- Truth and Consequences -
Bryant Kelly
I’d like to start this post off by posing a question: What is truth? Before diving into chapter 5 of John Kaag’s Sick Souls, Healthy Minds, I believed truth to really mean “whatever is right or correct”, but what does that mean?
A photo of pragmatic philosopher William James, from Britannica.com
I chose to report on this chapter because truth is something that I have thought about a few times here and there, and this chapter provided another way to view truth in life through a pragmatic lens. Kaag states early on in this chapter that William James (and by extension, Pragmatism) have a combined respect for scientific facts and human values. This all came to James’s claim that “truth in ideas is their power to work” (SSHM, p. 128). This claim is the basis for the pragmatic theory of truth. This theory of truth combines the “force of empirical fact” and the realization that all facts lead to consequences. I have come to agree with James’s point of combining empirical facts with our own experiences to come to the truth.
The reason James came to his theory of truth is because as he aged and developed his philosophy of pragmatism, he believed that people in the world craved a middle ground between scientific loyalty to fact and human values. Somewhere between the “tough minded scientist” (as Kaag describes the skeptic David Hume) and the “tender minded idealist” (describing Gottfried Leibniz, since he believed in an ensured plan from God) (SSHM, p. 132). I also find that this “middle ground” approach to be true for myself at least. While a “scientist” would be in constant doubt about the truth, the idealist would believe that the truth is always a certain way. Neither of these outlooks to me are optimistic because 1, why should I have to doubt things that are true? and 2, I believe it to be unwise to accept things as truth without first understanding the meaning of how they are true. If you want to learn more about Jame’s ideas on truth from the man himself, here is a link to one of his books, The Meaning of Truth on the project Gutenberg website.
We can see William James here confronting John Locke and Spinoza about pragmatism. John Locke here echoes traits of the tough-minded scientist while Spinoza represents the tender-minded idealist.
I’ve beaten around the bush enough talking about the pragmatic theory of truth without yet explaining it in detail. I think that Kaag best explained it as something we are all familiar with, the scientific method. In the scientific method, we make observations about things, create hypotheses, test them, and arrive at a conclusion at the end of experimentation. Similarly, everyone has ideas about facts in the world, and through empirical experiences and our own sort of “testing”, we arrive at a “truth”. James believes that truth is something that happens to an idea, rather than truth being its own thing. By verifying our ideas through experience, the ideas then become truths that are practical in life. This video explains the theory well The Pragmatist Theory of Truth. I appreciate the visuals and mention of the use of names to explain the concept.
I do find this pragmatic method to be comforting in coming to conclusions about the truth of facts. With my own experiences, I can find the truths that work best for me, which is one of the key ideas of pragmatism. I think Kaag’s story about how he raised his daughter (and how he imagined raising her initially) does an excellent job at explaining how people can have different truths while adhering to the facts of life. While he and his now ex-wife were expecting their daughter, they purchased many books about parenting and had ideas in their head about how their daughter should be raised. Well, when their daughter was born, many of the ideas and advice that they had been given about raising a child went out the window. It just didn’t work out for them the same as it did for other people. Eventually, they were able to find their own groove or “truth” about parenting, even if they disagreed on certain ways she should be brought up.
Not only does this anecdote illustrate how truths can be different for different people, but it also shows Jame’s other fact about truth. The fact that truths are subject to change. One famous quote from James that we’ve heard quite often is that “We have to live today by the truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood” (The Conception of Truth). This also goes hand in hand with the scientific method-like attributes about his theory of truth. As new discoveries are made in the science world, scientists must be willing to abandon old ideas that were once thought to be true in exchange for new ideas that are proven through experimentation. This is also the case for how we come to our truths about facts in the world, and I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. We’ve mentioned flat Earthers a few times in class, so check out this article that shows ex-flat Earthers going through the same process. As they found new information, realizing the fact that Earth is round, their truths changed.
It is also key to point out the distinction that James makes about different kinds of truths. He distinguished them as lowercase-t “truths” and capital-T “Truth” (SSHM, p. 137). Because new experiences are had and discoveries are made daily, James says that we navigate through life with those lowercase “truths” that are subject to change. A capital-T “Truth” is only possible if we had an infinite time frame to work with, therefore unlikely to be known in our lifetimes.
To round out my final thoughts on the initial question of this post, William James teaches us that truth is not whatever is correct or right, those would be facts that exist in the world. Truths on the other hand, are the “stories” or paths we take as individuals to arrive at these facts. I would say that this distinction between truth and facts is comforting to think about personally. It acknowledges that there are facts in the world, while also respecting the individuality of people as they come to conclusions about these facts, coming to find their truths in life. This is a valuable lesson that I believe we would do wisely to keep in mind as we continue our walks through life.
Discussion Questions
Do you think that eventually a universal or complete Truth would be found, even outside of our lifetimes? If so, through what means?
What are the truths that you have come to in your life? And how did you arrive at those truths?
Do you agree that truth is something that happens to ideas? Or do you think that truth and ideas are separate things?
I think humanity will forever be refining its conception of truth. A final and complete version will always beckon from just over the horizon. We may not reach it but we'd better keep hiking.
ReplyDeleteThe central truth I've come to is that we must acknowledge facts and reality to the best of our ability, and never tolerate those who play fast and loose--that is, dishonestly-- with our common experience.
Truth certainly happens to ideas. The idea of universal freedom is a beautiful idea that has happened increasingly (to different degrees in different places) over the long course of human history, and that we are responsible for making continue to happen ever more inclusively.