V7. 18. 19, 20. how an irrationalist. See also Steven Galt Crowell, “Making Logic Philosophical Again,” in Reading Heidegger from the Start: Essays in His Earliest Thought, ed. Theodore Kisiel and John van Buren (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 58-72. See On the Way to Language, 8 and What is Called Thinking, 154 for Heidegger’s own com- ‘ments on his extensive inquiries into logic, logos, po- etry and language from the 1930s onward. Watkin, Difficult Atheism, 151-62, makes these points (among others) in support of his eventual con- clusion that Meillassoux’s “own thought either idol- ises reason in the same way that he criticises meta- physics for idolising necessity, or his thought is fideistic in the same way that, once again, he de- nounces in the case of metaphysics” (162). Tbid., 147. Watkin makes this point with reference to Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophy of the finite, but it serves equally well here with regard to Heidegger's thought. Heidegger repeatedly hints at or argues for the link between Christian faith and the philosophical identi- fication of knowledge with certainty (and the mathe- matical) in modemity in his analyses of the history of being; see What is a Thing, 99 but especially The End of Philosophy, 19-26, Being and Time, 18-22, 41ff., 211 See Watkin, Difficult Atheism, 142 and his citation from the original version of L'Inexistence divine 21. 22. 23. (236) regarding how “rationalist contingency” is Judeo-Christian in origin. Regarding the hoped for world of justice and related themes, see Appendix, 187-238 and “Spectral Dilemma,” 261~75; see also Harman, Quentin Meillassowx, 90-122 and Watkin, Difficult Atheism, 170-76, 206-13, for discussions of these themes. This is Harman’s criticism; see “Interview with Quentin Meillassoux,” 167, and Harman, Quentin Meillassoux, 151-52. Cf. a related criticism from Harman (145-49) that Meillassoux’s ontology in- volves a “continuing allegiance to a vision of the world as merely a depthless counterpoint to human thought” (146) that does not acknowledge or allow for there being more to things than our knowledge of them. See Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 85-94. Cf. his comments in “Speculative Re- alism,” 318-19, 331-32. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Continental Philosophy working group at the Pitts- burgh Area Philosophy Colloquium, September 10, 2011 at Washington and Jefferson College. My thanks to the participants (Rich Findler, J. Edward Hackett, Phillip Honenburger, Hans Pedersen, Tom Sparrow) for their input and suggestions. Bethany College, Bethany, West Virginia 26032 PHILOSOPHY TODAY IT’S TURTLES ALL THE WAY AROUND REALISM AND PRAGMATISM, YET AGAIN We've all heard the one about how the world is supported by resting on the back of an ele- phant, which stands on the back ofa turtle, which in turn is supported by a long series of turtles “all the way down.” The story is supposed to show that any form of foundationalism is negated by its unending need for further foundational support. Of course, the story begs the question: “All the way down” to what? I shall return to this question near the close of this exploration. ke This issue continues to haunt epistemological discussions about how we can support our claims to knowledge about the world. On the one hand, we have “realism,” which contends that our knowledge of the world is based on our interac- tion with it through sense perception and logical reasoning It does not need any further support. On the other hand, we have “pragmatism,” which contends that the only support that is available for our knowledge claims is common, human agreement among those who seek it. Whatever claims “work” are deemed to be “true.” What used to be called “idealism” seems no longer to be in the conversation. In other words, the question of ultimate epistemological support comes to rest on the is- sue concerning how we can ever know whether or not we actually “know” how things are in the world, apart from our opinions about how they are. The “realist” argues that we must and can rely on scientific and logical investigations to separate the errors out from the truth. The “prag- matist” argues that these methods in the end come down to which scientists and logicians are we to believe. Moreover, because of the “princi- ple of indeterminacy,” whatever answers we come up with will be skewed by the very pro- cesses of our investigations themselves. PHILOSOPHY TODAY Jerry H. Gill While the “realist” argues that the foundations of our knowledge of the world are based on sci- ence and logic, the “pragmatist” argues that these very methods are themselves dependent on yet other, more individual, social, and political fac- tors than we have ever realized and/or admitted. So, like in the story of the elephant and the turtles, as we keep asking what supports the processes by means of which we seek to justify our knowledge claims, we find that there is no thing asa final, ul- timate support for our knowledge claims. What, then, saves us from complete skepticism? In my mind it is the pragmatists who best point the way, so I shall focus on their perspective. knee Several very creative pragmatist