THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS VIDEO!! Currently a college student taking philosophy and watching videos like this helps me so much more than just reading it. KEEP MAKIN EM
That's all fine, but it leaves out an important part of pragmatism, namely that it eschews metaphysics, and specifically a notion of "objectivity," in the sense of "corresponding to reality," which is the traditional definition of "Truth." The pragmatist says we can identify "utility" by way of justification, but we can't actually identify "objectivity" by way of justification - we can only insist upon it as a metaphysical claim. So asking "What is Truth," to the pragmatist is same as asking "How are we to use the notion of 'truth' without making metaphysical claims?" To which they answer by not bothering with "Truth" in some "objective" sense and focusing on "utility" instead. i.e. If an idea is justifiably "useful" then it is as good as "True," for our purposes, and that's all that matters.
‘What is truth?’… it’s a function of language. See, we go about navigating the world, attempting to make sense of it. Language is one of the tools we use to handle the world. We parse statements and propositions into two piles; true statements and false statements. But truth doesn’t apply to language as a whole… makes no sense to say, ‘French is false’, but distinct statements made in French can be parsed, just as distinct statements made in English can be. Statements and propositions (s/p) are truth claims made about the world, and thus, are context-dependent; never “objective” or “universal”, if they carry any sense of ‘the eternal’, with its implications. S/Ps are representations, the way a picture or painting of a tree isn’t a tree, but represents/reflects/symbolizes a tree. Truth is how well a statement adheres to the world. Since only a ‘subject’ can observe, verify, contemplate, prove, ascribe value/meaning… truth is subjective… cuz it depends on a subject to verify the claim; an object cannot. ‘Eschewing’ metaphysics, “objectivity”, and “traditional notions of truth” is to what detriment? You didn’t name one… you just claimed the end of these things would happen… mmkay, so what? Perhaps we have unnecessarily clouded the world with concepts that have increased the problems rather than solving them, as they (the early realists/idealists) had promised… perhaps, pragmatism is a filter we can use to separate ‘the wheat from the chaff’ and better handle the world, without evoking the existence of properties, ghosts, and god
@@rortys.kierkegaard9980 I understand what you mean, but I think your whole second paragraph is an example of the type of convoluted language that motivates people to replace it with pragmatist language. For exactly the reasons you allude to in that paragraph, we can't tell the difference between an "objective truth" and a "subjective truth." They both always look the same to us, which is why dancing around, pretending the difference matters only leads to confusion. "The world as it is, is always the world as it appears" - AJ Ayer. The point of pragmatism is the realization that we can change our vocabulary so as to speak only in terms of "utility" and "justification" while ignoring this notion of "Truth" that you seem so enamored by and yet still reach the same epistemological conclusions we do now, so its unclear what purpose you think your notion of "Truth" serves in the first place. The reason we want to do this, i.e. the reason we want to "eschew metaphysics," ("metaphysics" is what you are doing, i.e. proposing an ontology) is because its the source of so many of our actual disagreements. Very often two people will disagree about "what is true" and they both think they are "right" in the sense that they "know what is real." But they can't progress in their disagreement precisely because they think in those terms. But if they thought in pragmatist terms, at the very least they could come to an understanding about why the other person thinks the way they do, which, hopefully, leads to a better relationship between them, if nothing else. In short, metaphysics, including yours, doesn't seem to do what metaphysicians claim it does. Metaphysics doesn't lead to any clarity or knowledge or understanding or whatever, that we can't just as well get without it. Meanwhile it is a constant source of disagreement, an often is an outright tool of social control (see religion), which is why we are better off without it.
@ pragmatism is more of a methodology and an ideology… please provide for the world and the entirety of philosophy a definition of “objective” without reference to a subject… please produce a counter example where the property of ‘truthful-mess’ instantiates into an object; any will do…. a last, but never least, please proved the response to the third man argument against the existence of platonic entities… then we can talk about realism’s other shortcomings
@@rortys.kierkegaard9980 Fair enough. But I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand your point. Is there some problem with pragmatism being a "methodology" as opposed to an "ideology?" What do you hope to accomplish in making such a distinction? Are your "please provide..." statements meant to be the statements that pragmatists make? If so, they seem reasonable enough, I guess, but what of them? The only point I wish to make is that explicating what we call epistemology in a pragmatist vocabulary is preferable to explicating what we call epistemology in a metaphysical vocabulary. The reason this is preferable is because metaphysics is only ever a source of confusion and contention, but never clarity, which is why we are better of without it.
