BHA: truth and God's eye

[Doug Porpora <porporad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello again,

Wallace, thanks for the citation to the Concepts piece, which, I realize, I
have already seen, and thanks for sharing more of Devitt. I like a lot of
what Devitt says but am skeptical about causal theories of reference.
Still, I will now dutifully add Devitt to my shopping cart at Amazon.com.

You ask why people like me prefer to construe correspondence as the meaning
or, pace Colin, the definition of truth as opposed to the explanation of
truth.  Well, one reason is that before I worry about explaining truth, I
first want to know what it is I would be explaining.

Last night, I was very pleasantly disconcerted by the RB passage you shared
with us.  This morning, thanks partially, I think, to Colin's helpful post,
I am much less disconcerted.

In the RB passage you cite, it does seem as if Bhaskar takes back with one
hand what he gives with the other. I think, however, that this appearance
disappears if we distinguish correspondence as definition from
correspondence as criterion of truth. Look:

>Epistemological relativism
>insists only upon the impossibility of knowing objects except under
>particular descriptions. And it entails the rejection of any correspondence
>theory of truth. A proposition is true if and only if the state of affairs
>that it expresses (describes) is real. But propositions cannot be compared
>with states of affairs; their relationship cannot be described as one of
>correspondence. Philosophers have wanted a theory of truth to provide a
>criterion or stamp of knowledge. But no such stamp is possible. For the
>judgement of the truth of a proposition is necessarily intrinsic to the
>science concerned. There is no way in which we can look at the world and
>then at a sentence and ask whether they fit. There is just the expression
>(of the world) in speech (or thought)"

Clearly, RB rejects correspondence as criterion.  True, he does speak of
the rejection of _any_ correspondence theory, but let us suppose for a
moment that he means only any criterion-correspondence theory.  Then the
rest of the passage makes sense. What RB goes on to affirm without the
label is some form of definition-correspondence theory. Since the passage
makes sense this way, I propose we extend the principle of charity to
interpret it so.

One of your Devitt passagages raises a question that -- if anyone is still
with me -- I would like help on.  The passage reads:

>Theorizing about the relations between a thought or expression
>and an object no more requires a God's Eye View than does theorizing about
>the relation between, say, David Frost and Richard Nixon." (_Realism and
>Truth_ 232)

My question concerns the phrase, "God's Eye View."  Now it is a basic
premise of epistemic relativism that our determinations of truth are always
situated and, thus, never from God's vantage point.  I accept that.

My question is this:  Does a truth claim itself -- as opposed to the
methods used to verify it -- necessarily represent itself as the "God's Eye
View" or, equivalently, as a "View from Nowhere."  Here, perhaps, I truly
am succumbing to "angelism" because I am inclined to say yes. Yes, at
least, according to the definition-correspondence theory.  Is this shocking
to everybody still reading or is this not over the top?

The context for this is a commentary I had presented on _Feminist
Contentions_, in which all the participants were in accord in their
rejection of a God's Eye View of truth.  But, then, among other things,
Judith Butler accuses Seyla Benhabib of misquoting her. Whereas Butler had
used the expression, "no doer behind the deed," Benhabib quoted her as
writing "no doer _beyond_ the deed."

Not much hangs on that misquote, but I argued that the claim of
misquotation carries force only if it is not just a claim from a standpoint
but, rather, a claim that holds -- although is not verified -- either from
nowhere or from God's point of view.

It was this claim of mine that evoked criticism even from critical
realists.  If I have blundered, please disabuse me, but -- notice Howard --
for the moment, I remain committed to it.

Ruth, thanks for the clarifications on deflation and pragamatism.  Do you
ever return to Phila?

Michael, I am no more a Habermasian than I am an Andersonian, but it may
support your point to observe that at the bi-weekly poker game I play at, I
am the worst one there.  Maybe I would do better if Booth came along.

doug












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

porporad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx




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