thinkers have, over the years, sought to solve this serious dilemma, and it is instructive to consider their various approaches and answers. I shall begin with a brief review of the contributions of several of these recent thinkers before moving on to my own point of view. Let us begin with Richard Rorty, formerly of Princeton University, who be- gan as an ordinary language philosopher and then moved on to become what might be de- scribed as a linguistic pragmatist. Rorty is most famous for summarizing his position in the fol- lowing statement: “truth is simply what your colleagues will allow you to get away with saying.” In other words, according to Rorty, all we can ever do is seek to keep the conversation about truth and reality going in a sane and open-minded manner, and this is surely sufficient. What we and others are willing to acceptas knowledge and truth as we continue our philosophical conversa~ tions is what at that point in time serves as the “truth.” He prefers the notion of “solidarity” to “objectivity” in relation to the search for knowl- WINTER 2013edge. The realist seeks objectivity while the pragmatist simply seeks some sense of commu- nity and agreement, what Rorty prefers to call “ethnocentrism,” among those who search for the truth in any given field or culture. Here is how Rorty puts the matter: On my view there is no point in distinguishing be- tween true sentences which are ‘made true by real- ity’ and true sentences which are “made true by us” because the whole idea of “truth makers” needs to be dropped. So I would hold that there is mo truth in relativism, but this much truth in ethnocentrism: ‘we cannot justify our beliefs (in physics, ethics, or any other area to everybody, but only to those whose beliefs overlap ours to some appropriate ex- tent).” Rorty goes on to compare the pragmatist’s justification for taking up this open-ended pos- ture toward the search for truth Winston Chur- chill’s justification of democracy as “the worst form of government imaginable, except for all the rest.” When asked how we should determine what degree of overlap amongst our beliefs we should accept as “appropriate” in determining what to call “knowledge,” Rorty would presum- ably reply that this too can only be determined in the midst of the push-and-pull of our on-going, cross-cultural conversations. There is no bed- rock epistemological “foundation,” only the in- teractive process of shared investigation. In short, according to Rorty the pragmatist claims that although the search for truth and knowledge is meaningful, it does not ever allow us to claim that our views correspond to “the na- ture of things.” Rather, the pragmatist holds an “ethnocentric” view of such things, namely that since each culture and sub-culture arrives at its truths by means of its own criteria, its claims to knowledge are limited to the parameters set by these criteria. Thus no person or group ina given culture can ever claim to have gone beyond its ‘own parameters with its knowledge claims. We must do away with any ultimate distinction be- tween knowledge and opinion. Over the years Rorty has carried ona dialogue about the implications of his pragmatist point of view with several other like-minded thinkers, PHILOSOPHY TODAY such as Paul Feyerabend, Donald Davidson, and Hilary Putnam. However, it is his dialogue with Putnam, formerly of Harvard University, that fo- cuses on what may well be the crucial epistemo- logical issue concerning the difference between the “realist” perspective and that of the “pragma- tists.” In his book Reason, Truth, and History, Putnam develops an “‘internalist” view of prag- matism, distinguishing it from the “relativism” of other pragmatists.” Putnam, too, gives up on any form of “objectivism,” a God’s-eye view of reality from which one could induce and deduce how “things really are” with the world, and in theory come to ultimate knowledge and truth. However, at the same time Putnam wants to distinguish his own pragmatist view from the likes of Feyerabend, Davidson, and Rorty by claiming that their vari- ‘us pragmatist theories fall victim to the criticism of self-refutation. For, their own statement of their theories as the “true” view of how things are with regard to knowledge and truth itself entails a commitment to some transcendent criterion. Putnam presents his “internalist” version of pragmatism as a “middle way” between realism and relativism. While he agrees that there are no criteria for knowledge and truth that lie outside of given cultures and sub-cultures, he also thinks that every claim to knowledge and truth made within any cultural context carries with ita basic implication that there is some ideal point of view from which it would be possible to judge which individual claims are veridical. In the final sen- tence of his book Putnam says: “The very fact that we speak of our different conceptions of ra- tionality posits a Grenzbegriff, a limit-concept of ideal truth.” His reasoning is that although we can only hope to produce knowledge and truth within our own cultural traditions and definitions, accord- ing to our own culturally devised criteria, this on- going “truly human dialogue” entails a point of supposed “convergence.” Even