our brief examination of it has turned up three serious and interrelated lacunae: first, an exasperating reluctance to explicate representationalism; second, a failure to argue that skeptics are

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representationalists ex qfficio;third, a failure to argue that the representationalism the skeptic (allegedly) needs is optional. As philosophical sins of omission go, these are grave — so grave, in fact, that scrupulous critics could be excused if they refused to grant the anti-representationalist argument absolution. I have some sympathy with this unforgiving response, since I find Rorty's argument woefully underdeveloped. Nevertheless, we can say more than this against the anti-representationalist argument. For, unless I am mistaken, there is reason to think that opposition to Rl — R3 cannot give Rorty what he wants. Let us begin with R1.

8.4 Knowledge and Truth: Rl 20 What relation does the correspondence theory of truth bear to skepticism? Here two points need to be made: (1) First, let us review Brand Blanshard's ambitious attempt to defend a coherence theory of truth. This neglected tragedy, in which coherence supplants correspondence, has but two acts: Act I: Blanshard laments that correspondence cannot serve as truth's test. Although we can compare beliefs with beliefs, we cannot compare beliefs with non-beliefs in order to establish that correspondence obtains: "[I]n order to know that experience corresponds to fact, we must be able to get at that fact, unadulterated with idea, and compare the two sides with each other. And we have seen in the last chapter that such fact is not accessible'' (Blanshard 1939, Vol. 11:268). Blanshard insists, however, that skepticism is inevitable unless the criterion of truth and the nature of truth are one and the same. He concludes that a correspondence theory of truth is untenable; but a coherence theory is not. Correspondence is brutally overthrown; coherence, victorious, is acknowledged as test and nature of truth. Act II: Enter Blanshard, now carrying the very burden he had solemnly deposited on the shoulders of his foe, the correspondence theorist, in Act I. Brooding, Blanshard acknowledges his own coherence theory can also be accused of making truth epistemically inaccessible. Here is his melancholy soliloquy-cum-objection: What is it that our judgments must cohere with in order to be true? It is a system of knowledge complete and all-inclusive. But obviously that is beyond us — very probably forever beyond us. If to know anything as true, which means simply to know it, requires that we should see its relation to the total of possible knowledge, then we neither do nor can know anything. (Blanshard 1939, Vol. II: 269)


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Coherence cannot serve as the test of truth unless it is coherence, not with one's present beliefs, but with an ideal system of judgments — "the system in which everything real and possible is coherently included" (Blanshard 1939, Vol. II: 276). But that ideal system is "beyond us — very probably forever beyond us" (Blanshard 1939, Vol. II: 269). So the coherence theory is not a significant improvement on its predecessor after all. Exeunt omnes. Moral: It seems (pace Rorty) Rl does not satisfy the Indispensability Condition. For if skepticism can vex and pester defenders of epistemic theories of truth, how can the correspondence theory be reckoned a necessary condition of skepticism's formulation? (2) The plot thickens when we recall why Rorty thinks Rl satisfies the Optionality Condition. Notice that the charge he flings with such gusto at the correspondence theory — viz., that we cannot compare beliefs with reality — can be made to stick only if he assumes "there is no way to get outside of our beliefs and our language" (Rorty 1979: 178). But the implied contrast between being "inside" or "outside" language evidently makes sense only if we persist in thinking of language as a medium of representation — as a tertium quid or veil that interposes itself between our minds and the world. Consequently, it would seem that to repine at "our inability to step outside our language" (Rorty 1989: 75) is to accept R3: the damned dualism of scheme and content, according to which language forms "a screen or filter through which our knowledge of the world must pass" (Davidson 1984: xviii). If this is right, then Rorty's case against one form of representationalism (i.e. Rl) rests on another form, which he also abhors and aspires to transcend (i.e. R3).

8.5 Knowledge and Meaning: R2 Next, consider R2: the thesis that the meaning of sentences is given by their objective truth-conditions. Why suppose the skeptic must be committed toR2? Recall what Descartes asserts in Meditation I: I remind myself that on many occasions I have in sleep been deceived by similar illusions, and in dwelling carefully on this reflection I see so manifestly that there are no certain indications by which I may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep that I am lost in astonishment. And my astonishment is such that it is almost capable of persuading me that I now dream ... (Descartes 1641: 145-8) To say, with the Cartesian skeptic, that I cannot know that I am seated by the fire (because I cannot know that I am not dreaming), is to confess a

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genuine failure; it is to admit that there is something — a fact of the matter as to whether I am so seated — beyond our ken. This assumes that statements about the world — statements such as "I am seated by the fire" — may be cognitively meaningful (and determinately true or false) though unverifiable in principle. Accordingly, the Cartesian skeptic seems committed to the view that statements about the external world have truth-conditions that are verification-transcendent. And this in turn may suggest a way in which we might combat such skepticism — namely, by defending a form of verificationism which would condemn as senseless the idea of truths that are forever unknowable. Is this Rorty's proposal? If so, his anti-representationalist dissolution of skepticism faces grave problems, five of which merit a mention. (1) Most obviously, it is disappointingly unoriginal. Verificationist dismissals of skepticism have been around for decades, and it would appear that Rorty has little or nothing new to add to what a horde of positivists and linguistic philosophers have already said — aside, that is, from re-baptizing the strategy with a jazzy moniker. (2) Furthermore, some would deny that R2 satisfies the Optionality Condition; for verificationism is a doctrine which a good many philosophers staunchly oppose. (Indeed, arch-realist Thomas Nagel professes to find verificationism less plausible than the skepticism it is introduced to eliminate). 25 (3) If holding a truth-conditional account of meaning makes one a representationalist, then one of the gods in Rorty's anti-representationalist Olympus — Davidson — is about as representationalist as they come. But this is 27 awkward (to say the least). (4) Verificationism is presented as a theory of meaning; but Rorty, a devotee of Wittgensteinian-style therapy, is of the opinion that philosophical theories are exactly what we don't need. A commitment to a form of semantic anti-realism would therefore put him precisely where he doesn't want to be — 8 namely, in the company of constructive theorists such as Dummett. (5) Finally, this critique of skepticism yields a conclusion that is too strong by Rorty's own lights. If verificationism is true, then skepticism is meaningless; 9 but we have observed that Rorty does not find skepticism unintelligible. All in all, this seems a most unpromising approach for Rorty. R2 may satisfy the Indispensability Condition; but there are very good reasons for Rorty to 30 steer clear of the verificationist alternatives to R2.

8.6 Knowledge and The Scheme/Content Dualism: R3 Finally, let us ponder R3: the dualism of scheme and content. How are we to understand its relation to skepticism?


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Unfortunately, we do not get much help or guidance from Rorty on this crucial point. Still, gung-ho neo-pragmatists need not despond; there is, or so I believe, a fairly plausible way of connecting the two doctrines. According to the skeptic, the justification of our empirical beliefs ultimately depends on the testimony of our senses. This textbook skeptic is thus an empiricist, in a generous but sound sense of the term; for he holds that "whatever evidence there is for science is sensory evidence" (Quine 1969: 19). But to hold that our total scheme of beliefs about an objective world stands in a normative relation of epistemic dependence to empirical content (i.e. subjective perceptual input) is to be committed to a version of the dualism of scheme and content. So skeptics — and their adversaries — are caught in the vise-like grip of the third dogma. 32 If the line of argument I have just outlined is basically correct, we may say R3 satisfies the Indispensability Condition. And R3 also satisfies the Optionality Condition — or so says Rorty, who credits Davidson with discrediting that dualism. Should we conclude that, after a few painful false starts, Rorty's anti-representationalist argument is finally up and running? Once again, queries, doubts, and difficulties abound. Here are six: (1) First, a grumble about old wine in new bottles. Because "antirepresentationalism" in this sense boils down to the familiar claim that experience cannot justify beliefs, it adds nothing new to Rorty's case against epistemology. It turns out that the anti-representationalist — our exotic new acquaintance — is just an old-fashioned anti-foundationalist, equipped with an impressive-sounding alias and a chic disguise. (2) Second, a corollary of the preceding vintage-fixated grumble. If Rorty's anti-representationalism contrasts with the view that experience is a source of justification, there is no need for a separate discussion of the merits of said anti-representationalism. We already passed judgment on it in §3.5, where we argued against prising causation and justification apart in a way that would automatically exclude experience from "the logical space of reasons" (Sellars 1963: 169). (3) Next, an accusation of gross inconsistency (already mentioned in §8.4). Rorty objects to the correspondence theory on the grounds that we cannot get "outside" of our language and compare beliefs with a realm of extra-linguistic fact; but this way of formulating the difficulty assumes language is a medium — "something standing between the self and the nonhuman reality with which the self seeks to be in touch" (Rorty 1989: 10-11). It therefore looks as if the case against Rl draws on R3 as a premise. How, then, can Rorty turn around and deny R3? (4) This version of the anti-representationalist argument may lead indirectly to the vindication of skepticism — and not, as originally promised, to its debunking. Recall that the anti-representationalist tries to evade skepticism