@ methodology isn’t committed to ontological axiomatic first principles… even the methodology can be altered to reflect the epistemological/metaphysical concerns of the time. “…statements meant to be the statements…” Firstly, not many pragmatists are moved by ‘ought’ statement aside from their usefulness. And wouldn’t the ‘ought-ness’ you imply I’m committed to, answer your question regarding the difference between ideologies and methodology… another great example distinguishing the two: one can use reason to arrive at truth without being exclusively committed to the first principles of rationalism Secondly, the failure of metaphysics to solve the remaining problems of philosophy, that we can agree on… After 2000+ years of trying, we can say, ‘we gave it all we got’
PhilosophyToons, I have to thank you for expanding my interest in pragmatism. I already found some of these ideas interesting before, specially the ones by James, but it was your videos that made that interest grow to the point where I felt compelled to read his books. Here's a question to ponder: though in a surface level it seems correct to say that not all useful beliefs are true isn't a false belief also necessarely useless? At least to the extent that one understands "usefulness" as a long term objective? Even if a false belief be "useful" for a while, by the very fact of it being false that means it's built upon a faulty foundation based on a view of reality which is incorrect and that therefore cannot stand the test of time. Evenually reality will manifest itself and when that happens everything that was useful at some point previously will then be seen as most use-less.
Interesting thought. I'm trying to think of a situation where believing in a false believe would be useful for the rest of your life if you never encounter a time where it would be falsified. But I agree that false ideas usually will hit a wall and can't continue being useful eventually.
If an idea is "false" and yet also "useful," then its unclear why it being "false" should bother me, let alone why I would think it "false" in the first place. The pragmatist point is precisely that "false" and "useful" are not incompatible in some ontological sense, but only incompatible in a practical sense. If said idea stops being useful in the future, then so be it, and if you want to call that idea "false" because of that, then fine. What matters is always utility, never veracity, because only utility can be demonstrably justified by way of experience.
_When I tell you that I am Michael, you don’t know if that is true or not._ _You can believe it or not._ _Whether a statement is true or not, has nothing to do with _*_The Truth_* .
Yes. Because the truth is he cares for himself more when he role plays. In pragmatism you have near truths and those are never complete facts. a pramatic truth is only based on facts and is not near.
but the bug was harmful before it bit you and before you believed it, so truth does not happen to your ideas, the truth remained the same, your ideas are the ones bending, changing and happening. forgive me it i misunderstood.
idea is an experiment, not a solution. However it might be, if we didn't have a better alternative. Truth is what created by verification. The bug could be harmful, but we didn't know that, so the truth was unknown
Before the bug bit you, what sense is there in saying "the bug is harmful?" How would you know that? What would be justification for saying that? It is only AFTER the bug bites you that the statement "the bug is harmful" can be deemed justified by way of your experience. So yes, it sure seems like "the bug was harmful before it bit you," but even that is a statement only justified by the experience of being bit. The point is that when we call any given statement "true," what we are doing is commenting on what we find justified given our experience, but NOT on the "state of the world independent of our experience," which is the traditional, metaphysical notion of "Truth" that you are alluding to.
Truth is what it is no matter what if you know it or not are or if you can verify it. We verify things to make sure we know what the information we have is true. Just because something is useful doesn't make it true. Or else how is a useful lie any different from the truth. Just because Religion is helping people live better doesn't mean God exists. Just because murdering people was useful in keeping person a from punishment and jail don't mean he didn't murder another person or that it was morally good.
_Prefer what makes you think, or what trains your mind to break the barrier of your ego. Avoid book authors, intellectuals, etc., especially people that surround you, who are eager to tell you the "truth". The "truth" others tell us is always their "truth". None of us have the truth. The truth is , what is within the heart of each one of us, even if we do not admit or hide it perverting it with our opinions and preconceptions that have been inculcated into our minds since our birth._ _The truth they tell us, enslaves. The truth that is inside our hearts frees us from our shackles. The Truth is unique, and resides in the heart of each one of us! It is up to each one of us to express truth that is in our own hearts. The truth can only play its true role if it is freely and openly expressed._
_First of all, an _*_IDEA_*_ can never be true. An _*_IDEA_*_ can turn out to be profitable, or worthless. An _*_IDEA_*_ , can be profitable for few, and detrimental to many. You see, your HEADLINE is: _*_WHAT IS THE TRUTH?_*_ , but you give your audience a number of examples of what is considered to be _*_TRUE_*_ , by you and some philosophers! That’s called intellectual dishonesty, and any kind of dishonesty has not the faintest tangent to the _*_TRUTH_* .
