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The Pragmatists and the Human Logic of Truth

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Claudine Tiercelin

Introduction

Entrées d'index

Keywords :

pragmatism, Peirce, Ramsey, truth

Texte intégral

  • 1 Putnam, POQ, xi.
  • 2 Robin, 1997, “Classical Pragmatism and Pragmatism’s Proof”, p. 139.
  • 3 Putnam, PPNR, p. 44ff. Nevertheless, according to Putnam, Dewey was the first philosopher, not only (...)
  • 4 Putnam, PPNR, p. 76.

1As Hilary Putnam says, Pragmatism is not only “a movement that had its day at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century,” but “a way of thinking […] of lasting importance and an option (or at least an ‘open question’) that should figure in present-day philosophical thought.”1 Although it is still “commonplace to think of pragmatism in terms of its two principal varieties, one of which stems from Charles Peirce and the other from William James,”2 there has been an increasing tendency to identify the pragmatists as a common group of writers who stressed that notions indispensable for everyday life should be taken seriously, but also knew how to define scientific inquiry as an inquiry submitted to norms and principles, and realized that “what applies to investigation in general, equally applies to ethical investigation.”3 Thus, Putnam credits Peirce for emphasizing that practical interest is inseparable from cognitive or theoretical interest: no one could dream of “a discussion about testing theories or hypotheses that would take place outside certain values or would assume, for example, the extortion of consensus.”4

  • 5 Peirce, CP, 6.485.
  • 6 For a vigorous criticism of “vulgar pragmatism”, see Haack, 1993, Evidence and Inquiry; Haack, 1998 (...)
  • 7 This is why he finally decided to “kiss his child good-bye” (Peirce, CP, 5.143-144).
  • 8 Quoted by Thayer, Meaning and Action: a critical history of pragmatism, 1981, p. 322. See also Doki (...)
  • 9 “The pronouncements on the nature of truth in Pragmatism evoked howls of indignation (e.g. Russell, (...)

2However, there are certain uses of the term “pragmatism” that even philosophers who sympathize with this doctrine would prefer not to be associated with their own enterprises. Peirce himself invented a new and “ugly enough” word: “pragmaticism”, to be safe from James or Schiller’s “humanistic” or “moralistic” reading of “pragmatism” and the notion of “the mutability of truth”;5 but also safe from the “kidnappers” who diverted pragmatism and made it the kind of anti-realistic, vulgarly6 utilitarian and flatly business-like view that this doctrine often evokes.7 The misunderstanding reached its peak when Mussolini declared that James’s pragmatism had been very useful to its own political career and that the latter had taught him “that an action should be judged rather by its results than by its doctrinary basis,” and inculcated “faith in action, that ardent will to live and fight, to which fascism owes a great part of its success.”8 The so-called Death of God and the so-called Death of Truth have often consecrated the alliance between skepticism and relativism, or nihilism. If everything is equal, nothing is. It is quite commonplace in particular, when the pragmatist conception of truth is evoked, to associate it with such themes.9

What I would like to do today is to show how such a view is mistaken, and how much and why, even if one starts from the very conception of truth they develop, and which was mostly criticized, the pragmatists can constitute a genuine protection against such threats. I shall first summarize what the common features of their definition of truth are (chapter 1), the various objections that have been raised against it (chapter 2), before presenting my own reasons for finding the pragmatists’ approach valuable (chapter 3), and explain the sense in which they might be helpful in elaborating what some of them called a human logic of truth, capable of providing us with an efficient, if not “answer”, at least “parry”, to the skeptical challenge (chapter 4 and 5).

Some remarks on Ramsey’s expression: “human logic of truth”

  • 10 Ramsey, PP, p. 86ff.

3The expression “human logic of truth”, of course, is Frank P. Ramsey’s. In “Truth and Probability”,10 in particular, he denies the relevance of a theory (like Keynes’) of probability which would be based on absolutely a priori probabilities, which is, he says impossible:

  • 11 Ramsey, PP, p. 88-89.

If we actually applied this process to a human being, found out, that is to say, on what a priori probabilities, his present opinions could be based, we should obviously find them to be ones determined by natural selection, with a general tendency to give a higher probability to the simpler alternatives. But, as I say, I cannot see what could be meant by asking whether these degrees of belief were logically justified. Obviously the best thing would be to know for certain in advance what was true and what was false, and therefore if any one system of initial beliefs is to receive the philosophers approbation it should be this one. But clearly this would not be accepted by thinkers of the school I am criticizing. Another alternative is to apportion initial probabilities on the purely formal system expounded by Wittgenstein, but as this gives no justification for induction it cannot give us the human logic (my emphasis) which we are looking for. Let us therefore try to get an idea of a human logic which shall not attempt to be reducible to formal logic. Logic, we may agree, is concerned not with what men actually believe, but what they ought to believe, or what it would be reasonable to believe. What then, we must ask, is meant by saying that it is reasonable for a man to have such and such a degree of belief in a proposition?11

And Ramsey has the following about the reasons why he views induction as the right human logic of truth:

  • 12 Ramsey, PP, p. 93.