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by denying that world-derived input is relevant to the justification of our beliefs. It would seem, however, that the denial of this apparent truism — central to what John McDowell calls "minimal empiricism" (McDowell 1996: xvi) — is not appreciably less counterintuitive than the thesis of skepticism itself. But if we assert both (a) that skepticism can be avoided only by denying 34 minimal empiricism, and (b) that minimal empiricism is a platitude, it follows that we cannot escape skepticism unless we significantly change the way we think about knowledge. However, the skeptic can claim victory is his if our 35 tussle with him forces us to revisit and revise entrenched intuitions. (5) If representationalism is equated with the third dogma, then Davidson is decidedly not of the opinion that epistemologyis inherently representational ist. Unlike Rorty, he insists that where epistemology is concerned, there is life after skepticism and representationalism: It should not be assumed that if we cease to be bullied or beguiled by the scheme-content and subjective-objective distinctions, all the problems of epistemology will evaporate ... It is not problematic whether knowledge of the world or other minds is possible; it remains as much a question as ever how we attain such knowledge, and the conditions belief must satisfy to count as knowledge. (Davidson 1989: 166—7) This gives rise to the following question: Why not follow Davidson's lead rather than Rorty's? That is, why not reject both the third dogma of empiricism and the first premise of the anti-representationalist argument? 36 (6) Finally, suppose skepticism cannot be defended without the third dogma; suppose, too, that Davidson's critique of that dogma is deemed devastating.37 It is then hard to see why we shouldn't say Davidson hasrefuted skepticism (i.e. credit him with having demonstrated the falsity of some assumptions(s) the skeptic needs to make his case). Rorty refuses to say that, however; we have seen he cleaves to theses S2 and S3, according to 39 which skepticism can only be dissolved — not refuted.

8.7Conclusions

(1) According to Rorty, skepticism is irrefutable (S2) but need not be answered (S3). He advances the anti-representationalist argument, according to which skepticism and epistemology alike rest on a presupposition — representationalism (S4) — we are not constrained to accept. (2) But Rorty equivocates. Without warning, he shuttles back and forth among several senses of "representationalism" — a blanket term used to cover three distinct positions: Rl (the correspondence theory), R2 (a truthconditional theory of meaning), and R3 (the scheme/content dualism).


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(3) The anti-representationalist argument fails unless it can be shown that there is a form of representationalism satisfying both the Indispensability Condition and the Optionality Condition. Yet Rorty himself has never shown this. (4) Rl, moreover, does not satisfy the Indispensability Condition. R2 and R3 may satisfy that condition; but we urged (inter alia) Rorty should think twice about embracing the alternatives to them. (5) Furthermore, Rorty's sweeping anti-representationalism may be incoherent. For one thing, his attack on Rl apparently presupposes R3; for another, his denial of the minimal empiricism enshrined in R3 seems about as objectionable as the skeptical fate from which it was supposed to deliver us. (6) Finally, the anti-representationalist argument's first premise (SI) is totally unsupported. Moreover, this assumption seems false. Why not admit (paceRorty) that there is more to epistemology than skepticism and its undoing? According to John McDowell, Rorty's work provides us with "an object lesson in how not to rid ourselves of the illusory obligations of traditional philosophy" (McDowell 1996: 146). Our findings in Part II certainly tend to support that unflattering assessment. Notes 1. Heidegger (1927:249). 2. Cf. Rorty (1979: 6, 12, 140, 392), (1981a: 128), (1986: 139), (1989: 10), (1990: 371-2), (1991a: 2-3), (1991b: 3-6). 3. This does not mean I concede the argument's first premise. On the contrary: Rorty's suggestion that without Cartesian skepticism there would be nothing for epistemologists to do rests on an eccentric understanding of the theory of knowledge — an understanding that would be anathema to epistemologists as different in outlook as Chisholm and Quine. Accordingly, I shall excuse myself from discussing the first premise on the grounds that I expect it will seem wrong-headed to most readers, who will recognize that there is more to the theory of knowledge (e.g. the Gettier problem, or the analysis of knowledge; the formulation of epistemic principles, and much else besides) than meets the eye of Rortyean anti-Philosophy. Cf. Sosa (1988b). 4. Cf. Rorty (1995b: 226). 5. Numerous important contributions to the literature on skepticism express sympathy with this pessimistic view. Cf. Heidegger (1927); Wittgenstein (1969); Cavell (1979);Stroud (1984); Strawson (1985); Nagel (1986); and Williams (1996). 6. These questions are familiar from our discussion of the Argument from Objectivity in §7.11. 7. Compare Searle's very different anti-representationalist reply to skepticism, examined in McDermid (2004b). See also Chapter 4 of Greco (2000), who

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8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32.

The Varieties of Pragmatism argues convincingly against me idea mat skepticism can be blamed on wliat lie calls "the modern ontology" (Greco 2000: 80), in which subject and object or self and world are opposed. Cf. Rorty (1989: 17, 27-9), (1991b: 2-3). Cf. Rorty (1979: 10, 279), (1980: 162-3), (1981c: 205), (1986: 127-9), (1995a: 281-2). Cf. Rorty (1976d), (1979:6, 12, 162-3,368-72), (1984a), (1989a:59), (1991b:4), (1994b:94-5). Cf. Rorty (1977: 86-7), (1978: 94), (1979: 39, 159), (1980: 162-3), (1981c: 193), (1983), (1988c), (1991a : 1, 12-17), (1995c). Cf. Rorty (1976c), (1979: 136,295), (1981a: 110-14), (1989: 11-13,21-2,53-5), (1989a). Cf. Rorty (1981c: 192), (1982a: xxxix, xlvii), (1989: 10, 20), (1994c:206). Cf. Rorty (1978), (1981d), (1989b). Cf. Rorty (1972), (1986), (1989: 9-19, 13-20). Cf. Rorty (1979: 266-94), (1988b: 97), (1989: 15-21), (1989a: 50-1), (1991a: 12), (1995a: 281). He adds that "my differences with Putnam come down, in the end, to his unhappiness with such a purely causal picture" (Rorty 1993: 449). See Appendix A. A fuller discussion of the dogma and its multiple manifestations may be found in McDermid (2004a). Cf. Rorty (1972: 5-9, 12-14), (1979: 259, 265, 309), (1986), (1989: 9-20), (1990: 373-4), (1991a: 8-12), (1995a), (1995d). Rorty is not very clear about what "optional" means, so this disjunctive formulation seems warranted. See Appendix A. According to Blanshard, "the only test of truth that is not misleading is the special nature or character that is itself constitutive of truth" (Blanshard 1939, Vol. II: 268). See §3.7. Cf. Williams (1996:231-5, 375) on Blanshard. See §3.1. My present concern is whether Rorty is in any position to say we cannot "get outside" language; cf. Williams (1996: 269—70) for a different set of doubts about this. See McDermid (2004c) for a second look at one such dismissal. Cf. Nagel (1986: 73). Cf. Davidson (1967). Cf. Rorty (1988d), where a surprising effort is made to portray Davidson — long a champion of a truth-conditional account of meaning — as an assertibility theorist. See§6.1. Recall S2. Long ago, Alston (1979) urged Rorty was a closet verificationist. Rorty occasionally writes as if the "dualism of scheme and content"were just another name for whatever disreputable picture underwrites skepticism. Cf. Rorty (1986: 128-9, 138-9). Cf. McDermid (2004b) for a fuller explanation and defense of these claims.


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33. And if it is not sound, so much the worse for anti-representationalist argument! 34. Notice that acceptance of (b) is not confined to the friends of traditional epistemology. Quine, for instance, regards the truth of such empiricism as "unassailable" (Quine 1969: 19); Austin takes a similar view, describing its denial as "perfectly wild" (1962: 110; cf. 108). Both philosophers, it will be recalled from §6.4, are critics of traditional epistemology. 35. As Michael Williams asks: "[W]hy isn't making fundamental changes in our ordinary thinking about knowledge just another way of agreeing with the sceptic?" (Williams 1996: 19). Cf. Stroud (1984: 168-9). 36. See note 3, above. 37. Note that here I have not granted this, except for the sake of argument. Assessing Davidson's critique of the scheme/content dualism lies beyond the scope of this volume. 38. Perhaps the idea is just that adherence to the third dogma unites the skeptic and his would-be refuters; but it is difficult to be sure. 39. See §8.1.