This is my exact mentality behind the use of AI. Truth lies in rock-solid integrity of one’s claims being backed by experience and provable fact. The fact that people are willing to consult today’s representation of Plato’s Oracle of Delphi and take its output as fact worries me immensely. Truth lies in establishing proof from reality. Skipping the stage in which we come to that conclusion ourselves is how we lose critical thinking skills permanently. We’re watching the outsourcing of our own minds to a subscription-based “thought” system and taking its word as God.
Bro. Delicious is an opinion. The earth has greater mass than you, is truth. Stop claiming opinions to be truth. Or call them something different, like uhhh opinions. Ridiculous.
I believe our filmmaker was stating that “pizza is delicious” is a truth because that’s what the individual in question had proven to himself by having experienced said deliciousness firsthand. Thusly, all truths are also opinions, but not all opinions are also truths. Like the whole square/rectangle conundrum that our beloved filmmaker alluded to near the end of the piece.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS VIDEO!! Currently a college student taking philosophy and watching videos like this helps me so much more than just reading it. KEEP MAKIN EM
That's all fine, but it leaves out an important part of pragmatism, namely that it eschews metaphysics, and specifically a notion of "objectivity," in the sense of "corresponding to reality," which is the traditional definition of "Truth." The pragmatist says we can identify "utility" by way of justification, but we can't actually identify "objectivity" by way of justification - we can only insist upon it as a metaphysical claim. So asking "What is Truth," to the pragmatist is same as asking "How are we to use the notion of 'truth' without making metaphysical claims?" To which they answer by not bothering with "Truth" in some "objective" sense and focusing on "utility" instead. i.e. If an idea is justifiably "useful" then it is as good as "True," for our purposes, and that's all that matters.
‘What is truth?’… it’s a function of language. See, we go about navigating the world, attempting to make sense of it. Language is one of the tools we use to handle the world. We parse statements and propositions into two piles; true statements and false statements. But truth doesn’t apply to language as a whole… makes no sense to say, ‘French is false’, but distinct statements made in French can be parsed, just as distinct statements made in English can be.
Statements and propositions (s/p) are truth claims made about the world, and thus, are context-dependent; never “objective” or “universal”, if they carry any sense of ‘the eternal’, with its implications. S/Ps are representations, the way a picture or painting of a tree isn’t a tree, but represents/reflects/symbolizes a tree. Truth is how well a statement adheres to the world. Since only a ‘subject’ can observe, verify, contemplate, prove, ascribe value/meaning… truth is subjective… cuz it depends on a subject to verify the claim; an object cannot.
‘Eschewing’ metaphysics, “objectivity”, and “traditional notions of truth” is to what detriment? You didn’t name one… you just claimed the end of these things would happen… mmkay, so what? Perhaps we have unnecessarily clouded the world with concepts that have increased the problems rather than solving them, as they (the early realists/idealists) had promised… perhaps, pragmatism is a filter we can use to separate ‘the wheat from the chaff’ and better handle the world, without evoking the existence of properties, ghosts, and god
@@rortys.kierkegaard9980 I understand what you mean, but I think your whole second paragraph is an example of the type of convoluted language that motivates people to replace it with pragmatist language. For exactly the reasons you allude to in that paragraph, we can't tell the difference between an "objective truth" and a "subjective truth." They both always look the same to us, which is why dancing around, pretending the difference matters only leads to confusion. "The world as it is, is always the world as it appears" - AJ Ayer.
The point of pragmatism is the realization that we can change our vocabulary so as to speak only in terms of "utility" and "justification" while ignoring this notion of "Truth" that you seem so enamored by and yet still reach the same epistemological conclusions we do now, so its unclear what purpose you think your notion of "Truth" serves in the first place.
