TheOtherDave comments on [Poll] Less Wrong and Mainstream Philosophy: How Different are We? - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Jayson_Virissimo 26 September 2012 12:25PM

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Comment author: TheOtherDave 27 September 2012 07:39:04PM 0 points [-]

OK, so... suppose this community then encounters some new experiences at time T that cause them to reject the solution (S1) to a problem previously considered solved, which they then re-close (with a different solution S2).

A correspondence theorist wasn't sure before T whether S1 was true or false, they're still not sure after T whether S1 is true or false, and the same goes for S2 (and, for that matter, anything else someone might assert). Presumably they will also make statements like S1 was justified before T and unjustified after T, that S2 is justified after T, and might disagree about whether S2 was justified before T.

An epistemic theorist asserts that S1 was true before T and is false after T, that S2 is false after T, and might disagree about whether S2 was true before T.

A deflationary theorist... um... is not committed to any particular position about the truth, falsehood, or indeterminacy of S1 or S2 at any time.

Yes?

Comment author: pragmatist 28 September 2012 04:28:37AM 0 points [-]

For Peirce, an end to all problems (and therefore an end to inquiry) includes the claim that there are no reecalcitrant experiences. It isn't just a temporary end to problems, it's a permanent end. This is why he refers to this as the ideal limit of inquiry. So the situation in your first paragraph wouldn't apply. Peirce specifies things this way precisely to avoid the consequence that truth-values can change with time. I should say, though, that this is only one specific epistemic theory, and an early (and therefore kind of unsophisticated) one. I chose it for ease of exposition.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 28 September 2012 04:49:27AM 0 points [-]

Well, OK, but then it seems Peirce's conception of truth is just as potentially unattainable (and thus philosophically useless, by his own account) as the correspondence conception. Unless I've reached an ideal limit of inquiry -- which of course I can't really know I've done, and am unlikely to have done -- then it seems I don't actually have truth, even on Pierce's account.

That aside, though, point taken about epistemicism != Peirce; presumably if I actually care about the latter I should just read Peirce. I'm just being intrigued by it. I do think I roughly understand the concept now; thanks for the explanation.