Epilogue: In Defense of a Myth

We are in a sense trying to climb outside of our own minds, an effort that some would regard as insane and that I regard as philosophically fundamental. 1 — Thomas Nagel We began, in Chapter 1, with a myth of a vanished Golden Age. In order to satisfy those with a taste for symmetries — fearful or otherwise — I should like to conclude with another myth. Ages ere pragmatists came creeping over the face of the earth, there was a long riddle-ridden conversation: talk of shadows and subterranean walls, tales of captives who did not know who or what they were, rumours of fire and icons — and, yes, even news of an ineffable sun, remote yet magnetic. Then came the vertiginous odyssey from appearance to reality; from effect to cause; from bondage to freedom; from consensus to truth; from opinion to knowledge; from the particular to the universal; and (last but not least) from viewing reality through a perspective conditioned by innumerable contingencies to viewing reality as it truly is — not through a glass darkly, but face to face and sub specie aeternitatis. In a sense, this entire book has been motivated by a desire to reaffirm the spirit of this venerable parable; for I believe — to end with a frank profession of faith — that this myth is home to insights about philosophy, objectivity and 3 reason which we should not be charmed, seduced, or shamed into denying. But — to let irony's patron saint, Socrates, have the last (and aptly modest) word about the myth put into his mouth — the gods alone know whether 4 it is true.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

Nagel (1986: 11-12). Cf. McDermid (2005) for another affirmation. Is such a Credo out of place here? Not if Royce (1892:341—2) was right. Republic 517b.

APPENDICES


Appendix A Rorty on Truth

How does Rorty understand the concept of truth? To address this issue, it will 1 be convenient to treat his position as composed of three strands: Tl. The Anti-correspondence strand: The correspondence theory of truth is indefensible. Accordingly, "[pjragmatists say that the traditional notion that 'truth is correspondence to reality' is an uncashable and outworn metaphor . .. [T]he intuition that truth is correspondence should be extirpated rather than explicated" (Rorty 1985b: 79-80).2 T2. The Deflationary strand: We should scrupulously eschew all definitions or analyses of truth (e.g. correspondence, coherence, consensus, coping, etc.).3 Truth is "not the sort of thing one should expect to have an interesting theory about" (Rorty 1982 a: xiii), since it is "not the sort of thing that has an essence" (1980: 162). Hence "nobody should even try to specify the nature of truth" (Rorty 199811:3). T3. The Non-cognitivist/Performative strand: Truth is not a property; the truth-predicate is employed not to describe statements or beliefs, but "is merely an expression of commendation" (Rorty 1985a:23; my emphasis). This underlies T2: "terms used to commend ... do not need much philosophical 5 definition or explication" (Rorty 1995a: 283). In what follows, I want to do two things: first, to catalogue the arguments Rorty advances in support of Tl; second, to consider whether his views on truth can be used to support his dismissal of skepticism (as discussed in §8.4).

A. Against Correspondence What arguments does Rorty offer in support of T1? Perhaps it would be a mistake to expect him to advance any, given what he says in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity: "On the view of philosophy which I am offering, philosophers should not be asked for arguments against, for example, the correspondence theory of truth . .. Conforming to my own precepts, I am not going to offer 6 arguments against the vocabulary I want to replace" (Rorty 1989:8—9). Fortunately for argument-collectors, Rorty (like the rest of us) does not always practice what he preaches. He has in fact advanced many arguments against the correspondence theory — at least a dozen, by my rude reckoning.7

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Appendices

True, some of these objections build on (acknowledged) borrowings; true, other criticisms are sketched with haste or painted with the broadest of brushes. But for all that they are arguments, and descriptions of them add detail and depth to our portrait of Rorty. What follows, then, is a catalogue raisonne of twelve Rortyean objections to the correspondence theory of truth. I have classified his chief complaints to the theory under five headings; note, however, that the last four arguments are supposed to support T2 as well as T1. 1. Truth and epistemology The Comparison Argument: Since we lack access to an unconceptualized reality, we cannot know whether our beliefs are correspondence-true. Skepticism therefore ensues, if truth is correspondence. 7 2.

The correspondence relation The Argument from Correspondence: It is pointless to declare that truth is correspondence unless we can say something enlightening about that relation. Unfortunately, no one has ever managed to do that: "many centuries of attempts to explain what 'correspondence' is have failed" (Rorty 1982a: xxvi; cf. xvii).9 The Argument from Adaptation: We should not try to make sense of the idea that language stands in some non-causal, representational relation to reality. 10 We should instead see human linguistic practices in broadly Darwinian terms, as yet another way in which a particular sort of complex organism adapts to its environment.

3.

Metaphysical realism The Argumentfrom the Thing-in-Itself:The correspondence theory's contrast between reality and our descriptions of it invites us to think of reality as it is apart from all vocabularies. But the idea of reality under no description is 11 as chimerical as the Kantian notion of the Ding an sick. The Argumentfrom Structure: Correspondence theories assume reality has an intrinsic structure. But this idea is senseless: Nature has no "preferred description of itself' (Rorty 1989:21), and "the world does not tell us what language games to play" (Rorty 1989: 6). 12 The Argument from Independence:Suppose truth is a property of sentences. There would be no sentences, however, if there were no languages. Since our languages are our creations, it follows that truth "cannot exist independently of the human mind" (Rorty 1989: 5).

Appendix A 4.

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Correspondence and facts The Argument from Facts: The correspondence theory assumes the world containsfacts. But facts are "completely artificial" entities (Rorty 1995a: 35). So the correspondence theory supposes — absurdly — that "the world splits itself up, on its own initiative, into sentence-shaped chunks called Tacts' " (Rorty 1989: 5). 13 The Argument from Vacuity: According to the correspondence theory, the statement that snow is white is made true by the fact that snow is white. But such "unhelpful repetitions" do not an illuminating analysis make (Rorty 1980: 163).14 The Argumentfrom Limited Applicability: While it may seem plausible enough to equate truth with correspondence in cases of the-cat-is-on-the-mat variety, this equation is decidedly more problematic elsewhere (e.g. in mathematics, morals, or aesthetics ).

5.

A theory of truth? The Argument from Triviality: The correspondence theory is plausible only when ground down into a flat platitude — viz., that truth-tellers tell it like it is. But that is a truism — an "uncontroversial triviality" (Rorty 1972: 15) — not a theory rich in content. The New Open-Question Argument: As Putnam has pointed out, a variant of G. E. Moore's open-question argument about "good" can be brought against any proposed reductive definition of "true." The Argument from Motivation: What do we need a substantive theory of truth for? What purposes would it serve? That is unclear. For one thing, truth "is not an explanatory notion" (Rorty 1982a:xxv). For another, truth is not the goal of inquir y.

As I said at the outset, I will not assess these arguments individually. Still, a few general clarificatory remarks are in order. As far as I can see, none of these arguments is conclusive (i.e. none constitutes a knock-down refutation of the correspondence theory of truth). In some cases — such as the Arguments from the Thing-in-Itself, from Structure, from Independence, and from Facts — defenders of correspondence may justly complain their theory has been misrepresented (no pun intended). And yet, or so I think, not all of Rorty's anti-correspondence arguments can be disposed of so neatly; indeed, several of his objections are serious and powerfulones. Rorty is surely right to ask how "correspondence" is to be explicated; to inquire whether a correspondence theory can constitute a genuinely informative analysis of truth; to wonder whether (and if so, how) the correspondence model can be extended to domains where truth-makers prove elusive or

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intangible; and, finally, to ponder why we ever thought we needed a philosophical analysis or theory of truth in the first place. All these questions are well worth asking, and answering them isn't easy. So Rorty's analytic critics can, and should, admit that he has identified several grave (if not insurmountable) difficulties faced by the correspondence theory of truth. Such an admission is in no way compromising, because sharing Rorty's doubts about correspondence doesn't automatically make one a neo-pragmatist; a philosopher can accept Tl (and T2, for that matter) without agreeing with Rorty about epistemology's future or lack thereof.

B.

