RE: BHA: truth

[Doug Porpora <porporad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm glad we're all discussing this. A CR comrade had chastized me recently
for still holding to a correspondence theory of truth, which made me wonder
what concept of truth realists hold.  I have read _Plato_ and have it on
order but do not yet own a copy.  (After Colin's post, I now finally have
Collier on order too. And I will have to get hold of Colin's Derrida ref
and, Ruth or Wallace, yes, can you please give the citation to the RB piece
on concepts?)

Although I can no longer find where, my old mentor, Joe Margolis, makes a
distinction that seems close to the one Wallace cites from Devitt and which
I find helpful.  He says that correspondence with reality cannot be the
_criterion_ of truth for the reason Louis mentions (no independent access
to reality) but it can (and, presumably, should) still be the _meaning_ of
truth.

Louis, I see no reason why on such a correspondence theory, truth is
necessarily actualist. Truth as correspondence can certainly apply to
relational structures as well.  We might claim, for example, that
capitalism entails a relationship of exploitation.  On the correspondence
theory, the claim is true if in reality capitalism is exploitative and
false if capitalism is not. No actualism there.

Now, because the correspondence theory is no longer a criterion of truth,
we do not appeal to it to demonstrate the exploitative nature of
capitalism.  Correspondence simply tells us _what we mean_ when after a
suitable demonstration, we claim it is true that capitalism is exploitative.

Like Ruth, I, too, am having some difficulties with the mileage RB wants to
press from Alethia.  Consider how, I think, the correspondence theory would
address some of the questions Ruth has been asking.  I think the
correspondence theory would say:

Without intelligent beings to formulate beliefs and propositions, there
would be no truth, but there still would be many truths -- the existence of
water and its molecular structure, for example.

If I understand Colin correctly, this truth about water is what RB means by
alethia.  If that is what RB means by alethia, I don't think I have a
problem with it.  It simply affirms that certain realities are
ontologically independent of us.  Thus, as Colin says, there are certain
truths even without ideas -- but obviously not truth itself -- which has
ideas among its relata.

I do not see, however, how alethic truth replaces, marginalizes or sublates
the correspondence theory.  What are the (alethic) truths that exist
independent of us?  What is the alethic truth about water?  Well, we have
some theoretical description of water as it exists independent of us.  The
question remains whether that theoretical description is true.  What are we
asking when we ask that? It still seems to me that what we mean when we ask
that is whether the theoretical description corresponds to water as it
alethically is. So truth as correspondence seems co-equal with or even
prior to truth as alethia.

Do truth claims themselves fall under epistemology?  I don't thing they
necessarily do.  It seems to me if they necessarily do, then CR is in real
trouble, for how then do we ever make ontological claims?  Actually, I
think we are on stronger ground saying that truth claims are always
ontological even if they refer to the ontology (or alethia) of
epistemology. What is clearly epistemological are the evidence and methods,
etc. we use to decide what is true.

Well, since i am struggling with all this, I certainly welcome efforts to
show where I am going wrong.  In the meantime, I find it reassuring to
learn that i am not the only critical realist still haboring the
correspondence theory.

Carrol, thanks for a correction so positively delivered! I share your love
of Austen.

doug









doug porpora
dept of psych and sociology
drexel university
phila pa 19104
USA

porporad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx




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