Speaking the truth

Economy and Society

Volumn 25, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 156-177

  Malpas, Jeff ^a  

^a MURDOCH UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

Knowledge; Philosophy; Power; Rationality; Truth

Indexed keywords

EID: 6944249167     PISSN: 03085147     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03085149600000008     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. The Republic, 475.
2. Michel Foucault, 'The masked philosopher', Foucault Live (New York: Semiotexte(e) Foreign Agents Series, 1989), p. 201.
3. See, for instance, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, ed. C. Gorden (New York: Pantheon, 1980), pp. 131-3, as well as 'The concern for truth' and 'The masked philosopher', in Foucault Live.
4. See, for instance, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, ed. C. Gorden (New York: Pantheon, 1980), pp. 131-3, as well as 'The concern for truth' and 'The masked philosopher', in Foucault Live.
5. In so far as the truth of a sentence depends, in part, on what the sentence means (for more on this see Section III below), then in the absence of any speech community to assign meaning to sentences, there is no sense that can be attached to a sentence being true.
6. Alien, Truth in Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993) p. 178. It is worth noting that Allen sees Michel Foucault as an important ally and influence. My own brief references to Foucault in this paper might suggest a somewhat different reading of Foucault, at least on the question of truth, to that adopted by Allen. Certainly I am not convinced that one can find in Foucault as clear and unequivocal an abandonment of the notion of truth as Allen, and others, seem to espouse. Foucault may present truth as problematic, but equally he seems to recognize its centrality.
7. See ibid., pp. 177-8.
8. I have left unspecified just what the framework might be to which truth could be 'internalized' or 'relativized'. Some would take the appropriate framework to be a social or communal structure and may deny that such 'internalization' is properly described as relativism, since there is always the possibility for the views of individuals to be corrected in the light of what is more broadly accepted within the particular society. I have taken relativism more generally to include any position that would internalize or relativize truth regardless of whether the structure to which such relativization is made is instantiated in societies or individuals.
9. The simplest way around such charges is for the relativist to insist, not merely on the relativity of truth, but on the untranslatability of statements from one framework to another. The relativist can thereby avoid the dilemma of having to assert that one and the same statement is both true and false. Thus consistency of truths is maintained at the cost of translatability of sentences.
10. For a more detailed consideration of this issue, specifically in relation to the idea of Quinean 'ontological relativity', see J. E. Malpas, 'Ontological relativity in Quine and Davidson', Wolfgang L. Gombocz and Johannes Brandl (eds) The Mind of Donald Davidson, Grazer Philosophische Studien 36 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1989), pp. 157-78.
11. Lyotard famously characterizes the post-modern in terms of an 'incredulity towards meta-narratives' in J.-F. Lyotard, The Post-Modem Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), p.xxiv.
12. The most well-known proponent of pragmatism within contemporary philosophy is, of course, Richard Rorty, but the 'pragmatism' that I have alluded to here is clearly not the same as that which Rorty sets out. Rorty does not argue for talk of 'truths' rather than 'truth' nor for the complete abandonment of truth. Rather he suggests that the nature of truth is 'an unprofitable topic' and recommends that about it 'we should say little ... and see how we get on' (Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989], p. 8). Most recently, in 'Is truth a goal of inquiry? Davidson vs. Wright', Philosophical Quarterly 45 (1995), pp. 281-300, he has suggested that the problem with truth is that not only is there little to say about it, and that little ought to be said (though Rorty seems to say quite a lot about how little there is to say), but that the notion of truth simply does not make much difference in practical terms. There are important aspects of Rorty's position that are also present in the account 1 develop here. Unlike Rorty, however, I take truth to be an indispensable and central concept. And that is because, for all that philosophical discussion cannot provide any account of truth, the concept is indeed embedded in our speaking and thinking in a fundamental way. Contra Rorty, the fact that we cannot provide any 'account' of truth can itself be seen as evidence of truth's centrality in this respect.
13. The most well-known proponent of pragmatism within contemporary philosophy is, of course, Richard Rorty, but the 'pragmatism' that I have alluded to here is clearly not the same as that which Rorty sets out. Rorty does not argue for talk of 'truths' rather than 'truth' nor for the complete abandonment of truth. Rather he suggests that the nature of truth is 'an unprofitable topic' and recommends that about it 'we should say little ... and see how we get on' (Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989], p. 8). Most recently, in 'Is truth a goal of inquiry? Davidson vs. Wright', Philosophical Quarterly 45 (1995), pp. 281-300, he has suggested that the problem with truth is that not only is there little to say about it, and that little ought to be said (though Rorty seems to say quite a lot about how little there is to say), but that the notion of truth simply does not make much difference in practical terms. There are important aspects of Rorty's position that are also present in the account 1 develop here. Unlike Rorty, however, I take truth to be an indispensable and central concept. And that is because, for all that philosophical discussion cannot provide any account of truth, the concept is indeed embedded in our speaking and thinking in a fundamental way. Contra Rorty, the fact that we cannot provide any 'account' of truth can itself be seen as evidence of truth's centrality in this respect.