From Truth to Skepticism

Let us now take up the second question: How is Rorty's understanding of truth related to his evasion of skepticism? In §8.4, we argued that skepticism can vex philosophers wedded to a theory of truth other than correspondence (e.g. coherence or epistemic theories). But nota bene: Rorty may try to argue, on the basis of T3, that his account of truth is one on which skepticism cannot possibly arise. For if truth is not a property, then evidently neither is knowledge — in which case there can be no problem about whether or not certain items (sentences, statements, propositions, beliefs) possess those properties. Has Rorty then found a way to transcend the problematic of skepticism? I have my doubts. Here are just four questions about his revisionist proposal. 1.

From Davidson to Rorty?

The first point concerns Rorty's strategy. Although he modestly professes to follow Davidson's lead, Davidson only endorses T1 and T2. Davidson rejects the idea that truth is definable; but he does not deny truth is a property — nor, indeed, is it clear that he is in a position to do so, given his truth-conditional theory of meaning.Seen from this perspective, Rorty's attempt to build on Davidson by blurring the distinction between Davidson's views and his own is unpersuasive — not to mention a bit disingenuou s.

2.

Why T3?

This brings us to a second, substantive issue. Since Davidson's position is internally consistent, neither Tl nor T2 nor their conjunction entails T3. Why, then, does Rorty think we must embrace the latter thesis? This is a mystery; he never argues for it explicitly. Can the thesis that truth is not a property be derived directly from the observation that the word'' true" is used to express, to endorse, to commend, to caution, or to persuade? No: from the fact that a

Appendix A

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predicate or linguistic expression can be used to perform such speech acts it does not automatically follow that it is merely expressive. Hence there is a serious lacuna in Rorty's strategy: although he cannot escape skepticism without T3, he has not given us any reason to accept that thesis. 3.

The threat of incoherence

Third, we may wonder whether Rortyean revisionism about truth is coherent. Unlike the stereotypical relativist found in textbooks and Philosophy 101 (if nowhere else), Rorty thinks some views or vocabularies are better than others; these are the views he cultivates, commends, and propagates. Our neo-pragmatist thinks we should prefer certain ways of talking and thinking to others, then — but on what basis? Not because he thinks his preferred ways of speaking get reality right or are closest to "How Things Really Are" (Rorty 1999:262), but because they will help us cope better. He urges us to adopt them, in short, because he believes it actually pays to adopt them. So the neo-pragmatist's standard for evaluating vocabularies and views — be they political or religious, scientific or philosophical — is utility. But to say that a theory is useful is to say that it has some (desirable or beneficial) consequences. To talk about these consequences is, however, to describe the state of the world; and description requires that we try to say how things are — that, in a word, we make our words fit the world. Because such attempts at representing reality depend on notions the Rortyean has forsworn, he is in no position to make the sort of straightforward claims about consequences on which his judg26 ments or evaluations of vocabularies depend. For what can such putatively factual assertions (i.e. that such-and-such is actually the case) mean when voiced by someone who repudiates the idea of getting reality right? If Rorty thinks there is no class of sentences which are true or false in virtue of the state of the world, then there is no logical space in his scheme for judgments of utility — or, for that matter, for judgments at all. And so the Rortyean neo-pragmatist has deprived himself of a simple intuition about truth he needs if he is to persuade those unmoved by rhetoric alone — that is, by slogans, exhortations, or imperatives. We can sum up this difficulty in the form of a dilemma. Unless there is something to the old idea that true sentences fit or match the world, neo-pragmatism is an offer we can refuse; and if there is something to that time-honoured idea, neo-pragmatism is an offer we must refuse. 4.

Is neo-pragmatism self-defeating?

Finally, an open question: What happens when we apply the neo-pragmatist's standard of utility to the neo-pragmatist view of truth? That is, does it pay to think of vocabularies as neo-pragmatists do?

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There is no way to settle this question apriori; but I suppose one could plausibly argue that (say) Rorty's scientist-heroes — Darwin and Freud — would not have revolutionized our self-image in the way Rorty applauds had they been self-conscious pragmatists, for whom the notions of correspondence, objectivity, discovery, and answerability were useless. If this is so — if the vocabularies we come up with when we think of ourselves as explorers of an independent reality prove superior by the neo-pragmatist's own lights (i.e. more useful) than the vocabularies we invent when we see ourselves as archironists and resourceful re-describers answerable only to each other — shouldn't that give the neo-pragmatist pause? Perhaps it pays to adopt the very absolutist and representationalist notions that make neo-pragmatists blanch and cringe. The thought underlying this strategy — viz., that neopragmatism may be attacked on pragmatic grounds — was neatly anticipated by G. K. Chesterton almost a century ago. Chesterton dixit: I agree with the pragmatist that apparent objective truth is not the whole matter; that there is an authoritative need to believe things that are necessary to the human mind. But I say that one of those necessities precisely is a belief in objective truth ... Pragmatism is a matter of human needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist. (Chesterton 1908: 50) 28 Chesterton's paradox finds an echo in a celebrated one-liner attributed to that late great aphorist, Sidney Morgenbesser. Pragmatism, Morgenbesser puckishly quipped, is fine in theory; it just doesn't work in practice.

Notes 1. 2.

Rorty also attributes these theses to James and Dewey. See Appendix C. See Rorty (1979: 279), (1982a: xvi,xlvi), (1981c: 193), (1981d: 150), (1985a: 22), (1985b:88), (1986:132), (1988b:97), (1995a:281), (19981:27-9,34-5,96-7), (1999:237, 269). 3. See Rorty (1978: 97), (1980: 160, 162), (1982a: xxviii), (1985a: 23), (1986: 127, 128, 139), (1988a:59), (1989:8). 4. Cf. Ramsey (1927); Strawson (1949). 5 See Rorty (1982a: xvii, xxv), (1985a: 23-4), (1989:8), (1998 I: 28). Cf. Brandom (1988). 6. Cf. Rorty (1982a:xiv). 7. See §4.1 as well. 8. See§3.1. 9. Cf. Rorty (1999:185). 10. Cf. Rorty (1986: 128-9; 138-9), (1995a: 38), (1999: 33, 269).

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11. Cf. Rorty (1994b:87), (1998 II: 1-2). 12. "[TJruth is a property oflinguistic entities, of sentences" (Rorty 1989: 7; cf. 21). If this really is Rorty's considered view, he has no business subscribing to T3. 13. Cf. Rorty (1986: 137). 14. So Davidson's aper^u proves sound: "the notion of fitting the facts, or of being true to the facts, adds nothing intelligible to the simple concept of being true" (Davidson 1974: 193-4). 15. Cf. Rorty (1981a: 127), (1982a: xiii), (1994a:74), (2000: 28 n26, n37). 16. Cf. Wright (1992: 25-7, 82). 17. Cf. Rorty (1982a:xxv), (1986: 127), (1993:52). 18. Cf. Rorty (1995a). 19. This seems obviously true of the Arguments from Correspondence, from Vacuity, from Limited Applicability, and from Motivation; it may be true of other objections as well. 20. Cf. Rorty (1986). 21. Cf. Davidson (1986), (1990), (1996). 22. Cf. Davidson (1967). 23. Farrell finds Rorty's invocations of Davidson "deeply suspect" and points out that "Rorty has to skip over much of what Davidson says in order to take him to be in agreement" (Farrell 1994: 133; 122). This is symptomatic of a more general interpretative syndrome, documented by Jay Rosenberg: "Rorty's own convictions turn out to be much more radical than those of the philosophers whom he claims as his allies" (Rosenberg 2002: 224). 24. A would-be Don Juan may have ulterior motives in praising a woman's beauty, but that in itself does not imply that beauty is not a property. 25. Cf. Rorty (1980:166-9), (1985a: 23-4), (2000:11-14). The neo-pragmatist swears he is not a relativist — and he is right to do so. Relativists uphold a substantive position, rich in content: they maintain that truth is a property (and thereby deny T3) and they offer an analysis of truth (and thereby run afoul of T2). No wonder our laid-back neo-pragmatist yearns to distinguish himself from the more ambitious relativist! 26 Cf. Nozick (2001: 52—3) for another expression of this worry. Note, too, that this point applies to Rorty's psycho-sociological claims regarding consensus and solidarity (i.e. claims about what people actually believe or accept or want). 27. A politicized variation on this objection would be to argue that Rorty's views on truth (specifically, T3) do not comport well with his commitment to liberal democracy. See Conant (2000), Williams (2002:4, 59-60, 147-8), and Taylor (2003: 177-80). On Rorty's Freud, see Elshtain (2003: 147-51). 28. Pragmatism begins with a quotation from Chesterton (James 1907: 7), whom James described as "a great teller of the truth" (Hardwick 1993: 226—7).