when we affirm that we are limited to our own cultural norms and criteria, we implicitly also affirm that there is an ideal toward which we seek to move, since the meaning of our denial of the possibility of ever achieving such a God’s-eye view depends on the interplay between the two concepts. The two notions are logically symbiotic. Itis at this point that Rorty thinks Putnam falls back into some version or other of “objectivism.” He maintains that the two notions are not logi- cally connected, that “to say that what is rational for us now to believe may not be true, is simply to say that somebody may come up with a better idea.” To say this, in Rorty’s view, in no way en- tails the existence of some idealized criterion above and beyond our on-going conversations. It simply means that as we go along investigating and arguing about which interpretation best fits our data we may well come up with yet another interpretation that provides a better, more inclusive account of the data. So, although both Rorty and Putnam set aside the traditional “realist” view of knowledge and truth in the name of “pragmatism,” they ulti- mately part company over whether or not the on- going conversation about such matters implies some sort of extra-conyersational goal or end- point, which in turn serves as an external stan- dard or goal for the conversation itself. Putnam contends that a rationally meaningful conversa- tion requires such an external point of reference, even though it may well go unstated. Rorty, using Occam’s razor, contends that such a notion is simply extra baggage that serves no real function. eae If we turn our attention to the other side of the Atlantic to European postmodern deconstructiv- ists we encounter quite a different perspective. In contrast to the totally open-ended posture of the likes of Jacques Derrida, the work of Jean- Frangois Lyotard opens up yet another line of ap- proach which may provide us with some fresh in- sights. Lyotard draws upon the later Wittgen- stein, surprisingly enough, and his notion of “language games” in order to find a way to legiti- mize our knowledge claims without calling nos- talgically upon some transcendent criterion, on the one hand, or falling into mere subjective relativism, on the other. Along with Rorty, Lyotard argues that epistemological language games are sufficient in and of themselves to serve as a matrix for knowl- edge and truth. Here is how he puts it: ‘We can say today that the mourning process has been completed. There is no need to start all over again. Wittgenstein’s strength is that he did not opt for the positivism that was being developed by the Vienna Circle, but outlined in his investigations of language games a kind of legitimation not based on performativity. This is what the postmodern world is all about. Most people have lost the nos- talgia for the lost narrative, It in no way follows thatthey are reduced to barbarity. What saves them from it is their knowledge that legitimation can only spring from their own practice and communi- cational interaction, Science... has taught them the harsh austerity of realism.’ So, apparently for Lyotard the question of the “basis” for our confidence in our own knowledge claims has been settled. Our confidence derives, not from some transcendent reference, or hoped for external apex of pure truth but from our ongo- ing linguistic activity which swirls around efforts to describe and understand reality. We owe our confidence to “the existence of a language whose tules of functioning cannot themselves be dem- onstrated but are the objects of consensus among experts.” The meaning and truth of our language games are then themselves a function of the lin- guistic contexts within which they find themselves. Lyotard, then, follows Rorty’s lead by grounding our knowledge and truth claims in the dynamics of dialogical “consensus” among those who are involved with any specific scientific question or search. He reminds us that “consen- sus is a horizon that is never reached. Research that takes place under the aegis of a paradigm tends to stabilize it... but what is striking is that someone always comes along to disturb its or- der.” In other words, Lyotard suggests that we think of the process of verification as following a horizontal rather than a vertical trajectory that looks for temporary agreement among peers rather than for a formal resolution. The introduction of the notion of a horizon into this discussion opens up yet another angle of approach, since a horizon would seem to hold REALISM AND PRAGMATISMsomething of a symbiotic relation to any current particular epistemological standpoint. That is to say, although one can never reach any given hori- zon, as one moves toward it the horizon functions as the stabilizing goal or point of focus in one’s journey. Thus it is both a stable, final goal and a constantly expanding cognitive context. Search- ers for knowledge and truth aim at the horizon “gs if” it were a final resting place, even though at the same time they also acknowledge that it will continue to expand Since Lyotard has introduced Wittgenstein’s notion of language games into this discussion we might profit from considering one of his interest- ing examples. When he was discussing the rela- tionship between the definitions of concepts and the practice of employing them, Wittgenstein brings up the question of truth in relation to hu- man agreement within language games. He ar- gues that the relation between them is symbiotic in the sense that although what we decide to call the “truth” in any given case is a function of our human agreement, there is as well a sense in which we are mutually seeking to stabilize our findings. Wittgenstein expresses it this way: So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?