Subject: BHA: Re: Re: reply to Howard -- but not really
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 10:28:25 -0500


Ruth, Howard--

If I'm following this correctly, the mainstream equation that Ruth
formulates as "ontological realism = the correspondence theory of truth"
involves an indirect version of the epistemic fallacy, since it conflates a
theory about reality with a theory about our manner of representating
reality.  Hence, a category mistake.  But saying that "ontological realism
*implies* [or entails?] a correspondence theory of truth" wouldn't involve
that conflation (though it may or may not be true).  Is this right?

T.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-mail.com
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Howard Engelskirchen" <howarde-AT-twcny.rr.com>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, 30 November 2003 2:26 AM
Subject: BHA: Re: reply to Howard -- but not really


> Hi Ruth,
>
> Yes, it does help.  Still, I wonder if you could spell out the category
> error.  Also, if you take "literally" and "certainty" out of it, does
> "correspondence" still have the same sting?  The version I argued for
speaks
> to an accommodation between our representations of the causal structures
of
> the world and those structures sufficient to reliably guide practice.  If
> you take the idea out of it that you are taking the real out for a photo
> shoot, I wonder if there's enough difference between correspondence and
> accommodation to buy a couple of cups of coffee.  Our representations have
> to correspond to the causal structures of the world if they are going to
> guide practice.  'Accommodation' does seem a better word and doesn't carry
> the baggage. Anyway,  I am not arguing for any position from the history
of
> mainstream philosophy.  But if there is a shoal in the waters shallow
enough
> to shipwreck the enterprise, I want to know about it.
>
> howard
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Groff, Ruth" <ruth.groff-AT-marquette.edu>
> To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
> Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 10:20 PM
> Subject: BHA: reply to Howard -- but not really
>
>
> Hi Howard,
>
> Sure.  But not tonight.  I'm buried under a pile of work.
>
> It's not much though -- it's just that whoever it was who started off this
> thread (I don't have the first post in front of me now) put forward
(perhaps
> without fully realizing it) the mainstream formulation in contemporary
> anglo-analytic philosophy, which is that ontological realism and the
> correspondence theory of truth and the idea that certain knowledge is
> possible are all different iterations of the same position.  Putnam, for
> example, writes exactly this way in *Reason, Truth and History*.  But the
> ontological realism = the correspondence theory of truth equation,
> especially, is all over the place, so far as I can tell, in mainstream
> epistemology.  I just think that it is a category error, plain and simple.
>
> Does that help at all?
>
> r.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU on behalf of Howard
> Engelskirchen
> Sent: Sat 11/29/2003 1:49 PM
> To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
> Cc:
> Subject: Re: BHA: scientific realism,
> Hi Ruth,
>
> You've got to explain and elaborate on this:
>
> "I wanted to say that the mainstream move of defining ontological realism
in
> terms of a theory about what is meant by the concept of truth and/or in
> terms of an attendant claim about the truth-value of scientific theory, is
a
> really unhelpful category error."
>
> Thanks,
>
> Howard
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: "Groff, Ruth" <ruth.groff-AT-marquette.edu>
> To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
> Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 12:15 PM
> Subject: RE: BHA: scientific realism,
>
>
> Hey guys,
>
> Thanks to people who responded to my test message.  It seems that I am
able
> to post again.
>
> I am way behind in everything, and so can't respond to the current thread
in
> the way that I'd like to at all.  But I wanted to say that the mainstream
> move of defining ontological realism in terms of a theory about what is
> meant by the concept of truth and/or in terms of an attendant claim about
> the truth-value of scientific theory, is a really unhelpful category
error.
>
> I like to keep the following issues separate (and for what it's worth it
is
> consistent with a realist position to do so):
>
> 1. Ontological realism.  A claim about the independent existence of
> specified objects ("scientific realism" being a claim about the
independent
> existence of the objects of scientific theories specifically).
>
> 2. The correspondence theory of truth.  One account of what the concept of
> truth does or must mean.
>
> 3. Justification criteria.   Epistemic criteria according to which we
judge
> a theory to be true (*however* we happen to define the term "true").
>
> 4. The epistemic status of scientific theory.  The ascribed truth-value
> (however we define the concept of "truth" and whatever we point to as
> justification criteria) of scientific claims.
>
> r.
>
>
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