Appendix B Putnam on Kant and the Coherence Theory of Truth

Like many neo-pragmatists, Hilary Putnam has professed his indebtedness to the tradition of German idealism — and to Kant in particular. According to Putnam, Kant (i) repudiated the correspondence theory of truth; and (ii) "is best read as proposing for the first time . .. the 'internalist' or 'internal realist' view of truth" (Putnam 1981:60), in which truth is understood in terms of coherence. A.

Kant on Truth as Correspondence

Thesis (i) is problematic. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant explicitly endorses the correspondence theory in three places: twice he asserts, without any ambiguity, that truth consists in "the agreement of knowledge with its object" (Kant 1781: A58; A191), later varying the formulation slightly ("truth, that is, the conformity of our concepts with the object") (Kant 1781: A642/B670). Moreover, Kant's pro-correspondence stance is not confined to the first Critique, as an inspection of his neglected lectures on logic reveals: (a)

From the BlombergLogic (c. 1770):

If a cognition does not agree with the character of the thing that we want to represent and to cognize, then it is false, in that it cannot subsist with truth. If on the other hand a cognition is in conformity with the character of the thing that we represent, then it is true. (61) (b)

From the ViennaLogic (c. 1780):

The perfection of cognition requires that it be true. Truth is agreement of cognition with the object. (280) Judgments are actions of the understanding and of reason. One can say generaliter that objectively, truth is agreement with the object... (289) (c)

From the Dohna-Wundlacken Logic (c. 1790):

Now we have spoken of the quantity and quality of cognition and we come now to the relation of representations in our cognitions. The agreement of representations with their object is called truth. (455)

Appendix B (d)

149

From the Jdsche Logic (c. 1800):

A principal perfection of cognition, indeed, the essential and inseparable condition of its perfection is truth. Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its object. (557) How can Putnam's interpretation stand up in the face of such evidence? To get around exegetical difficulties, he occasionally qualifies thesis (i), as in this passage: "Kant does not, indeed, say he is giving up the correspondence theory of truth. On the contrary, he says that truth is the "correspondence of ajudgment to its object." But this is what Kant called a "nominal definition of truth" (Putnam 1981:63). True enough: Kant does indeed regard correspondence as a nominal definition of truth. Yet this in no way renders problematic the attribution of a correspondence theory; when Kant characterizes correspondence as nominal, he means it cannot function as an effective criterion of truth. In defence of this claim, he advances a version of the comparison objection in the Jdsche Logic: Truth, it is said, consists in the agreement of cognition with its object. In consequence of this mere nominal explanation, my cognition, to count as true, is supposed to agree with its object. Now I can compare the object with my cognition, however, only by cognizing it. Hence my cognition is supposed to confirm itself, which is far short of being sufficient for truth. For since the object is outside me, the cognition in me, all I can ever pass judgment on is whether my cognition of the object agrees with my cognition of the object ... The question here is, namely, whether and to what extent there is a criterion of truth that is certain, universal, and useful in application. For this is what the question, What is truth?, ought to mean. (Kant c. 1800:557-8) Putnam is therefore prepared to attribute an anti-correspondence position to Kant, it would seem, because Putnam thinks the comparison objection proves that correspondence cannot be the definitionof truth: "Kant already taught us that the whole idea of comparing our conceptual system with a world of things-in-themselves (which Kant did accept, as a sort of postulate of pure reason) to see if the conceptual system 'copies' the unconceptualized reality is incoherent" (Putnam 1981a: 177). There is a sense in which Kant taught us this; but Putnam fails to mention that the sage of Konigsberg did not end his lesson with any anticorrespondence moral. And there would seem to be good reason for omitting this moral; as we argued in Chapter 3, the comparison argument demonstrates at most that correspondence is useless as a criterion of truth. Kant, it seems, agrees with this conclusion: as the above passage indicates, he did not regard

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the objection as a refutation of the correspondence theory, to which we have already seen he was committed.

B. Kant and Coherence Let us now turn to thesis (ii), and examine what Kant actually says about the concept of coherence and its relation to truth. Disappointingly slight, his remarks on this subject are hardly the stuff of which philosophical revolutions are made, and they hardly support the opinion of Norman Kemp Smith, who hailed Kant as "the real founder of the Coherence theory of truth" (Kemp Smith 1923: 36). Kant himself does not speak of a coherence theory ofanything; but insofar as he might be said to have made use of the concept of coherence, it would seem he understood it primarily in terms of logical consistency. A set of judgments qualifies as coherent only if it contains no cognition that (i) is selfcontradictory; (ii) is inconsistent with other propositions in the set; and (iii) entails judgments which are logically incompatible with any propositions S holds true. In several places, Kant institutes a further requirement: in a coherent set, every proposition must be grounded in accordance with the Principle of Sufficient Reason. In other words, each cognition must be justified or supported by some other judgment (s) S accepts. Satisfaction of this condition is supposed to ensure that one's beliefs form a systematically unified and integrated set — or so Kant seems to have thought. How is this conception of coherence related to truth? Since Kant realized that an internally consistent body of beliefs, no matter how systematically interrelated, could nevertheless be false, he did not regard coherence as constitutive of the nature of truth. Rather — and Kant is very clear on this point — all coherence supplies is a criterion of truth which is purely negative or (as he sometimes says) "formal" (i.e. if one's doxastic system fails to satisfy the coherence constraint, one can conclude nothing more than that the set contains some false judgment(s)): The purely logical criterion of truth, namely, the agreement of knowledge with the general and formal laws of the understanding and reason, is a conditio sine qua non, and is therefore the negative condition of all truth. But further than this logic cannot go. It has no touchstone for the discovery of such error as concerns not the form but the content. (Kant 1781: AGO) In brief: Kant offers us a coherence theory of epistemic justification — if, that is, he advances a coherence theory of anything. The textual evidence we have reviewed supports a correspondence interpretation. Why, then, would anyone be inclined to attribute a coherence theory of

Appendix B

151

truth to Kant? The principal reason may involve Kant's transcendental idealism, according to which appearances are to be regarded as being, one and all, appearances only, not things in themselves, and time and space are therefore only sensible forms of intuition, not determinations given as existing by themselves, not conditions of objects viewed as things in themselves. (Kant 1781:A369) Transcendental idealism, we might argue, has anti-correspondence implications because (a) it implies that facts or objects are not mind-independent entities; whereas (b) a correspondence theory can be preserved only if truthmakers are mind-independent. The first claim is reasonable enough; but what considerations can be adduced in support of the second? Consider what Putnam has to say: What happens when metaphysical realism becomes dubious? Philosophers who reject metaphysical realism (Kant, Peirce, and in the present period, Dummett, Goodman, and myself, to namejust afew "specimens") typically argue for a conception of truth as (idealized) justification or rational acceptability. (Kant does speak of "correspondence of the judgment to its object," but by the "object" he means the object for us, and this belongs to "appearance." This is more like what Goodman calls "fit" than it is like the metaphysical realist notion of correspondence to a mind-independent world.) (Putnam 1983b:272) 10 The idea behind (b), it would appear, is that a correspondence theory cannot avoid becoming or turning into a coherence theory unless truth-makers are accorded mind-independent status. Here is how the argument might run: (1) According to Kant, truth consists in a relation between a judgment and a fact; or, as Kant states it, "the agreement of cognition with its object." (2) But if we side with Kant and accept transcendental idealism, we shall regard all objects in space and time (i.e. all appearances) as logical constructions out of the states of perceivers; accordingly, truth-makers would be reducible to a set of representations. (3) For Kant, truth is a relation holding among a subject's representations. (4) If we accept transcendental idealism, then truth is coherence. Provided we allow that judgments are themselves a sub-species of representations, 12 (3) does seem to follow from (1) and (2). However, (3) does not entail (4) — unless, that is, one assimilates representations to judgments. There is reason to suspect we are not entitled to do so: Kantian Vorstellungen are a heterogeneous lot, comprising intuitions and concepts as well as

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judgments. Since not all representations are truth-bearers, and since a coherence theory must hold that a truth-bearer is true or false in virtue of nothing but its relations to other truth-bearers, we are not entitled to conclude that transcendental idealism leads to a coherence theory of truth. The argument is just inconclusive as it stands. Even so, Kant may have had something original to say about the correspondence theory of truth. Here are two possibilities: (i) Although Kant agreed that truth is "the agreement of cognition with its object," he denied that agreement meant copyingorresemblance]in this, he was admirably unlike Hume.13 So perhaps Kant can be credited with seeing the need for a more sophisticated conception of correspondence. (ii) A correspondence theorist who adopts the reductive account of objects defended by Kant may accommodate an intuition he is frequently taken to repudiate, namely, that truth is an epistemically constrained property. Thus we might read Kant as effecting a reconciliation between two theses (i.e. correspondence and anti-realism) some regard as incompatible. In the context of Chapter 4, the importance of the possibility of such a via media is obvious: if correspondence truth can survive the demise of realism, then correspondence theories are not intrinsically realist.