—It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the Janguage they use. That is not agreement in opinions but in form of life. If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgments. This seems to abolish logic, but does not do so, — It is one thing to describe methods of measurement, and another to obtain and state results of measurement. But what we call “measuring” is partly determined by a certain con- stancy in results of measurement.’ In short, according to Wittgenstein the “deal,” represented in this example by the act of defining the concept of “measurement,” and the “actual” represented here by the act of actually making measurements, are mutually interdepen- dent. Thus, one might say that the truth concern- ing the meaning of the notion of measurement and the practice of making measurements are PHILOSOPHY TODAY symbiotic, they mutually define each other. What we mean by “measuring” is a function of the defi- nition of the term “measurement,” but at the same time this definition is a function of what we actually obtain when we make measurements. This sort of symbiosis is not unlike that be- tween a horizon and a given location in space. The definition or identification of the horizon “stabilizes” one’s particular location in space, while at the same time yielding to one’s on-going efforts to move beyond the horizon. This way of putting the matter brings us back to the debate be- tween Rorty and Putnam. Rorty insists that any “ideal” notions of ultimate knowledge and truth, like the notion ofa stable horizon, are as impossi- ble as they are unnecessary. Putnam, on the other hand, maintains that within our search for knowl- edge and truth lies the implicit desire and need for an ultimate epistemological “horizon.” This position of Putnam’s might remind one of Thomas Aquinas’ “fourth way” of proving God’s existence, namely from “the degrees of perfection.” He argued that with respect to any given concept we can judge between different in- stances of it as to which more fully embodies that concept. Thus, given a series of geometric fig- ures one can easily judge which of them is closer to being, for example, a true circle. Thus one must clearly know what a true or perfect circle is in order to be able to judge which is closer to a perfect circle. In other words, as with Putnam’s argument, without a standard at which to aim our efforts to acquire truth and knowledge would simply be an exercise in wheel spinning Yet another example of this approach of Putnam’s can be found in the debate over whether knowledge must be defined in terms of the threefold conjunction of belief, justification, and truth. By many philosophers, notably Roderick Chisholm, knowledge is said to be best defined as “justified true belief.” However, some thinkers, myselfamong them, have raised the ob- jection that the requirement involving “truth” is in fact redundant since there is no way to deter- mine the truth of a belief apart from examining whether or not it is justified. The former simply collapses into the latter. Requiring that a belief be “true” in addition to being “justified” is somewhat like Putnam’s con- tention that our conversations about truth and knowledge must be aimed at an ultimate “bound- ary limit” in order to be truly meaningful. He ar- gues that the idealized notions of knowledge and truth are what our epistemological efforts are driven by. Rorty’s reply, clearly, would be that such requirements are superfluous, that our ef- forts to obtain truth and knowledge, embodied within our on-going pragmatic conversations, are simply an end-in-themselves. That is to say, the assuredly temporary findings of such efforts suffice us as we go along. eee Well, what is one to make of all this? I must admit that I myself am betwixt and between on this issue of the need for an “external point of ref- erence” or a “boundary limit” for our search for truth and knowledge to be meaningful. On the one hand, without such an ideal standard or crite- rion for guiding our search, we seem to be caught in a vicious circle simply sharing our prejudices and ultimately our ignorance. On the other hand, it is hard to see just how we could ever transcend our own shared, on-going investigations in order even to speak of such an ideal standard, let alone achieve it. Rorty claims that all we can ever hope to have are our investigations, that “there is only the dialogue,” while Putnam argues that there must also be a horizon, that “there is also that to which the dialogue converges.” Asusual, when ina quandary itis always wise to tun to those thinkers who have provided you with the most helpful insight and guidance along the