The reason we want to do this, i.e. the reason we want to "eschew metaphysics," ("metaphysics" is what you are doing, i.e. proposing an ontology) is because its the source of so many of our actual disagreements. Very often two people will disagree about "what is true" and they both think they are "right" in the sense that they "know what is real." But they can't progress in their disagreement precisely because they think in those terms. But if they thought in pragmatist terms, at the very least they could come to an understanding about why the other person thinks the way they do, which, hopefully, leads to a better relationship between them, if nothing else.
In short, metaphysics, including yours, doesn't seem to do what metaphysicians claim it does. Metaphysics doesn't lead to any clarity or knowledge or understanding or whatever, that we can't just as well get without it. Meanwhile it is a constant source of disagreement, an often is an outright tool of social control (see religion), which is why we are better off without it.
@ pragmatism is more of a methodology and an ideology… please provide for the world and the entirety of philosophy a definition of “objective” without reference to a subject… please produce a counter example where the property of ‘truthful-mess’ instantiates into an object; any will do…. a last, but never least, please proved the response to the third man argument against the existence of platonic entities… then we can talk about realism’s other shortcomings
@@rortys.kierkegaard9980 Fair enough. But I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand your point. Is there some problem with pragmatism being a "methodology" as opposed to an "ideology?" What do you hope to accomplish in making such a distinction?
Are your "please provide..." statements meant to be the statements that pragmatists make? If so, they seem reasonable enough, I guess, but what of them?
The only point I wish to make is that explicating what we call epistemology in a pragmatist vocabulary is preferable to explicating what we call epistemology in a metaphysical vocabulary. The reason this is preferable is because metaphysics is only ever a source of confusion and contention, but never clarity, which is why we are better of without it.
@ methodology isn’t committed to ontological axiomatic first principles… even the methodology can be altered to reflect the epistemological/metaphysical concerns of the time.
“…statements meant to be the statements…”
Firstly, not many pragmatists are moved by ‘ought’ statement aside from their usefulness. And wouldn’t the ‘ought-ness’ you imply I’m committed to, answer your question regarding the difference between ideologies and methodology… another great example distinguishing the two: one can use reason to arrive at truth without being exclusively committed to the first principles of rationalism
Secondly, the failure of metaphysics to solve the remaining problems of philosophy, that we can agree on… After 2000+ years of trying, we can say, ‘we gave it all we got’
Hopefully your enjoying the end of the year thanks for all the videos
Thank ya!
Truth gone wild. The philosopher's version of Girls gone wild.
This is so much easier to understand then how my professor explained it thank you
Great video. Thanks for taking the time to explain in such detail. Cheers regards from Colombia.
Could u start including the references that you use for your videos? It would be a great help for validity!
why am I even in university when videos like this exist
Cuz u was brainwashed .
I don't understand my college text book on William James. Thank you!
Amazing content with an extraordinary way of describing 💥💥💥💥😍😍
Great videos.
Great video, thank you very much , note to self(nts) watched twice ……
PhilosophyToons, I have to thank you for expanding my interest in pragmatism. I already found some of these ideas interesting before, specially the ones by James, but it was your videos that made that interest grow to the point where I felt compelled to read his books. Here's a question to ponder: though in a surface level it seems correct to say that not all useful beliefs are true isn't a false belief also necessarely useless? At least to the extent that one understands "usefulness" as a long term objective? Even if a false belief be "useful" for a while, by the very fact of it being false that means it's built upon a faulty foundation based on a view of reality which is incorrect and that therefore cannot stand the test of time. Evenually reality will manifest itself and when that happens everything that was useful at some point previously will then be seen as most use-less.
Interesting thought. I'm trying to think of a situation where believing in a false believe would be useful for the rest of your life if you never encounter a time where it would be falsified. But I agree that false ideas usually will hit a wall and can't continue being useful eventually.
@@PhilosophyToons Appreciate the response :) sorry for the long comment... As a fellow philosophy graduate I'm sure you understand 😆
Might we say that false belief might be useful but with more potential downsides in the future (as compared to true and useful belief)?
If an idea is "false" and yet also "useful," then its unclear why it being "false" should bother me, let alone why I would think it "false" in the first place. The pragmatist point is precisely that "false" and "useful" are not incompatible in some ontological sense, but only incompatible in a practical sense. If said idea stops being useful in the future, then so be it, and if you want to call that idea "false" because of that, then fine. What matters is always utility, never veracity, because only utility can be demonstrably justified by way of experience.
