[4.6.1.] The Correspondence Theory of Truth.

 

Sometimes the pragmatic account of truth is presented as an alternative to the notion of truth as correspondence:

 

correspondence theory of truth (df.): truth is a matter of correspondence between (on the one hand) sentences, statements, beliefs, etc. and (on the other) the world.  This way of thinking about truth was held by (among others) Aristotle, Bertrand Russell and (the early) Ludwig Wittgenstein—it has been the object of harsh criticism in the 20^th century.[1]

 

But Peirce seems not to have wanted to replace the correspondence theory with his pragmatic theory. He seems to have accepted it himself. Consider this comment from “The Fixation of Belief”...

 

Such are the advantages which the other methods of settling opinion have over scientific investigation. A man should consider well of them; and then he should consider that, after all, he wishes his opinions to coincide with the fact, and that there is no reason why the results of those three first methods should do so. (EP 1:122, CP 5.387, emphasis added.)[2]

 

Rather, it seems that he wanted to supplement the correspondence theory. His position on the correspondence theory may have been that it is correct but not very illuminating, and that in particular it does not show how the concept of truth is tied to experience and practice.

 

Years after “How to Make Our Ideas Clear, Peirce strongly suggests that the correspondence theory clarifies the notion of truth to the second level of clearness by providing a verbal definition of “truth”

 

“That truth is the correspondence of a representation to its object is, as Kant says, merely the nominal definition of it.” (EP 2:379, CP 5.553, 1906)

 

And as we have seen, he intends the pragmatic account of truth to clarify it to the third level of clearness.

 

 

[4.6.2.] Does Reality Depend on What We Think About It?

 

Peirce went on to consider an objection to his pragmatic account of reality...

 

But it may be said that this view is directly opposed to the abstract definition which we have given of reality, inasmuch as it makes the characters of the real depend on what is ultimately thought about them. (EP 1:139; CP 5.408.)

 

...and to respond to that objection as follows:

 

But the answer to this is that, on the one hand, reality is independent, not necessarily of thought in general, but only of what you or I or any finite number of men may think about it; and that, on the other hand, though the object of the final opinion depends on what that opinion is, yet what that opinion is does not depend on what you or I or any man thinks. (EP 1:139; CP 5.408)[3]

 

Peirce’s position here seems to be as follows:

 

Reality does not depend on what people think about it. On Peirce’s view, our thinking does not determine how the world is; we are not creating the world with our beliefs.

 

·         This is captured in Peirce’s initial (2^nd level of clearness) definition of the real as that which is independent of what anyone thinks about it.[4]

 

·         So the way the world is does not depend on what we believe about it. We cannot make it so that the sun orbits the earth, just by believing it. Even if everyone on earth believed it today, it would still not be the case.

 

 

But in a sense, reality does depend on thought, in general. There are two aspects to this:

 

1.       Peirce wanted to clarify the concept of reality by explaining it in terms of what people in general will believe if inquiry is pushed as far as it can possibly go. In order to fully understand what the concept of reality means pragmatically, we have to think about it in terms of something we can actually experience: the beliefs that people will have in a specific situation.

 

2.       What does it mean to say that a proposition is true or that it represents reality? So far as our experience of the world is concerned, it can mean only that future experience will support belief in it, not undermine belief in it. It is to say that belief in that proposition will not be altered by the “recalcitrance” (stubborn resistance) of experience. To say that there is something more than this to the concepts of reality and truth (e.g., to say that the real consists of things that are in principle inaccessible to our experience, like Kant’s things-in-themselves; to say that truth is correspondence between beliefs and things-in-themselves) is to postulate something that can make no possible difference in our experience of the world. So it is pragmatically meaningless to talk about something that is inaccessible to our experience, a truth or reality that could never have an impact on what we believe.[5]

 

So Peirce was a realist, in that he believed in the existence of a world that is independent of what you, or I, or any specific person or group of people believes about it.

 

But this realism was tempered by his cognitionism, the view that everything real is “of the nature of a cognition,” i.e., capable of being cognized or thought.

 

There is a sense in which truth and reality are dependent on thought in general: the notion of a truth which could never be confirmed no matter how long inquiry were to proceed, and the notion of a reality which is in principle inaccessible to us, are pragmatically meaningless.

 

Peirce’s pragmatic explanations of truth and reality were not meant to imply that there is an absolute truth “out there,” whether or not we can access it. It requires less than this: what is in principle inaccessible to us simply is not pragmatically meaningful, and therefore is not real. However, this is only a toe-step away from there being such an inaccessible truth.

 

 

[4.6.3.] The Problem of Buried Secrets.

 

Peirce considered this criticism of his account of truth:

 

But I may be asked what I have to say to all the minute facts of history, forgotten never to be recovered, to the lost books of the ancients, to the buried secrets.... Do these things not really exist because they are hopelessly beyond the reach of our knowledge? (EP 1:139, CP 5.409, W 3:274, emphasis added)

 

If the pragmatic explanation of true belief is supposed to refer to all truths, then Peirce was committed to the very implausible claim that a hypothetically completed science can tell us every truth that there is, including those that now seem to be inaccessible to scientific investigation.

 

Exactly how many blades of grass were on the White House lawn on Christmas Day 1972? There is, presumably, a true answer to this question; an answer having the form:

 

“On Christmas Day 1972, there were n blades of grass on the White House lawn.”

 

So some statement of this form is true. So Peirce seems committed to saying the following:

 

If inquiry into the number of blades of grass on the White House lawn on Christmas Day 1972, is pushed as far as it can fruitfully go, then it will be believed that there were exactly n blades of grass there at that time.

 

But it seems implausible to think that a final, completed science will include the answer to this question.

 

In response to this objection, Peirce says:

 

... it is unphilosophical to suppose that, with regard to any given question (which has any clear meaning), investigation would not bring forth a solution of it, if it were carried far enough ... Who can guess what would be the result of continuing the pursuit of science for ten thousand years, with the activity of the last hundred? And if it were to go on for a million, or a billion, or any number of years you please, how is it possible to say that there is any question which might not ultimately be solved? (EP 1:140, CP 5.409; W 3:274-5, emphases added)

 

Notice that in defending against this objection, Peirce has switched from taking about truth in the indicative mood...

 

“It is true that p” = “If inquiry into whether p is pushed as far as it can go, then it will be believed that p”

 

to talking about truth in the subjunctive mood...

 

“It is true that p” = “If inquiry into whether p were pushed as far as it can go, then it would be believed that p.”

 

The indicative mood has to do with what actually does happen or actually will happen in the future.

·         If the hardness of a diamond consists only of what happens when that diamond is actually pressed, then a diamond that is not actually pressed is not hard.

·         If the truth of a belief consists in the fact that it will be believed at the actual end of inquiry, then the belief that p can be true only if inquiry into whether p is actually complete at some real time in the future..

 

The subjunctive mood has to do with what might possibly happen but need not actually happen.

·         If the hardness of a diamond consists in the fact that it would resist pressure if it is pressed, then a diamond can be hard even if it is never actually pressed.

·         If the truth of a belief consists in the fact that it would be believed at the (hypothetical, not necessarily actual) end of inquiry, then a belief can be true even if inquiry is never completed.

 

As we will see, years later Peirce will look back on this article and recognize his own ambivalence about whether pragmatic clarifications of concepts like hard, true and real should be put in the indicative mood.

 

He will eventually take a decisive stand in favor of one of these two approaches—the indicative or the subjunctive—to the Pragmatic Maxim.

 

 

Stopping point for Monday September 17. For next time, no new reading. We will review for your first test, which is on Friday.