Coherentism (Bradley) and Pragmatism (James)

Bradley
•	truth-bearers vs. truth-makers, part two.
•	in the case of facts about perception and memory, the test of truth that we must and do use is that of system, coherence.
•	no independent facts, no infallible judgments.

•	so, why do so many philosophers insist that there are independent facts and infallible judgments?  (1) such data, they say, can actually be shown, and (2) these data must exist or intelligence would be impossible.

Bradley’s replies:
1.	What actually can be shown is very uninformative.  We only have infallible access to raw feels, not to propositions or judgments.  
a. 	Simple raw feels don’t allow us to deny any judgments.  
b. 	Complex ideas (conjoined raw feels) such as a, b, c only allow us to deny the assertion that a’s, b’s and c’s are never to be found together.  This still isn’t very useful.
c. 	Why we do not have infallible access to particular facts of sensation/memory, such as “I am now experiencing red.”:  
i. 	What do we mean by “I”?  No basis to assert this “I”.  We need a notion of time for this and nothing infallibly justifies a judgment about time.
ii. 	Parallel problems with “now” and “here.”
2. 	Infallible and incorrigible judgments are not required for knowledge, and cannot be shown to exist.  Therefore, we should abandon them.

•	Of course we need sense experience for knowledge, but this is not the same as saying that infallible judgments of sensation/memory are the “foundation” of our knowledge.  Some sensory judgments are necessary, but none are indispensable.
•	These judgments are ladders that may always be thrown away.

•	Bradley’s coherentism: facts are true just so long as they contribute to overall order of the system.
•	A consequence of this:  no judgment of perception/memory will ever be more than probable.
•	The danger of fancy.  Fancy renders the system less coherent and is therefore no real risk at all.
•	We strive for a system that is both coherent and comprehensive.  However, this is just a normative ideal.  “Truth is an ideal expression of the Universe, at once coherent and comprehensive.”  

James
•	The usual line:  Truth is a property of certain of our ideas.  It means their agreement with reality.
•	But, what do we mean by agreement?  By reality?
•	Many think that an idea agrees with reality when it copies it, but it’s hard to imagine how our abstract ideas copy reality.  We do have some mental images, but we don’t only think in mental images.
•	Truth not an inert static relation.  Truth is evolving, dynamic.
•	Pragmatic maxim:  Our conception of an object is nothing other than our conception of its effects.
•	Applied to truth, the pragmatist asks, “what are the effects of truth?”
•	“True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify.  False ideas are those that we cannot.”
•	Instrumentalism:  truth is what works.  It is useful because it is true; it is true because it is useful.
•	Cold-storage of ideas.
•	Verification, indirect verification, verifiability.  (Here is one possible difference from coherentism.)
•	Truth lives on a credit system.  Beliefs verified by somebody are the gold standard for the bank notes of truth.
•	No singular, abstract concept of truth.  Only truths.  Truths are made.
•	Rationalists reify truths as Truth.
•	If truth were not useful, we would be trained to shun it.

Next class:  Hume 133-39.