Pragmatism and truth
Introduction
Pragmatism comes from the word pragmatics which is the study of the meaning of language in a different context. Pragmatism is a philosophical study that gives an approach to various things, and it focuses on the logical or practical response—an example of pragmatism in dealing with problems practically and logically. Different philosophers and authors define pragmatism differently. There are various criticisms of pragmatism in the topics addressed in multiple resourceful sources in this paper.
The presentation and the Dew and Foreman’s article “What is Truth?” (Dew Jr, J. K., & Foreman, M. W., 2014) cover on what is true and how we can find and identify the truth. There has been a debate on whether there is something like absolute truth or the truth we know about is relative. The author poses a question on whether anything we know is true. Human beings assume that everything we see in the world is true and everything that we do in our daily lives is true. Some intellectuals and philosophers believe that none of the ideas and statements of human beings is true. The article presents its criticism as, for a particular belief and theory to be considered true, they first must be consistent and if they both are not, then they are considered false. Hence, consistency is a condition for a theory or belief to be true. Another argument is that if a belief is true, it will prove itself as useful.
The article about “some problems with pragmatism” (Groothuis, n.d) talks about a famous philosopher known as Bertrand Russel who criticizes William James’s theory of truth on pragmatism. James had a view of truth that it can only be verified after seeing its effects. He argues that the opposing doctrines in religion Christians and Buddhist is only valid if they confirmed their results. Both religions claim different things like in Christianity; Christ is the sole supreme spiritual revelation, while Buddhists believe that Buddha s the supreme spiritual revelation. There can be two supreme beings, so the two beliefs contradict each other.
The criticism repeated in all the items is that for a theory to be accurate, it has to show proof of usefulness. There have to be practical and logical effects for a particular theory. If it is a belief, it is only true if it works. It is also the single criticism that is strongest in my view. We sometimes don’t have to understand the theory, but if we get to see results and a shred of evidence that the theory works it is true. For beliefs, the belief has to have functional consequences for it to be true.
The weakest criticism claims that the truth has to be a good option, and there has to be consistency. Theories and beliefs can have practical, useful effects, but they are inconsistent. That shouldn’t disqualify its truthfulness.
References
Dew Jr, J. K., & Foreman, M. W. (2014). How Do We Know?: An Introduction to Epistemology. InterVarsity Press
Groothuis, D. (n.d) Some Problems with Pragmatism retrieved from https://www.bethinking.org/truth/some-problems-with-pragmatism.