Talk:Pragmatic theory of truth

message: The most characteristic features are (1) a reliance on the pragmatic maxim as a means of clarifying the meanings of difficult concepts, truth in particular. 
Do the authors mean that what counts are true is what is pragmatic? If so that must be clearer, especially given the somewhat confusing nature of the rest of the writing...
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Rorty adopts a broadly deflationary view of truth (cf. Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers [Philosophical Papers, Vol 1], Part I). He does not adopt a view on truth that entails relativism.
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Why is Habermas used to explain the consensus theory of truth. Why not put that text on the consensus page and link to it?
--Reagle 21:42, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Intro must be clearer

message: I find this paragraph offensive:
There are many other objections to pragmatism. For example, how do we define what it means to say a belief “works“? Or that it is “useful to believe“? Presumably, it is sometimes useful to tell lies. In this case, pragmatism implies that lies can be true. Presumably this is an absurd conclusion. Suppose that religion is useful to believe. Then, according to James's theory, it is true. But why should it follow that God exists merely because believing that God exists is useful? More worryingly, in the Soviet Union under Stalin, certain beliefs concerning biology were adopted because they were “useful to believe“ and this led to what is called Lysenkoism.
This writer criticizes James' vague word usage, does not bother to actually try and offer possible definitions for James' usage, and then offers a series of objections that represent at best a juvenile understanding of the theory, and at worst an intentional attempt to discredit it.
Believing that it is sometimes useful to tell lies cannot be equated with believing that the lies it is useful to tell are true. This is like saying that believing that eating food is useful means also believing that being eaten is useful as well.
"Suppose that religion is useful to believe" is so vague that it puts James' use of 'useful' to shame.  One might as well say "Suppose that man is good."  Regardless, individual propositions of specific religions either may or may not be tested, and the ones that may be tested may prove 'useful', as James puts it.  If one can test that God exists, say by dying and then meeting him, and believing that he exists has resulted in behavior that God approves of and rewards, then believing in God has indeed been useful.  In this case, believing that God exists is useful because God does actually exist; therefore, in this case, if believing in God is useful, God exists.
Lastly, a lot of very stupid things were believed in the Soviet Union under Stalin because Stalin had anyone who suggested ideas he didn't like thrown into prison camps or worse.  Furthermore, the pragmatic theory of truth took no part whatsoever in the development of Lysenkoism and its inclusion in this article is as inappropriate as the mention of Nazi death camps in an article about juvenile detention halls.
- Robin Moshe
:Actually, if truth is defined in terms of what is useful, then the usefullness of a lie does imply that it is true.--Nate Ladd 08:57, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
::Okay, I have an admission to make:Believing that it is sometimes useful to tell lies cannot be equated with believing that the lies it is useful to tell are true. This is like saying that believing that eating food is useful means also believing that being eaten is useful as well.I stand by that first sentence, but the second isn't strictly true. A much better comparison is:Believing that it is sometimes useful to tell lies cannot be equated with believing that the lies it is useful to tell are true. This is like saying that the belief that paper money can be exchanged for valuable goods and services is equal to the belief that the paper money is itself a valuable good or service.
::I apologize profusely for my previous failure of reasoning.
::--Robin Moshe 23:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Juvenile Objections 

message: JA: I'm putting this longish quote here until I get time to parcel it out and exegize it.  Jon Awbrey 20:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Long quotes for later exposition

message: The text added at this dif was criticised at truth. It should, I think, be treated with some caution, especially since it contains no citations, and may well be original research. Banno 21:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Caution

message: JA: Could editors please try to use roughly scholarly citation styles on this article?  The superscript mess has not been used in serious journals for a long time now.  It encourages sloppiness in important things like page references, just for starters, and eventually people start abbreviating citations to the point that they cannot be checked anymore.  Also, one of the main things that led to the premature busts in the 3 or 4 brief booms in pragmatic ideas during the last century was precisely the sort of the half-truths and 1-liner buzz phrases that secondary and tertiary sources are so liable to generate.  If you care about this subject at all, I beg you not to take us down that road again.  Gratia in futuro, Jon Awbrey 22:45, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Earnest request 

message: There are problems with the criticism section re: T-scheme. No actual examples are provided where believing A and not A are both useful, so this isn't really a criticism. No cite either, so it looks like OR. The objection also says that it applies to all epistemic theories, so it needs to go there, not here.
Mistercupcake (talk) 19:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The article also never says what a T-scheme is, nor does it have a wikipedia page. Larklight (talk) 18:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

text: Could anyone tell me where this quote comes from in the critism section,"Pragmatism describes an indicator or a sign of truth. It really cannot be regarded as a theory of the meaning of the word ‘true'"  aturner06 14 October 2008  —Preceding undated comment was added at 21:39, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism section 

message: The section is at the moment very problematic. It has a lot of opinions and judgement, but their source is not made clear who think that "pragmatism confuses" or that Habermas' theory is "viable, more sophisticated" etc. I have tagged the section with . My apologies if there is a more suitable template I should've used. Samulili (talk) 18:31, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticism tagged problematic

message: I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
::This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. Remove this template whenever:
::#There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved
::#It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given
::#In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.
Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 04:43, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  removing POV tag with no active discussion per [[Template:POV]] 

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