We are all convinced by inductive arguments, and our conviction is reasonable because the world is so constituted that inductive arguments lead on the whole to true opinions. We are not, therefore, able to help trusting induction, nor if we could help do we see any reason why we should, because we believe it to be a reliable process. It is true that if anyone has not the habit of induction, we cannot prove to him that he is wrong; but there is nothing peculiar in that. If a man doubts his memory or his perception we cannot prove to him that they are trustworthy; to ask for such a thing to be proved is to cry for the moon, and the same is true of induction. It is one of the ultimate sources of knowledge just as memory is: no one regards it as a scandal to philosophy that there is no proof that the world did not begin two minutes ago and that all our memories are not illusory.12

  • 13 Engel, 1983, “Croyances, dispositions et probabilités, Peirce et Ramsey”; Sahlin, 1990, The Philoso (...)
  • 14 Ramsey, PP, p. 51.
  • 15 Hookway, 2000, Truth, Rationality and Pragmatism, p. 136.
  • 16 Ramsey, PP, p. 51.

4The reasons why I am using Ramsey’s expression in this context should appear as we go on in the paper. But I should say, from the start, that I take F. Ramsey as one of the most genuine heirs of the pragmatist tradition. Ramsey’s pragmatism has been widely underlined by commentators13 and by Ramsey himself who though emphasizing his “indebtness to Mr Wittgenstein, from which [his] view of logic is derived” except from what is due to him: “the parts which have a pragmatist tendency, which seem to [him] to be needed in order to fill in a gap in [Wittgenstein’s] system.”14 Indeed, it is a commonplace that Wittgenstein’s later work has a “pragmatist” flavour, due to the influence of Ramsey upon his work around 1930.15 Now, even if in the same paper, Ramsey claims that “his pragmatism is derived from Mr. Russell and is of course very vague and undeveloped”, and seems a little hazy about what the essence of pragmatism is – which he “takes to be” this:“that the meaning of a sentence is to be defined by reference to the actions to which asserting it would lead, or more vaguely still, by its possible causes and effects,” which he comments in the following way: “Of this I feel certain, but of nothing more definite.”16

  • 17 Peirce, 1923, Chance, Love and Logic.
  • 18 See Misak, 1991, Truth and the End of Inquiry.
  • 19 See Levi, 1980a, “Induction as Self Correcting According to Peirce”; Levi, 1997a, “Inference and Lo (...)
  • 20 On this, see Sahlin, 1990, The Philosophy of F.P. Ramsey, p. 3: “Truth and Probability” is in that (...)
  • 21 Tiercelin, 2002b, “Philosophers and the Moral Life”;
  • 22 E.g. Ramsey, OT, p. 62-64.
  • 23 See Tiercelin, 2005, Le Doute en question.
  • 24 On these particular questions in Peirce’s thought: Tiercelin, “Peirce on Norms, Evolution, and Know (...)
  • 25 Tiercelin, 2004d, “Ramsey’s pragmatism”.

5It is also clear that many themes developed by Ramsey in his work manifest the outstanding inspiration of the founder of pragmatism, C. S. Peirce, who is explicitly referred to in several places, and whom Ramsey had come to know, essentially through the Cohen edition of Chance, Love and Logic.17 Concerning belief, truth, action, knowledge and inquiry,18 induction,19 probability, which are traditionally linked with what seems to be the most characteristic features of pragmatism, it is rather clear, as has been shown, that Ramsey’s pragmatism was very close to Peirce’s own version.20 As a matter of fact, less studied but as convincing, in my view, are their respective treatments of the relationship between theory and practice, their conceptions of ethics.21 In particular, Ramsey shares with Peirce (and also with Wittgenstein) a common rejection of moral theorizing, favors a separation between philosophy and logic from vital (sentimental or instinctive) matters, together with a strong defense of rationality as being essentially normative. Ramsey’s reliance on critical (fallibilist) commonsense on such issues as perception is also very close to Peirce’s views22 as is, generally speaking, the form of Academic scepticism (close to Carneades’ views) he endorses, which is also an important (though partial) aspect of Peirce’s own approach to skepticism,23 and more generally of normativity as far as logic, knowledge and inquiry are concerned.24 Less obvious and yet, in my view, no less important, aspects of Ramsey’s pragmatism, is his position as regards the problem of universals.25

