Thread by @ironick

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks Sorry to jump in late, but I think in his "Reply to Ramberg" (mentioned in your excellent recent podcast) Rorty partially recanted the sentiment expressed in "Truth is simply a compliment…": “Ramberg sets me straight here too. He tells me, in effect, that _it was a mistake /1

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks on my part_ to go from criticism of attempts to define truth as accurate representation of the intrinsic nature of reality to _a denial that true statements get things right_. What I should have done, he makes me realize, is to grant Davidson's point that _most of our beliefs /2

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks about anything_ (snow, molecules, the moral law) must be true of that thing - _must get that thing right_.” p374

In his reply, Rorty clarified what he means by "true of". He does so by more fully embracing and explicating Davidson’s triangulation: ‘Since I now want to agree /3

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks with Davidson on this point, I am going to have to stop saying, in imitation of Sellars, that _"true" and "refers" do not name word-world relations. Nor shall I any longer be able to say that all our relations to the world are causal relations._ I shall instead have to say /4

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks that _there are certain word-world relations which are neither causal nor representational_ - for instance, the relation "true of” which holds between "Snow is white" and snow, and the relation "refers to" which holds between "snow" and snow.’p374

I think it unfortunate that /5

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks Rorty still referred to “certain” relations that are neither causal nor representational as “word-world” relations, because this still categorizes such relations as binary relations. What would have been clearer would have been to categorize them as trinary relations, which is /6

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks the essential point that Davidson makes. All our relations with the world are triadic, among speaker, interpreter, and world. This is how we avoid the relativism implicit in “Truth is simply a compliment…”-type sayings.

I think Rorty’s quotation of Davidson makes clear /7

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks how seeing all relations as triadic avoids relativism: ‘The ultimate source of both objectivity and communication is the triangle that, by relating speaker, interpreter and the world, _determines the contents of thought and speech_. Given this source _there is no room for a /8

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks relativized concept of truth_.’ pp15-16

Another way of emphasizing the necessity of viewing all relations as triadic, according to Rorty, is that it is wrong to use the phrase “norms set by our peers”: ‘It was a mistake to _locate the norms at one corner of the triangle - /9

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks where my peers are_ - rather than seeing them as, so to speak, _hovering over the whole process of triangulation_. (Brandom's slogan "We have met the norms, and they are us" is acceptable only if "us" means "us as engaged in the process of triangulation.") It is not that my /10

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks peers have more to do with my obligation to say that snow is white _than the snow does_, or than I do.’

Finally, I think Rorty would largely agree with Peirce’s claim that “"[T]he objectivity of truth really consists in the fact that, in the end, every sincere inquirer will /11

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks be led to embrace it…” Rorty says roughly the same thing, but substitutes freedom for sincerity: “My claim that if we take care of freedom truth will take care of itself implies that if people can say what they believe without fear, then, just as Conant says, _the task of /12

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks justifying themselves to others and the task of getting things right will coincide_. My argument is that since we can test whether we have performed the first task, and have no further test to apply to determine whether we have performed the second, Truth as end-in-itself /13

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks drops out.”p347

Truth is not out there, but what is out there makes most of our sentences true. Truth is also not “in here”, if that means solely in the norms of a language community. Rather, normative truth “hovers” in the triangle between speaker, interpreter, and world. /14

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks Given his embrace of triangulation, Rorty proposed this less pithy aphorism about truth paying its way, which acknowledges the key insights of both pragmatism and realism: “What is true in pragmatism is that what you talk about depends not on what is real but on what it pays /15

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks you to talk about. What is true in realism is that most of what you talk about you get right". /16 END

@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks @threadreaderapp unroll