Abstract
I argue in this chapter that we should not be quick to dismiss Hilary Putnam’s account of truth as (idealized) rational acceptability. Putnam defends the view that the role values play in facts and vice versa. What I argue for here does not amount to a full-blooded defense of Putnam’s account, but of an important component of a pragmatist theory of truth more generally. I defend the value of usability as particularly important and show how Jane Addams and subsequent feminist philosophers argue for an emphasis on implementation. In this, I adopt the pragmatist tradition of seeing what is true as tied to our epistemic aims. My defense of the value of usability provides a defense against objections like those raised by Hartry Field and reveals a startling claim: on some pragmatist theories of truth, a theory can be true despite having counterexamples!
Thank you to the Conference of Women and Non-binary Persons in Pragmatism at which this paper was presented in Barcelona. Special thanks to Forrest Schreick, Ron Claypool, Elijah Millgram and Rachel Levit-Ades for your invaluable feedback and suggestions that resulted in a much better version of the chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
It should be noted this is only one objection raised in Field’s paper.
- 2.
A special thank you to Forrest Schreick for raising this objection.
- 3.
On this point, see Putnam (1994).
- 4.
- 5.
In most cases these values will not come into conflict, but in those that they do: usability should win out.
- 6.
I do not equate falseness with uselessness. Rather, we should not adopt a theory if it has been proven false or no evidence can be provided to settle the matter.
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Spivey, A.C. (2022). Reason, Truth, and Counterexample. In: Miras Boronat, N.S., Bella, M. (eds) Women in Pragmatism: Past, Present and Future. Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00921-1_9
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