14. The requirement of consistency, as it applies to speakers, does not imply that there be absolute consistency in what is believed or asserted. While consistency constrains belief and utterance, it is never possible to achieve any absolute consistency in belief; see Donald Davidson and the Mirror of Meaning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 77-81. The commitment to consistency is a constraint, rather than something to be actually achieved. The imperfect consistency of belief and utterance must, of course, be underlain by the presupposition of a perfect consistency among all truths.
15. The idea that consistency is a prerequisite for meaning is an element in a number of 'holistic' approaches to the theory of meaning. Perhaps the best-known example of such an account is that of Donald Davidson; see, for instance, 'Paradoxes of irrationality', in Richard Wollheim and James Hopkins (eds) Philosophical Essays on Freud (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 289-305; see also Malpas, Donald Davidson and the Mirror of Meaning, especially chapters 3 and 4. It should be acknowledged that the 'semantic holism' that is invoked here has been the target for much criticism by, especially, Jerry Fodor and Ernest LePore (see Fodor and LePore, Holism: A Shopper's Guide [Oxford: Blackwell, 1992]).
16. The idea that consistency is a prerequisite for meaning is an element in a number of 'holistic' approaches to the theory of meaning. Perhaps the best-known example of such an account is that of Donald Davidson; see, for instance, 'Paradoxes of irrationality', in Richard Wollheim and James Hopkins (eds) Philosophical Essays on Freud (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 289-305; see also Malpas, Donald Davidson and the Mirror of Meaning, especially chapters 3 and 4. It should be acknowledged that the 'semantic holism' that is invoked here has been the target for much criticism by, especially, Jerry Fodor and Ernest LePore (see Fodor and LePore, Holism: A Shopper's Guide [Oxford: Blackwell, 1992]).
17. The idea that consistency is a prerequisite for meaning is an element in a number of 'holistic' approaches to the theory of meaning. Perhaps the best-known example of such an account is that of Donald Davidson; see, for instance, 'Paradoxes of irrationality', in Richard Wollheim and James Hopkins (eds) Philosophical Essays on Freud (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 289-305; see also Malpas, Donald Davidson and the Mirror of Meaning, especially chapters 3 and 4. It should be acknowledged that the 'semantic holism' that is invoked here has been the target for much criticism by, especially, Jerry Fodor and Ernest LePore (see Fodor and LePore, Holism: A Shopper's Guide [Oxford: Blackwell, 1992]).
18. See Davidson, 'The inscrutability of reference', Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 239-40. The objectivity of truth that is implied by the possibility of speaking may be thought to be compromised by the partial dependence of truth on meaning. Objectivity is often taken to be expressed, not in terms merely of the notions of the unity and universality of truth, but also in terms of the independence of truth from belief. And it is certainly the case that, in light of the connection between truth and meaning, any attempt to formulate the objectivity of truth in terms of some notion of the independence of what is true from what is believed will have to be approached with caution. Assuming the connection between meaning and truth, the truth of any particular belief cannot be independent of every other belief, but will in fact depend on certain beliefs that are relevant to the meaning of the sentence that expresses the belief in question. How then to formulate the notion of objectivity without falling foul of this problem? Could it turn out that the independence requirement is actually an inappropriate way of conceiving of objectivity? The essential point that lies behind the insistence on the objectivity of truth is surely expressed in one form in terms of the idea that there is a difference between believing that p and p's being true. Indeed it is this difference that is central to much of the rhetorical power that attaches to the notion of truth. The insistence on this distinction is clearly related to the idea that truth is independent of belief. However, we cannot express this independence in terms of the global independence of truth from belief, since such global independence clearly does not hold. But, if truth is not independent of belief as such, it is independent of some large class of beliefs. That is, the truth of any particular sentence is independent of beliefs to the extent that the sentence in question may be true even though very many of those beliefs may be false and vice versa. This is, however, a somewhat weaker version of the independence of truth from belief (and perhaps a weaker version of the notion of objectivity) than some philosophers seem to have affirmed. Of course, it may be thought that the whole source of the difficulty here is the assumption that truth attaches to sentences - if truth is taken to attach primarily to propositions, for instance, then truth is indeed completely independent of belief. Such a position seems untenable, however, since whatever else we take truth to attach to, it must attach at least to sentences. To deny that truth attaches to sentences would be to deny that sentences can be true or false - that they can possess truth values - and this is surely absurd. And recognition of the fact that sentences are indeed such as to possess truth values is all that is required for us to recognize that, in so far as truth does attach to sentences in this manner, so truth is partially dependent on belief through its dependence on meaning. There is one final point that should be noted here: the emphasis on the connection between truth and meaning via the sentence should not prevent us from recognizing some more fundamental notion of truth such as appears in Heidegger's thought; and, equally, nothing Heidegger may say about truth as aletkeia should blind us to the ordinary notion of truth as it attaches to sentences.
19. So, if meaning is indeterminate - along the lines suggested by Davidson (see 'Belief and the basis of meaning', Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, p. 146), for instance, or even Derrida (see 'Signature, event, context', in Margins of Philosoph [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 309-30) - then so too must agreement, disagreement and difference also suffer from a similar indeterminacy.