Notes 1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

See also Goodman (1978: x); Rorty (1981d), (1984:30), (1985b: 82-3), (1989: 3-4); Habermas (1968:91-112; 305-16), (1990: 1-20), (1992: 18); Apel (1981: unpaginated introduction, viii—ix, 10—13, 191—6). Cf. Putnam (1978: 6). See Putnam (1978:1), (1981: x, 56-7, 63, 128), (1983:177,209-10,225-6,272), (1987:43), (1990:41, 261), (1995:28). Cf. Putnam(1982a:210), (1981:55). See§3.1 and§3.7. Cf. Putnam (1981: 130). Cf. Blomberg Logic (67-8); Vienna Logic (281); Dohna-Wundlacken Logic (455-6); JdscheLogic (559). In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant also stresses the requirement of comprehensiveness; see the concluding section of the Transcendental Dialectic, "The Final Purpose of the Natural Dialectic of Human Reason." Cf. Dohna-Wundlacken Logic (455—6); JdscheLogic (558—9). Since he regards coherence as a mere conditio sine qua non, Kant's would presumably be classified as a negative coherence theory ofjustification. Cf. Pollock (1986). Recall the constructivist objection in §4.0. Cf. Putnam (1981:63, 128), (1982b:41), (1983:177, 210, 272); Goodman (1978:94, 125), (1988:49, 154). Cf. Putnam (1982b: 41) as well. Cf. Kant (1781:8164; A371; A492/B521). Cf. Van Cleve (1999), where a sophisticated version of this quasi-phenomenalistic reading is explored.

Appendix B

153

12. Cf. Kant (1781: A68/B93). 13. In the Treatise, Hume accepts a correspondence theory: he claims that truth consists in "the conformity of our ideas of objects to their real existence" (Hume 1739—40: Book II, Part III, Section X) or "an agreement or disagreement... to real existence and matter of fact" (Hume 1739—40: Book III, Part I, Section I). Though he has very little to say about truth, he seems to understand such conformity or agreement in terms of copying. Cf. Hume (1739—40: Book II, Part III, Section III). 14. Putnam points this out: "Kant was the first really to see that describing the world is not simply copying it" (Putnam 1995: 28).

Appendix C James and Dewey on Correspondence: Deniers or Demystifiers?

The classical pragmatist conception of truth has traditionally been portrayed as the conjunction of two theses, one positive and one negative. The latter doctrine consists in the repudiation of the correspondence theory; the former, in the identification of truth either with what "works" (James, Schiller, and Dewey) or with what would be accepted at the end of inquiry by a community of rational investigators (Peirce, and, occasionally, Dewey as well). Rorty has tried hard to persuade us that this interpretation of pragmatism on truth is a half-truth. Where the old orthodox story errs, Rorty urges, is in its attribution of the positive thesis; all James and Dewey aspired to do, he insists, was to debunk the idea that truth has an essence which philosophical analysis can elucidate. As he sees it, the pragmatist critique of correspondence was demolition pure and simple — not the toil of Lockean underlaborers carting away rubble before erecting a temple on the turf of their newly conquered enemies. Rorty's theses T1 —T3 thus do double duty: they express his own views about truth while offering an interpretation of James and Dewey. In Appendix A, I examined theses T l —T3; here, however, I want to argue that Tl and T2 do not jibe with what James and Dewey actually had to say about truth and correspondence. On my view, the classical pragmatists turn out to be anti-Rortyean philosophical reactionaries. For far from dropping or deconstructing the problem of truth, James and Dewey had the temerity to try to solve it; what is more, the solution they proposed was presented as a correspondence theory! When James takes up the topic of truth in Lecture VI of Pragmatism, he begins by offering an olive branch to his opponents, affirming that pragmatists, no less than their adversaries, allow that truth consists in agreement or correspondence: "Truth, as any dictionary will tell you, is a property of certain of our ideas. It means their 'agreement,' as falsity means their disagreement, with 'reality.' Pragmatists and intellectualists both accept this definition as a matter of course" (James 1907:91). Some missed this concession, however, so James felt it necessary to set the record straight in The Meaning of Truth, where he repeatedly declared his willingness to accept a correspondence conception of truth. These declarations are worth citing precisely because of their very conventionality, which

Appendix C

155

is remarkable in a writer long cast as an iconoclast intent on defacing truth's ancient image: [T]he pragmatist, if he agrees that an idea is "really" true, also agrees to whatever it says about its object. (James 1909:xiv) An experience, perceptual or conceptual, must conform to reality in order to be true. (James 1909: 100) [Truth is a relation that] must obtain between an idea and a reality that is the idea's object. (James 1909: 155) It is between the idea and the object that the truth-relation is to be sought and it involves both t e r m s . . . (James 1909: 165) I myself agree most cordially that for an idea to be true the object must be "as" the idea declares i t . . . (James 1909: 170) If the reality assumed were cancelled from the pragmatist's universe of discourse, he would straightaway give the name of falsehood to the beliefs remaining, despite their satisfactoriness. For him, as for his critic, there can be no truth if there is nothing to be true about. .. This is why as a pragmatist I have so carefully posited "reality" ab initio, and why, throughout my whole discussion, I remain an epistemological realist. (James 1909: 195) My account of truth is realistic, and follows the epistemological dualism of commonsense . .. This notion of a reality independent of either of us, taken from ordinary social experience, lies at the base of the pragmatist definition of truth. With some such reality any statement, in order to be counted true, must agree. (James 1909:217-18) There is little doubt, therefore, that James was receptive to the intuition that truth is a matter of correspondence or agreement with reality. He complained, however, that no one had ever succeeded in explaining what these abstract notions meant; no one, he thought, had clarified such relations by giving their cash-value. As a result, he accused defenders of the traditional view of lazily appealing to an "absolutely emptynotion of a static relation of 'correspondence'" (James 1907:34), which they coyly characterized as a "unique unanalyzable" property (James 1907: 101). James, sensibly enough, protested that it was no good being told that a true idea means things are as one thinks — unless, that is, we are also furnished with an account of "what this 'as'-ness consists in — for it seems to me that it ought to consist in

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something assignable and describable, and not remain a pure mystery" (James 1909: 168). Enter the pragmatist, who tries to preserve the correspondence conception by demystifying the relation constitutive of truth: Pragmatism's primary interest is in its doctrine of truth . .. Whatever propositions or beliefs may in point of fact prove true, it says, the truth of them consists in certain definable relations between them and the reality of which they make report. Both they and the reality belong to the same universe, the beliefs have to do with the reality, and the pragmatic question is: what exactly do you now mean when you say "have to do"? and in particular when you say ' 'have to do truly"? Philosophers have generally been satisfied with the word "agreement" here; but pragmatists have seen that this word covers many concrete possibilities which with great subtlety they have partly analyzed out. (James 1907a: 227—8) The pragmatizing epistemologist posits . . . a reality and a mind with ideas. What, now, he asks, can make those ideas true of that reality? Ordinary epistemology contents itself with the vague statement that the ideas must "correspond" or "agree"; the pragmatist insists on being more concrete, and asks what such "agreement" may mean in detail. (James 1909: 191) The pragmatist thesis ... is that the relation called "truth" is thus concretely definable. Ours is the only articulate attempt to say positively what truth actually consists of. Our denouncers have literally nothing to oppose to it as an alternative. For them, when an idea is true, it is true, and there the matter terminates, the word "true" being indefinable. (James 1909: 234) Dewey shared both the dismay and the aim of his elder, and decried the longstanding tendency to regard correspondence as "an ultimate and unanalyzable mystery" (Dewey 1909: 158) or as "unique and indefinable" (Dewey 1911: 45). He wryly observed that the traditional view of truth appears adequate and final. But analysis shows that it merely restates the fundamental demand of knowledge that it shall agree with the things thought about: it states the problem as if it were a solution . .. The pragmatic conception reverts to the notion of correspondence [but] attempts to analyzeit. (Dewey 1912/13:358-9) According to Dewey, pragmatism "supplied (and I should venture to say for the first time) an explanation of the traditional theory of truth as a correspondence or agreement of existence and mind or thought" (Dewey 1916:24). And it was, Dewey held, precisely this ambition — to explain correspondence — that ruffled the feathers of the anti-pragmatist flock:

Appendix C

157

Apparently, the average intellectualist has got so accustomed to taking truth as a Relation at Large, without specification or analysis, that any attempt at a concrete statement of just what the relationship is appears to be a denial of the relationship itself; in which case, he interprets an occasional reminder from the pragmatist that the latter is, after all, attempting to specify the nature of the relation, to be a surrender of the pragmatist's own case, since it admits after all that there is some relation. (Dewey 1909:158) Is it not curious to discover that James and Dewey — the same writers who, according to Rorty, simply "gave up the notion of truth as correspondence to reality" (Rorty 1981d: 150) — were actually eager to do justice to the idea that truth involves correspondence between thought and reality? When we find James and Dewey telling us that they do not deny that truth is a matter of agreement with reality (as per Tl), but only seek to demystify this vague phrase through careful analysis, it becomes hard to take some of Rorty's historical pronouncements — "the pragmatists conclude that the intuition that truth is correspondence should be extirpated rather than explicated" (Rorty 1985b:80), or "James went the rest of the way by saying that [correspondence] . .. was not an analyzable relational all" (Rorty 1986: 132) — very seriously. Hence Tl — "the pragmatists' refusal to accept the correspondence account of truth" (Rorty 1999: 269) — must be taken cum grano sails. The suspicion this supports — viz., that James and Dewey were more conventionally ambitious than Rorty admits — raises questions about the plausibility of T2 as well. For how can we say that pragmatists held that truth "is not the sort of thing that has an essence" (Rorty 1980: 162), or "is not the sort of thing one should expect to have a philosophically interesting theory about" (Rorty 1982a: xiii), when, as we have just seen, James and Dewey took other philosophers to task for not providing more informative or fine-grained accounts of its nature? How, in short, can we maintain that the classical pragmatists sought to dissolve the problem of truth, when there is ample evidence they tried to solve it? To conclude. It would seem that James and Dewey (i) did in fact take the classical problem of truth seriously, and (ii) did not object to the idea that truth consists in some kind of correspondence with reality. They sagely insisted, however, that unless the nature of the relation of correspondence receives some further elucidation, our definition is criminally uninformative; for it invokes a Something-We-Know-Not-What to explain truth ("a Relation at Large," in Dewey's words). Moreover, James and Dewey were skeptical — and rightly so — about attempts to explicate correspondence via nebulous copy or mirror metaphors. In this they were not alone: other notable members of the Through-The-Looking-Glass Club include Franz Brentano

158

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and J. L. Austin. All should get credit for asking a good question — "If correspondence is not mirroring, then what is it?" — that is with us still. Thus our classical pragmatists aspired to demystify the relation of correspondence — not (paceRorty) to deny its existence outright. And this disagreement is suggestive of a wider meta-philosophical gulf separating Rortyean neo-pragmatism from its classical precursor; for the former seems much more inclined to dissolve inherited problems which the latter tried — for better or for worse — to address.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

For statements of Tl—T3, see Appendix A. I shall say little about T3; its unsuitability as an interpretative claim will follow if Tl and T2 are incorrect. Cf. James's entries in his "Truth - Reality, Etc." (1907-10). On Dewey's understanding of "correspondence" as operational, see Dewey (1941: 343-4); cf. Dewey (1909: 155, 158-9). Cf. Brentano (1917:20-1). Cf. Austin (1950: 118).

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Index

absolute idealism 16, 52—3 Adorno, T. 106 allegory of the cave 15, 115, 138 Alston, W. 50 answerability to the world 103,114 anti-realism 46-59, 93, 100-1, 116, 132, 151-2 anti-representationalist argument 126 Apel, K. O. 10, 20, 92 Aquinas, T. 7 arguments (where first stated in text) from adaptation 142 from agency 73 from answerability 114 from anti-essentialism 49 from classical foundationalism 111 from conceptual relativity 48 from contextualism 114 from correspondence 142 from facts 69 from fallibilism 113 from the history of science 49 from holism 113 from incommensurability 49 from independence 142 from limited applicability 143 from massive error 48 from motivation 143 from mutability of truth 63 from the myth of the given 113 from objectivity 119-20 from postulation 79 from selective attention 66 from solidarity 117 from structure 142 from the thing in itself 142 from triviality 143 from truth-making 59 from underdetermination 60—1 from vacuity 143 Aristotle 7, 64, 97

assertibility 10, 64, 129 Austin, J. L. 7,106,158 Bacon, F. 7, 93 basic beliefs 21-2,32-3, 110, 113-15, 119 Berkeley, G. 14,54,81 Blanshard, B. 16,130-1 Bonjour, L. 105,112 Bosanquet, B. 52 Bradley, F. H. 25, 52-4 Brentano, F. 7, 157 bucket theory of mind 28, 63 Carlyle, T. 97 Carnap, R. 20,30,101 Chesterton, G. K. 146 Chisholm, R. M. 2,117 circularity 37,102,117-18,122 coherence theories of truth 9—10, 16, 35-7, 40, 50, 53, 73, 130-1, 141, 148, 150-2 coherentism 20, 23, 28, 30, 37, 72, 105, 112, 114, 150 communicative action 107 comparison objection 14 conservatism (epistemic) 69—73, 82, 89 constructivist objection 46 contextualism 104,106,113-15, 118-19, 123 correspondence theories of truth 1—2, 7-11, 14-40, 46-83, 93, 102, 114, 116-17, 121, 128, 130-1, 134, 141-6, 148-52, 154-8 Darwin, C. 128, 142, 146 Davidson, D. 9-10, 18, 20, 28-30, 33-4, 47-9, 50, 69, 92-3, 100, 105, 112, 122, 128-9,131-4, 144 DerridaJ. 89, 128

174

Index

Descartes, R. 7, 23, 27-8, 72-3, 76, 92, 97, 105-6, 111, 113, 118-19, 127, 131-2 Devitt, M. 50 Dewey, J. 1-2, 10, 17, 19, 26-7, 31, 37, 53, 56-8, 62, 64, 67-8, 76-9, 82-3, 89-90, 92-3,98-100, 103-5, 121, 128, 154, 156-8 Dilthey, W. 101 Dummett, M. 2,100,132 Emerson, R. W. 89 empiricism 15,21-2,24-5,27-9,33, 46, 52, 66-9, 71-2, 92-3, 98, 104, 113, 122, 129,133-5 epistemology neo-pragmatist critique of 1, 110—21, 126-34, 144 opposition to in both Anglo-American and Continental philosophy 105-7 origins of 97—8 see also foundationalism, philosophy, representationalism, skepticism essentialism 49, 103 ethnocentrism 102-3,105,108,115, 118 Euclid 24,64,91 external questions 101—2 facts 7-9, 15, 25, 49, 69-71, 100, 143 fallibilism 23-8, 30-2, 63-5, 73, 82, 89-93, 105, 112-13 Feyerabend, P. 106 Fichte, J. G. 52 Forms 27, 107 Forster, E. M. 99 Foucauldians 103 Foucault, M. 89,99,103,106 foundationalism 1,20-33, 40, 69, 89-93, 98, 104, 107, 110-23, 133 regress argument for 21 three senses of 110 weak versus strong 31,113 see also coherentism, contextualism, epistemology, myth of the given Frege, G. 97 Freud, S. 99, 146

Gadamer, H. G. 72,106 God's eye view 8, 98 Goodman, N. 8-9, 14, 19, 28-9, 31, 47-8,50,53,92-3, 128 Gradgrind, Mr. 71 Green, T. H. 52 Haack, S. 116-17 Habermas, J. 9-10, 20, 28, 30,47, 92-3, 107 HaldaneJ.J. 50 Harman, G. 79-80 Hegel, G. W. F. 21,25-6,30-3,52,54, 56-8, 97-9 Heidegger, M. 14, 89, 99, 105, 126, 128 Hempel, C. 16 hermeneutics 100, 106 historicism 97—9 holism 28-9, 30-2, 73, 82, 89-92, 98, 104, 113-14, 122 see also coherentism Holmes, S. 69 humanism 54-5, 59-62 Hume, D. 7,50,66,152 incommensurability 8, 29, 47, 49, 106 inference to the best explanation 79-80,83, 89,91 internalism 34—5, 37 ironism 99-100,118,127 James, W. 1-2, 16-17, 19, 22, 25-7, 31, 37, 46, 53, 55-6, 58-9, 61-76, 80-3, 89-90,92-3,128, 154-8 Jefferson, T. 99 Joachim, H. 52-3 justification see coherentism, contextualism, foundationalism, holism Kant, I. 7-9, 11, 19-22, 25, 27, 30, 38, 46, 50-4, 56, 58-61, 63, 75, 80, 82,90,97-9, 106, 120, 142, 148-52 Kemp Smith, N. 150 Kuhn, T. 8-10, 28-9, 47-9, 53, 92-3, 99, 106 Kundera, M. 99