way. Having already appealed to Wittgen- stein as one such source of wisdom, I would like now to turn to two additional seminal thinkers who may offer a way of dealing with this issue. The first is Michael Polanyi and the second is Al- fred North Whitehead. Perhaps together these two creative thinkers can show us the way out of the woods. Although Polanyi and Whitehead are not generally thought of as colleagues in thought, I myself have always found them to be such. In the midst of developing his insights con- cerning cognitivity in general and tacit knowing in particular, Polanyi has a number of things to say about the nature and development of scien- tific discoveries and truth. On the one hand, he stresses the importance of tradition in the on-go- ing search for truth. We can never begin at the be- ginning but must always pay attention to the con- tributions that have brought us to the present. In short, we must preserve the insights and results of previous instigations. Atthe same time, however, we must always be willing to consider fresh pros- pects and even possibilities that contravene our traditional wisdom. So, tradition and discovery must go hand in hand, even if not doing so smoothly. Having granted this pragmatic character of the scientific enterprise, Polanyi also argues that every effort to grasp the truth, as well as every claim to have done so, carries with it the implicit assumption that there is a truth to be known that goes beyond mere human agreement. Even though, as Rorty puts it, “truth is what your col- leagues will allow you to get away with saying” may serve as a good basic guide to what is in fact true, even this claim itself entails what Polanyi calls “universal intent.” By this he means that whenever we make a cognitive claim, even about what is to serve as the criterion for truth, we are also implicitly making the additional claim that our original claim should be accepted universally by all those involved in the relevant investiga- tion. In other words, while Polanyi sees informed human agreement as our only reliable guide for attaining knowledge, at the same time he further insists that such agreement does not itself consti tute that knowledge. Indeed, it is only the posit- ing of a final resting place or goal of our search that gives it meaning. It is our mutual “universal intent” on finding the final truth that guarantees the significance of our on-going investigations. Thus, our shared and common agreement that a given claim is true, and our simultaneous com- mitment to finding what is true universally are symbiotic characteristics of all cognitive activity. Each needs the other. Itis this concept of “universal intent” that dis tinguishes Polanyi’s approach from that of de- constructivists, on the one hand, and from prag- REALISM AND PRAGMATISMmatists like Rorty, on the other hand. He argues that the tendency toward subjectivity inherent in the socio-political matrix of cognitive activity is offset by the equally powerful drive toward uni- versally accepted truth. Even as Socrates argued against Thrasymachus in the early pages of Plato’s Republic, the possibility of error entails the necessity of the concept of truth, so Polanyi insists that choice and/or power alone do not determine knowledge and truth. While compulsion by force or by neurotic obses- sion excludes responsibility, compulsion by uni- versal intent establishes responsibility. . . .While the choices in question are open to arbitrary ego- centric decisions, a craving for the universal sus tains a constructive effort and narrows down this, discretion to the point where the agent making the decision finds that he cannot do otherwise. The freedom of the subjective person to do as he pleases is overruled by the freedom of the respon- sible person to act as he must.” By extension this freedom to act and think re- sponsibly applies equally well to the notion of pragmatic consensus. Asa group of investigators we can choose to act in consort on the basis of our shared evidence and convictions and declare our finding “true,” but this action presupposes a common commitment to the positing of a truth that is more than mere agreement. Our agreement is both a guide to anda sign of our intention to lay claim to that which is in truth actually true. It is not simply a matter of admitting that we are open to future revisions of our present knowledge, but, it is an acknowledgment that we are aiming at that which will yield no further revisions. Turning now to Whitehead, I must admit that I was a bit surprised to find what can only be called something of a “pragmatist” tone to much of what he has to say about truth and knowledge. He never seems to address these epistemological is- sues directly, but weaves them in and out of his discussions of “prehensions,” language, and pro- positions. Nevertheless, there is one specific pas- sage in his Process and Reality which does speak directly to our concerns in this exploration. I shall quote this passage here and then attempt some- thing of an exegesis of it, although admittedly PHILOSOPHY TODAY this is always a difficult undertaking when working with Whitehead. So much of human experience is bound up with symbolic references that it is