Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. xi, 355 pages; 24 cm

Summary

1. Is something true because we believe it to be so or because it is true? How can a culturally bound community achieve scientific knowledge when values, attitudes, and desires shape its beliefs? In this book an eminent philosopher considers various schools of thought on the nature of truth. David Weissman argues that truth exists in the correspondence between statement and fact: what can be said about our world can be measured against a reality that has a character and existence independent of any property we ascribe to it. Weissman begins by evaluating the transcendental paradigm of Kant that has exercised enormous influence in the development of Western thought over the past two hundred years. He develops his critique of the Kantian model (which states that value judgments underlie the perception or construction of truth), asserting that it is seriously flawed because it renders a determination of truth impossible. Weissman examines various value-driven perspectives on truth developed by such philosophers as Foucault, Derrida, and Rorty, who feel that truth is only the set of affirmations, principles, and procedures sanctioned by power and value. However, says Weissman, truth is the required adjunct to desire. Knowing who we are, where we have been, and the consequences of what we have done is the essential preparation for choosing what to do next. We must respect the integrity of a world we have not made and find our way within it with the help of attitudes and desires that have been informed by truth.

Subject

1. Truth
2. Values
3. truth
4. 08.32 epistemology
5. Truth
6. Values
7. Wahrheit
8. Wertphilosophie
9. Waarheid
10. Waarden

Contents

1. Ch. 1. Peirce and James. I. Two Kinds of Pragmatism. II. Jamesian Pragmatists. III. Thought as the Venue for Action. IV. World-Making. V. Making a Social World. VI. Some Notions of Truth. VII. Power and Respect among World-Makers. VIII. Peircian Realism. IX. Putnam and Peirce. X. Opposed Ideas about Reality and Knowledge. XI. The Transcendental World-Maker. XII. Must Truth be the Function of Value? -- Ch. 2. Two Kinds of Thinking: Hypothesis and Construction. I. Two Kinds of Thinking. II. The Motive for World-Making. III. Textualism. IV. The Dependence of Existence on Truth. V. World-Making as Psycho-centric. VI. Thought as Hypothesis. VII. Distinguishing Hypothesis from Construction. VIII. Hypotheses are Conventional Signs. IX. Hypotheses Motivated by Values -- X. Conclusion -- Ch. 3. The Cognitive-Affective Basis for Value. I. Spinoza on Desire. II. Truths Valued for their Efficacy. III. The Objective and Subjective Bases for Value. IV. Vulnerability and Security.
2. V. Submission and Control: Self-Sufficiency and Dependence. VI. Cognitive-Affective Balance. VII. Pathologies. VIII. Freudian Themes. IX. Differences and Affinities among Cognitive-Affective Balances. X. Pleasure. XI. Holism. XII. Hypothesis -- Ch. 4. Truth. I. Is Truth Simple and Separable? II. Truth as Coherence. III. Truth as Identity. IV. Truth as Redundancy. V. Behaviorist Notions of Truth -- VI. Conclusion -- Ch. 5. Truth as Correspondence. I. The Rationale for Truth as Correspondence. II. Abductive Inference. III. A Preliminary Realist Ontology. IV. Natural and Conventional Signs. V. Truth as Correspondence. VI. Thirteen Kinds of Truth-Claim. VII. The Realist Ontology Amended. VIII. A Final Elaboration of the Realist Ontology: Eternal Possibilities. IX. The Thirteen Kinds of Truth-Claim, Again. X. The Uses of the Coherence, Identity, and Redundancy Notions of Truth. XI. Is the Argument for Correspondence Circular? XII. Paradoxes of Self-Reference. XIII. Truth and Value.

Owning institution

1. Princeton University Library

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Performer (note)

1. WJC Memorial to Barbara Weightman class of 1957.