Errol Morris on truth and incommensurability

May 20, 2018 11:26 AM

Is There Such a Thing as Truth? - "To say that a philosophical system is 'coherent' tells me nothing about whether it is true. Truth is not hermetic. I cannot hide out in a system and assert its truth. For me, truth is about the relation between language and the world. A correspondence idea of truth. Coherence theories of truth are of little or no interest to me. Here is the reason: they are about coherence, not truth. We are talking about whether a sentence or a paragraph or group of paragraphs is true when set up against the world." (via)

We are approaching a nasty problem: the relation between meaning, truth, and reality. Words and worlds. How do the words we use relate to things in the world? What links the beliefs and associations I attach to words—buzzings in the ball of electric jelly inside my skull—to objects in the world around me? Strictly speaking, it is not mind-body; it is language-world. Does language connect us to the world or lead us back to ourselves?

both? (previously)

posted by kliuless (14 comments total)

Thanks for posting, this was an interesting read and I enjoyed it.

I do tend to find philosophical discussions of "truth" frustrating, because they so often seem to start with talking about the world, and end with talking about language. For example, this article seems to start with questions about how knowledge is built: "Unfettered emission of greenhouse gases promotes global warming. Species evolve through natural selection. Can we meaningfully assess the truth of these assertions?" But by the end, we're arguing about whether words can be translated, and talking about scientific terminology vs ordinary language, and how precisely or loosely words are used in each.

Like, I can see how the discussion got from A to B, but it feels like we've reduced a question of epistemology to arguing about definition of terms. This might just show my lack of sophistication, and I'm failing to get the point. It might also just be a question of focus: I am far more interested in the world itself than I am in language. :)
posted by fencerjimmy at 12:05 PM on May 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

Having read the essay, I'm sure there's a purpose behind it, but I'm not sure what it is. From an external perspective, the author seems almost petty, and the fact that his writing made it outside of a specialized publication is a little bewildering.

(I'm not the target audience, yes. But I would like to question a world in which his musings about what fact means are deemed to appeal to a broader audience than my field's discoveries.)
posted by steady-state strawberry at 12:09 PM on May 20, 2018

Here is the reason: they are about coherence, not truth.

Zing! Take that, coherence theorists! Betcha never thought of that in all your years of specialized study and exchange with others who have made similar studies (including, of course, correspondence theorists, minimalists, error theorists, and all the rest). You probably thought that you were actually giving a theory of truth in terms of coherence but no, Errol Morris, a (checks notes) documentary filmmaker, has come along to point out in what is absolutely not a petitio principii your fundamental mistake.
posted by kenko at 1:08 PM on May 20, 2018 [5 favorites]

Morris attacks Kuhn in the time-honored Johnsonian style. The Ashtray goes astray already at its subtitle. Just as Johnson made no attempt to interpret Berkeley’s position, Morris has no interest in considering what Kuhn might have had in mind. Kuhn was neither a relativist nor an irrealist. His repeated efforts to distance himself from both views — his repudiations of swarms of would-be disciples claiming him as their guru — strike Morris as evidence of confusion or dissimulation.

Based on this excerpt that seems like a reasonable assessment.
posted by kenko at 1:23 PM on May 20, 2018 [4 favorites]

I've read the first 8 paragraphs and he hasn't said anything substantively relevant to the philosophical problem he's purportedly discussing. Is it worth me wading any further? Is there anything of philosophical substance here, or is this essay really as sophomoric as the pull quote and beginning suggest?
posted by howfar at 1:33 PM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

If we limit ourselves to stuff like "did Nixon resign the Presidency?" or "did you break this vase?" then there is not much problem with truth, but of course people have gone on to say things where the question of correspondence to the facts is not so clear, such as "substance is that which is cause of itself" or "there is no fact outside of a knowing subject" or "the basis of morality is a contract that composes a society".

Is it worth me wading any further?

I enjoyed the interview with Putnam, ymmv.
posted by thelonius at 1:57 PM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

For those interested in what a few philosophers think of Errol Morris's take on Thomas Kuhn: Filmmaker Errol Morris really doesn't think much of Kuhn!
posted by standardasparagus at 2:49 PM on May 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

.....people have gone on to say things where the question of correspondence to the facts is not so clear

....and of course, the project of dividing language into pure observation sentences and theoretical terms for science to operate on the raw facts with turned out not to work so well, when they tried to roll it out last century....
posted by thelonius at 2:52 PM on May 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Is it still truth when you incorporate a long-debunked theory into your philosophical meanderings, and only put the debunking in a footnote most people will never read?
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 5:07 PM on May 20, 2018

That Morris was Kuhn’s grad student, one who dropped out of grad school based on Kuhn’s criticism, adds an interesting personal aspect to the critique.
posted by leotrotsky at 5:37 PM on May 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

of course, the project of dividing language into pure observation sentences and theoretical terms for science to operate on the raw facts with turned out not to work so well, when they tried to roll it out last century....

Once more unto the breach, dear friends ...
posted by octobersurprise at 6:51 PM on May 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

Christ, what an asshole.
posted by edheil at 7:58 PM on May 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

Having had my attention drawn once more to Kuhn's positions via Morris's attacks on them, I find far more to agree with from Kuhn than from Morris. So I owe Morris some thanks for that, I guess.
posted by flabdablet at 6:02 AM on May 21, 2018

-Peter Godfrey-Smith, Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
-Harry Collins, Are We All Scientific Experts Now?
-Harry Collins and Robert Evans, Why Democracies Need Science
posted by kliuless at 9:06 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]