hardly an exaggera- tion to say that the very meaning of truth is prag- matic, But though this statementis hardly an exag- geration, still it is an exaggeration, for the pragmatic test can never work, unless on some oc casion—in the future or in the present —there is a definite determination of what is true on that ocea- sion, Otherwise, the poor pragmatist remains an intellectual Hamlet, perpetually adjourning deci- sion of judgment to some later date. According to the doctrines here stated, the day of judgment ar- rives when the “meaning” is sufficiently distinct and relevant, as a perceptum in its proper pure mode, to afford comparison with the precipitate of feeling derived from symbolic reference. At least at first glance it would appear that Whitehead may be waffling between the same two horns of the dilemma we have been wrestling with throughout this discussion. He begins by stating that the meaning of the concept of truth must be determined pragmatically as we go along, but then goes on to say that unless there is some point (either in the future or the present) when the truth issue is resolved by a comparison with the perceptum, presumably that which is perceived, is “sufficiently distinct and relevant” to be able to be compared with the “precipitate of feeling” obtained from the linguistic terms involved. As is well-known, Whitehead frequently in- vents his own vocabulary as he goes along, and the terms “perceptum’” and “precipitate” are clear cases in point. I take it that in this case the former term designates that which is perceived or under- stood to be the character or quality of the experi- ence in question, while the latter term designates what is understood by the knower to be the mean- ing of the locutions involved. Thus, only when these two aspects of the cognitive situation have been sufficiently clarified to be compared does it become possible to determine whether or not a given claim is in fact true. Thus it would seem that in Whitehead’s view, the meaning of a given truth claim, and thus pre- sumably its truth value as well, can only be deter- mined pragmatically by experience. However, in the final analysis this determination will be de- pendent upon a “comparison” of what is meant and what is claimed with that which the knowers involved discern the meaning to be. This way of speaking suggests that Whitehead is thinking of some sort of “correspondence” notion of mean- ing and truth, but such an interpretation would belie the admittedly pragmatic tone of his earlier remarks. I am not sure what to do with this tension in this passage. In addition, the obvious “weasel word” in the quoted passage is “sufficiently.” Whitehead says that the pragmatic issues will be resolved only when the relationship between what is experi- enced and what is spoken can be made “suffi- ciently clear.” This seems straightforward enough, until one asks how are we to know when things are sufficiently clear? Whitehead’s poor pragmatist may have to continually postpone any final resolution of the question involved, a con- clusion that would fit nicely with Rorty’s ap- proach, but not with that of the reconstructed “realists,” such as Hilary Putnam. Ultimately, for myself, I find that while I must agree with the pragmatist camp, I still think that there is an entailed structural or required intentionality in all our language whereby we aim at describing “how things are” and expect others to agree with us. However, with respect to the story of the turtles supporting the world’s ele- phant, rather than say that “it’s turtles all the way down” I think it best to say that “it’s turtles all the way around.” By this I mean that we should drop the vertical metaphor built into the foundation- alist posture and opt for a horizontal metaphor that emphasizes both the inevitably circular char- acter as well as the mutually interdependent quality of the human cognitive enterprise. Nevertheless, it should be remembered that Rorty’s definition of truth in terms of “what your colleagues will allow you to get away with say- ing” is itself circular and begs the question by seeking to transcend itself even as it denies the possibility thereof. One is, of course, reminded of Wittgenstein’s ladder at the conclusion of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In any case, as long as some of his colleagues, such as myself and others, continue to question the adequacy of Rorty’s definition of truth and refuse to allow him to get away with saying it, we shall thereby also disallow its truth. NOTES 1. Richard Rorty, “Solidarity or Objectivity,” in Post- Analytic Philosophy, ed. J. Rajchman and C. West (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 19. 2. Hillary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History (Cam- bridge University Press, 1981), 49-50. 3. Jean-Frangois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Reporton Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 31 4. Ibid., 32. Ibid., 64. 6. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (New York: Macmillan, 1953), $242. 7. Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (New York’ Harper Torchbooks, 1958), 309. Pima County Community College, Tucson, AZ 85709 REALISM AND PRAGMATISM