Notes

1 Putnam, POQ, xi.

2 Robin, 1997, “Classical Pragmatism and Pragmatism’s Proof”, p. 139.

3 Putnam, PPNR, p. 44ff. Nevertheless, according to Putnam, Dewey was the first philosopher, not only to subscribe to the view that “what applies to investigation in general applies to ethical investigation,” but to have put it into practice: indeed, although the view was originally formulated by Peirce, Peirce did not apply it to the moral domain, because he “categorically refused to deal with ethics” (Putnam, PPNR, p. 88). I have tried to show that this was indeed a very schematic conception of Peirce’s approach to norms and ethics (Tiercelin, 1994, “Un Pragmatisme conséquent ?”; Tiercelin, 2002b, “Philosophers and the Moral Life”), and in particular that such a refusal was also to be analyzed in the light of the stress Peirce puts on norms and values so as to elaborate a doctrine of the normative sciences, a doctrine which, to say the least, did not “come out of the blue”. (See Robin, 1964, “Peirce’s Doctrine of the Normative sciences”, p. 271-288, and the classical book by V. Potter 1967, Charles Peirce on Norms and Ideals. See also Tiercelin, 1997, “Peirce on Norms, Evolution, and Knowledge”, and the last chapter of Tiercelin, 1993b, La Pensée-signe, “Croyances, raison et norms”, p. 335-384 [ http://books.openedition.org/cdf/2236 ]).

4 Putnam, PPNR, p. 76.

5 Peirce, CP, 6.485.

6 For a vigorous criticism of “vulgar pragmatism”, see Haack, 1993, Evidence and Inquiry; Haack, 1998, Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate; Migotti, 1988, “Recent Work in Pragmatism: Revolution or Reform in the Theory of Knowledge?”; Tiercelin, 1994, “Un Pragmatisme conséquent ?”.

7 This is why he finally decided to “kiss his child good-bye” (Peirce, CP, 5.143-144).

8 Quoted by Thayer, Meaning and Action: a critical history of pragmatism, 1981, p. 322. See also Dokic & Engel, 2002, Ramsey, Truth and Success, conclusion.

9 “The pronouncements on the nature of truth in Pragmatism evoked howls of indignation (e.g. Russell, 1945, A History of Western Philosophy, p. 816-818) as well as exaggerated praise. The howls (and some of the praise) came from readers who thought that James identified truth as whatever it gives us ‘satisfaction’ to believe: the critics believed that this amounted to irrationalism, while the enthusiasts thought that the idea that truth is jibing with reality deserves to be abandoned, (Rorty, CP) and the Italian pragmatist Giovanni Papini thought that irrationalism is a good thing (Perry, 1935, The Thought and Character of William James, vol. 2, p. 570-579)” (Putnam, 1997, “James’s Theory of Truth”, CCWJ, p. 166).

10 Ramsey, PP, p. 86ff.

11 Ramsey, PP, p. 88-89.

12 Ramsey, PP, p. 93.

13 Engel, 1983, “Croyances, dispositions et probabilités, Peirce et Ramsey”; Sahlin, 1990, The Philosophy of F.P. Ramsey; Levi, 1997b, The Covenant of Reason; Hookway, Truth, Rationality and Pragmatism, 2000, ; Dokic & Engel, 2002, Ramsey, Truth and Success; Tiercelin, 1993a, Peirce et le pragmatisme; Tiercelin, 2004d, “Ramsey’s pragmatism”.

14 Ramsey, PP, p. 51.

15 Hookway, 2000, Truth, Rationality and Pragmatism, p. 136.

16 Ramsey, PP, p. 51.

17 Peirce, 1923, Chance, Love and Logic.

18 See Misak, 1991, Truth and the End of Inquiry.

19 See Levi, 1980a, “Induction as Self Correcting According to Peirce”; Levi, 1997a, “Inference and Logic according to Peirce”.

20 On this, see Sahlin, 1990, The Philosophy of F.P. Ramsey, p. 3: “Truth and Probability” is in that respect one of the first essays “really imbued with the basic ideas of pragmatism”.

21 Tiercelin, 2002b, “Philosophers and the Moral Life”;

22 E.g. Ramsey, OT, p. 62-64.

23 See Tiercelin, 2005, Le Doute en question.

24 On these particular questions in Peirce’s thought: Tiercelin, “Peirce on Norms, Evolution, and Knowledge” 1997.

25 Tiercelin, 2004d, “Ramsey’s pragmatism”.

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