Well done.
Interesting, thank you.
_When I tell you that I am Michael, you don’t know if that is true or not._ _You can believe it or not._ _Whether a statement is true or not, has nothing to do with _*_The Truth_* .
Yes.
Because the truth is he cares for himself more when he role plays.
In pragmatism you have near truths and those are never complete facts.
a pramatic truth is only based on facts and is not near.
but the bug was harmful before it bit you and before you believed it, so truth does not happen to your ideas, the truth remained the same, your ideas are the ones bending, changing and happening. forgive me it i misunderstood.
I get ur point.
@@urlocalnerd1561 but…?
idea is an experiment, not a solution. However it might be, if we didn't have a better alternative. Truth is what created by verification. The bug could be harmful, but we didn't know that, so the truth was unknown
Before the bug bit you, what sense is there in saying "the bug is harmful?" How would you know that? What would be justification for saying that?
It is only AFTER the bug bites you that the statement "the bug is harmful" can be deemed justified by way of your experience.
So yes, it sure seems like "the bug was harmful before it bit you," but even that is a statement only justified by the experience of being bit. The point is that when we call any given statement "true," what we are doing is commenting on what we find justified given our experience, but NOT on the "state of the world independent of our experience," which is the traditional, metaphysical notion of "Truth" that you are alluding to.
Truth is what it is no matter what if you know it or not are or if you can verify it. We verify things to make sure we know what the information we have is true. Just because something is useful doesn't make it true. Or else how is a useful lie any different from the truth. Just because Religion is helping people live better doesn't mean God exists. Just because murdering people was useful in keeping person a from punishment and jail don't mean he didn't murder another person or that it was morally good.
_Prefer what makes you think, or what trains your mind to break the barrier of your ego. Avoid book authors, intellectuals, etc., especially people that surround you, who are eager to tell you the "truth". The "truth" others tell us is always their "truth". None of us have the truth. The truth is , what is within the heart of each one of us, even if we do not admit or hide it perverting it with our opinions and preconceptions that have been inculcated into our minds since our birth._
_The truth they tell us, enslaves. The truth that is inside our hearts frees us from our shackles. The Truth is unique, and resides in the heart of each one of us! It is up to each one of us to express truth that is in our own hearts. The truth can only play its true role if it is freely and openly expressed._
Wouldn’t you need the person that has been to Antarctica to prove it?truth seems anecdotal
_First of all, an _*_IDEA_*_ can never be true. An _*_IDEA_*_ can turn out to be profitable, or worthless. An _*_IDEA_*_ , can be profitable for few, and detrimental to many. You see, your HEADLINE is: _*_WHAT IS THE TRUTH?_*_ , but you give your audience a number of examples of what is considered to be _*_TRUE_*_ , by you and some philosophers! That’s called intellectual dishonesty, and any kind of dishonesty has not the faintest tangent to the _*_TRUTH_* .
This is my exact mentality behind the use of AI. Truth lies in rock-solid integrity of one’s claims being backed by experience and provable fact. The fact that people are willing to consult today’s representation of Plato’s Oracle of Delphi and take its output as fact worries me immensely.
Truth lies in establishing proof from reality. Skipping the stage in which we come to that conclusion ourselves is how we lose critical thinking skills permanently. We’re watching the outsourcing of our own minds to a subscription-based “thought” system and taking its word as God.
Nice work !
Thank you!
Who is Sasha Grey?
Millennials crush
One of them skinny pronto star gals that can unhinge her jaw like a ball python. And yeah millennials def crush on her.
good video love from china
4 the algorithm
Bro. Delicious is an opinion. The earth has greater mass than you, is truth. Stop claiming opinions to be truth. Or call them something different, like uhhh opinions. Ridiculous.
I believe our filmmaker was stating that “pizza is delicious” is a truth because that’s what the individual in question had proven to himself by having experienced said deliciousness firsthand.
Thusly, all truths are also opinions, but not all opinions are also truths.
Like the whole square/rectangle conundrum that our beloved filmmaker alluded to near the end of the piece.
bro wtf i think im sub consciously a pragmatist
😂 Sasha Grey used to be my crush
Floss
Boring af ... nothing informal...
currently procrastinating on my exams, not regretting, this is way more interesting