The Varieties of Pragmatism: Truth, Realism, and Knowledge from James to Rorty (Continuum Studies in American Philosophy) PDF
Preview The Varieties of Pragmatism: Truth, Realism, and Knowledge from James to Rorty (Continuum Studies in American Philosophy)
The Varieties of Pragmatism: Truth, Realism, and Knowledge from James to Rorty DOUGLAS McDERMID Continuum THE VARIETIES OF PRAGMATISM Continuum Studies in American Philosophy: Dorothy G. Rogers, America's First Women Philosophers Thorn Brooks and Fabian Freyenhagen, eds, The Legacy of John Rawls James Marcurn, Thomas Kuhn's Revolution Joshua Rust, John Searle and the Construction of Social Reality Timothy Mosteller, Relativism in Contemporary American Philosophy THE VARIETIES OF PRAGMATISM TRUTH, REALISM, AND KNOWLEDGE FROM JAMES TO RORTY DOUGLAS McDERMID continuum LONDON NEW YORK Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 © Douglas McDermid 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Douglas McDermid has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 0-8264-8721-1 (hardback) Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data McDermid, Douglas. The varieties of pragmatism : truth, realism, and knowledge from James to Rorty / Douglas McDermid. p. cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8264-8721-1 (hardback) 1. Pragmatism I. Title. B832 M33 2006 144'.3-dc22 2005024744 Typeset by Aarontype Limited, Easton, Bristol Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire Quotes from William James from Pragmatism, ed. B. Kuklick, copyright 1981 Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Just as in the law courts no man can pass judgment who does not listen to the arguments from both parties, so must the per son whose task it is to study philosophy place himself in a better position to reach a judgment by listening to all the arguments, as if they came from undecided litigants. — St. Thomas Aquinas Contents Acknowledgements vii 1 Pragmatism and Epistemology: Deconstruction or Reconstruction? 1 Part I Pragmatism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth 5 2 The Decline and Fall of Correspondence 7 3 Keeping Reality in Mind: The Comparison Objection 14 4 Neither Worldmakers nor Mirrors: The Constructivist Objection 46 5 Towards a Pragmatist Epistemology 89 Part II Neo-Pragmatism and Epistemology 95 6 Rorty's Brave New Pragmatism 97 7 Anti-Foundationalism — From the Ground Up 110 8 Anti-Representationalism and Its Discontents 126 Epilogue: In Defense of a Myth 138 Appendices: A Rorty on Truth 141 B Putnam on Kant and the Coherence Theory of Truth 148 C James and Dewey on Correspondence: Deniers or Demystifiers? 154 Bibliography 159 Index 173 Acknowledgements This book is a descendant of my doctoral dissertation, written at Brown Uni- versity. While at Brown, I had the good fortune to study with some remark- ably talented philosophers: Felicia Ackerman, Justin Broackes, the late Roderick Chisholm, Jaegwon Kim, Martha Nussbaum, Ernest Sosa, and James Van Cleve. I am grateful to them all for their rigorous and patient tui- tion. I am also beholden to Brown and to the Woodrow Wilson Foundation for generous financial support. Thanks of a different species are due both to Josiah Carberry (who might or might not approve of this book) and to the household gods of the Rockefeller Library (Level A) — a place where coarser ancestors of my pages first blinked and, mewling, glimpsed the light of day. I also wish to express my gratitude to the following philosophers, with whom I have had helpful exchanges about issues and ideas addressed in this book: Paul Boghossian, Tyler Burge, the late Donald Davidson, Guillermo Hurtado, Cheryl Misak, Carlos Pereda, Richard Rorty, Israel Scheffler, Eckhard Schmidt, and Pedro Stepanenko. My warm thanks, too, to my edi- tors — Philip de Bary, James Fieser, Anthony Haynes and Joanna Taylor — all of whom have been generous with encouragement, help, and good cheer. It goes without saying, however, that all howlers, misreadings, infelicities, and fallacies subtle or gross are the exclusive property of yours truly. Parts of this book draw on previously published or forthcoming work of mine, and I am most grateful to the publishers for permission to reproduce that material here: "Pragmatism and Truth: The Comparison Objection to Correspondence," The Review of Metaphysics 51 (4): 775—811; "Putnam on Kant on Truth: Correspondence or Coherence?" Idealistic Studies 28 (1/2): 17—34; "Does Epistemology Rest on a Mistake? Understanding Rorty on Scepticism," Critica XXXII (96): 3-42; "Metaphysics and the Analytic Tra- dition," in The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth Century Philosophies, edited by Constantin Boundas (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming). I am delighted to be still more indebted — hopelessly so — to the three joyful anti-philosophers to whom this work is dedicated, with much love and grati- tude: Michelle, Julia, and Andrea. Mexico City July 2005 This page intentionally left blank 1 Pragmatism and Epistemology: Deconstruction or Reconstruction? I have always liked under standing views with which I did not agree — how else could one like the study of philosophy? — George Santayana1 1.0 Introduction Let us begin — why not? — with one more myth of a bygone Golden Age. 1.1 L'aged'or Once upon a time, or so the rumours run, epistemologists were by and large disposed to endorse three theses: one about reality, one about truth, and one about human knowledge. The first of these theses was realism: the commonsen- sical-sounding view that the world of physical objects exists independently of human thought or language. The second thesis was the correspondence theory of truth, according to which true beliefs accurately represent the way that world is. And the third thesis was foundationalism:: the view that our knowledge of the world must rest on sturdy foundations, as befits a well-built and impos- ing edifice. In the last two decades, partisans of these theses have been put on the defen- sive by an audacious anti-epistemology coalition led by Richard Rorty — "the most interesting philosopher in the world today." A self-styled disciple of William James and John Dewey, Rorty has consistently claimed a pragmatist pedigree for his opposition to the shibboleths of old-fashioned epistemology. From his perspective, pragmatism promises to transform philosophy from a fusty and staid discipline obsessed with knowledge into a playful and creative exercise in edification — "an attempt to see how things, in the broadest possi- ble sense of the term, hang together, in the broadest possible sense of the term." Where others have glimpsed epistemology's bright Paradise or fecund Golden Age, our neo-pragmatist beholds a dark and intellectually barren Inferno. And his counsel is as grim as it is familiar: Lasciateognesperanza, voi ch'intrate.
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