Index Lehrer, K. 105 Leibniz, G. W. 89 Lewis, C.I. 31 Locke, J. 7, 24, 29, 33, 66, 72 , 97-8, 104 logical positivism 16, 21, 28, 30-1, 100, 120, 132 Magritte, R. 15 Maritain, J. 7

McDowell, J. 99, 134-5 McTaggartJ. M.E. 7,52 Merleau-Ponty, M. 105 MillJ. S. 66,81,89 misreading 99 model theoretic argument 48 Montaigne, M. 117 Moore, G. E. 7,106,143 Morgenbesser, S. 146 Moser, P. 15 mystical experience 26 myth of the ghost in the machine 106 myth of the given 21-30, 33, 67, 89-92, 98, 103, 112-14 myth of the wide-open mind 24 Nabokov, V. 99 Nagel, T. 50,132,138 naturalism 81, 98, 106, 121-3 naturalized epistemology 106, 121—3 Neurath, O. 16,20,28-32,35-6,72 new master argument 48 new open question argument 143 Newton, I. 91 Nietzsche, F. 14, 69, 100, 103, 105, 128 no independent access argument 20—1 non-cognitivism 141 Oakeshott, M. 106 Orwell, G. 99 Peirce, C. S. 2,9-10,23,26-7,37, 56-7,64, 72, 76, 79, 92, 116 philosophy end of 99,103-4 epistemo logy-centred 97—8, 104, 110-11 Deweyan conception of 98—9 Kantian conception of 98—9,120, 122 Sellarsian definition of 1

175

picture theory of language 8,100, 129 Plantinga, A. 112 Plato 7 , 1 8 , 2 7 , 9 7 , 9 9 , 1 0 3 , 1 1 5 , 1 2 0 political philosophy 102—3 Popper, K. 7, 28, 33, 46, 50, 60, 63, 68, 89, 92-3 pragmaticism 2 pragmatist theories of truth 8—10, 141-6, 154-8 problem of the criterion 117—18 Proust, M. 99 Putnam, H. 8-10, 19, 28-9, 35-6, 47-50, 53, 92-3, 143, 148-52 Pyrrhonism 62,118-19 Quine, W. V. O. 3,17,28,31-2,61,69, 72-3, 79-82, 92, 98-9, 101, 106, 121-3, 133 Ramsey, F. P. 8,116 RawlsJ. 103 realism 1-2, 8-9, 15, 46-83, 93, 99-102, 105, 116, 120, 128, 132, 142, 148, 151 reflex arc 67 relativism 9, 54, 60, 62-3, 65, 73, 116, 145 representationalism 9, 14, 17, 37-9, 49, 74,97-104, 107, 119-21, 123, 126-35, 142, 145-6 Rescher, N. 19, 35-6, 92-3, 105 Rorty, R. 1-2,8,10,15,17-19,28-9, 31-3, 47-9, 53, 69, 92-3, 97-105, 110-23, 126-35, 141-6, 154, 157-8 RoyceJ. 14,25,52 Rubens, P. P. 39 Russell, B. 7 , 1 7 , 2 1 , 8 9 Ryle, G. 89,106 Santayana, G. 1, 14, 54 scheme/content dualism 47,50,100, 122, 129, 131-4 Schiller, F. C. S. 2,15-16,24-5,27, 53-5, 56, 58-61, 64-5, 71-2, 77, 79-80, 82-3, 89-90, 92-3 Schlick, M. 7 , 1 6 , 2 0 , 3 0 Schopenhauer, A. 14, 51-2, 79 scientism 101

176

Index

SearleJ. 7,50,99 seeing as 28 selective interest 66—9, 90 Sellars, W. 2,21,33,92-3,98,133 Sextus Empiricus 118 skepticism 7, 11, 14-15, 33-7, 47, 57, 62, 65, 92, 105-6, 112, 118-19, 122-3, 126-35, 142, 144-6 slingshot argument 49 Smart, J.J.C. 50,118 Socrates 138 solidarity 102,111,115-19 Sosa, E. 50,118 spectator theory of knowledge 26—7, 56-8, 76-9, 100, 105 Spinoza, B. 7 Stich, S. 106 Strawson, P. F. 2, 9-10, 15, 69 supervenience 32—3,40,113 Tarski, A. 99,116 Taylor, C. 2, 106 things-in-themselves 9, 19-20, 24, 47, 49, 52-3, 99, 101, 103, 116, 142-3, 149, 151 third dogma of empiricism see scheme/ content dualism Thomism 120

Thoreau, H. D. 110 Through-The-Looking-Glass Club 157 transcendental idealism 50-2, 56, 58, 63, 151-2 Trigg, R. 50 truth see coherence theories of truth; correspondence theories of truth; pragmatist theories of truth truth-conditional theories of meaning 128, 131-2, 134, 144 underdetermination 122

60-3, 82, 90-2,

Van Inwagen, P. 50 verificationism 132 verisimilitude 65, 93 Vision, G. 50 vocabularies 97,99-103, 142, 119-21, 127, 145-6 Whitman, W. 99,103 Williams, B. 2, 50 Williams, M. 106 Winch, P. 106 Wittgenstein, L. 7, 19, 28, 92, 99-100, 106, 117, 128-9, 132 Wright, C. 46

The Varieties of Pragmatism: Truth, Realism, and Knowledge from James to Rorty (Continuum Studies in American Philosophy)

Varieties of Pragmatism: Truth, Realism, and Knowledge from James to Rorty

Domestication of Derrida: Rorty, Pragmatism and Deconstruction (Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy)

The Continuum Companion to Pragmatism

The Legacy of John Rawls (Continuum Studies in American Philosophy)

Meaning, Truth And Pragmatism

Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth

Contextualism in Philosophy - Knowledge, Meaning and Truth

Virtue Ethics: Dewey And Macintyre (Continuum Studies in American Philosophy)

Virtue Ethics: Dewey and MacIntyre (Continuum Studies In American Philosophy)

Truth, Rationality, and Pragmatism: Themes from Peirce

Rorty and Pragmatism: The Philosopher Responds to His Critics

The new realism. Cooperative studies in philosophy

Putnam Pragmatism & Realism

Rorty and Pragmatism: The Philosopher Responds to His Critics

The Philosophy of Miracles (Continuum Studies In Philosophy)

Realism and the Progress of Science (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

Realism and the Progress of Science (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

Rousseau And the Ethics of Virtue (Continuum Studies in Philosophy)

Truth, Reference and Realism

Realism and Truth

REALISM, MEANING AND TRUTH

Epistemology, Realism and Truth

Worlds of Truth: A Philosophy of Knowledge

The Truth of Modest Realism

Realism and Truth

Truth and Realism

Models, Truth, and Realism

Relativism in Contemporary American Philosophy: MacIntyre, Putnam, and Rorty

Truth and Truthmakers (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

Towards the Sociology of Truth (Continuum Studies in Education)

The Varieties of Pragmatism: Truth, Realism, and Knowledge from James to Rorty (Continuum Studies in American Philosophy)

Varieties of Pragmatism: Truth, Realism, and Knowledge from James to Rorty

Domestication of Derrida: Rorty, Pragmatism and Deconstruction (Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy)

The Continuum Companion to Pragmatism

The Legacy of John Rawls (Continuum Studies in American Philosophy)

Meaning, Truth And Pragmatism

Contextualism in Philosophy: Knowledge, Meaning, and Truth

Contextualism in Philosophy - Knowledge, Meaning and Truth

Virtue Ethics: Dewey And Macintyre (Continuum Studies in American Philosophy)

Virtue Ethics: Dewey and MacIntyre (Continuum Studies In American Philosophy)

Truth, Rationality, and Pragmatism: Themes from Peirce

Rorty and Pragmatism: The Philosopher Responds to His Critics

The new realism. Cooperative studies in philosophy

Putnam Pragmatism & Realism

Rorty and Pragmatism: The Philosopher Responds to His Critics

The Philosophy of Miracles (Continuum Studies In Philosophy)

Realism and the Progress of Science (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

Realism and the Progress of Science (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

Rousseau And the Ethics of Virtue (Continuum Studies in Philosophy)

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