The Pragmatic Conception of Truth

Our world is full of doubts. Claims of “fake news” abound. Each side of any particular debate claims to have the truth on their side. So how do we know what’s true and what’s false? How do we distinguish between a fact and a falsehood? The American philosophical school of Pragmatism had an answer. In the words of William James, as he wrote in the essay Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth:

“True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot. That is the practical difference it makes to us to have true ideas; that, therefore, is the meaning of truth, for it is all that truth is known-as.”

Do you agree? What does mere practicality have to do with truth?

Join the Syracuse Philosophy Club for its last meetup of the year as we debate one of the most fundamental and contentious topics in philosophy: the nature of truth itself. We will mainly discuss ideas from William James’ essay Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2012189?seq=1

We’ll also discuss the various philosophical notions of truth and compare them to the pragmatist conception. Various questions to be raised include:

• What kinds of things can be true or false?
• Does truth require justification?
• Can something be true without verification?
• Is agreement necessary for something to be true?

And we will apply our ideas to some of the following issues:

• Vaccine skepticism
• Scientific truth and facts
• Conspiracy theories
• “Fake” news
• Whatever else!

Happy thinking!