20. So, if meaning is indeterminate - along the lines suggested by Davidson (see 'Belief and the basis of meaning', Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, p. 146), for instance, or even Derrida (see 'Signature, event, context', in Margins of Philosoph [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), pp. 309-30) - then so too must agreement, disagreement and difference also suffer from a similar indeterminacy.
21. That mental content cannot be dissociated from the worldly environment in which the subject is located is the central contention of 'externalist' theories of mental content, not only in Davidson and Putnam, but in the work of a number of other philosophers. For an overview of some of the issues associated with externalism see, for instance, Philip Pettit and John McDowell (eds) Subject, Thought and Context (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).
22. Metaphysics, 1011b26ff.
23. Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas have also emphasized the role played by truth as a presupposition of the possibility of speaking or, as Apel and Habermas put it, of communication (see for instance 'What is universal pragmatics?', in Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society, trans. Thomas McCarthy [London: Heinemann, 1979], pp. 1-68). Yet, while there are undoubted similarities between the Apel/Habermas account and that set out here, there are also important differences. Apel and Habermas both treat truth (along with other 'validity claims') as essentially grounded in some form of consensus, albeit a consensus constrained by the notion of what Habermas calls the 'ideal speech situation'. The account set out here, however, requires no such reference to any 'ideal situation' and, as is made clear below, understands truth as a sui generis notion not reducible to or dependent on any other, whether it be a notion of correspondence, coherence or consensus. Moreover the account given here takes the indispensability of the notion of objective truth to derive from its role in the very possibility of meaning, rather than in terms of its role in communication. 19 This should not be taken to imply that truth is somehow presupposed only in the act of stating or judging. As Heidegger points out: 'if anything gets judged, truth has been presupposed. This suggests that "truth" belongs to assertion ... one here fails to recognize that even when nobody judges, truth already gets presupposed in so far as Dasein is at all' (Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson [New York: Harper & Row, 1962] pp. 228-9).
24. Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas have also emphasized the role played by truth as a presupposition of the possibility of speaking or, as Apel and Habermas put it, of communication (see for instance 'What is universal pragmatics?', in Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society, trans. Thomas McCarthy [London: Heinemann, 1979], pp. 1-68). Yet, while there are undoubted similarities between the Apel/Habermas account and that set out here, there are also important differences. Apel and Habermas both treat truth (along with other 'validity claims') as essentially grounded in some form of consensus, albeit a consensus constrained by the notion of what Habermas calls the 'ideal speech situation'. The account set out here, however, requires no such reference to any 'ideal situation' and, as is made clear below, understands truth as a sui generis notion not reducible to or dependent on any other, whether it be a notion of correspondence, coherence or consensus. Moreover the account given here takes the indispensability of the notion of objective truth to derive from its role in the very possibility of meaning, rather than in terms of its role in communication. 19 This should not be taken to imply that truth is somehow presupposed only in the act of stating or judging. As Heidegger points out: 'if anything gets judged, truth has been presupposed. This suggests that "truth" belongs to assertion ... one here fails to recognize that even when nobody judges, truth already gets presupposed in so far as Dasein is at all' (Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson [New York: Harper & Row, 1962] pp. 228-9).
25. See Dummett, 'Truth', Truth and Other Enigmas (London: Duckworth, 1978), pp. 2-24, and Davidson, 'The structure and content of truth', Journal of Philosophy 87 (1990), especially pp. 285-95.
26. See Dummett, 'Truth', Truth and Other Enigmas (London: Duckworth, 1978), pp. 2-24, and Davidson, 'The structure and content of truth', Journal of Philosophy 87 (1990), especially pp. 285-95.
27. For an accessible account of the Tarskian approach, see Tarski, 'The semantic conception of truth', reprinted in Herbert Feigl and Wilfrid Sellars (eds) Readings in Philosophical Analysis (New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1949), pp. 52-84.
28. 'Is truth a goal of inquiry? Davidson vs. Wright', p. 281.
29. In Donald Davidson and the Mirror of Meaning, pp. 252ff., I argued for what I there called, in connection with the Davidsonian position, a 'presuppositional account' of truth. In many respects the account advanced here is continuous with the account I advanced in the earlier work, although I would no longer refer to truth as a 'presuppositional' notion.
30. One might say that our decisions about what to believe are governed by the structure of rationality and in one sense this is quite correct. But that structure, in its most general form, reflects nothing more than the interconnected character of belief itself and of belief with the world - for belief is a systemic notion, and every single belief is embedded in a network of inferential and other relations that connect it to a mass of other beliefs and attitudes, while also being related to objects and events in the world. This 'rational' structure constrains judgement in so far as it enforces a certain coherence and consistency among judgements as a consequence of such interconnection, but it can do no more than this.
31. As Paul Hirst writes: ' "how then is the validity or invalidity of a belief to be assessed?" The answer is simple, by arguing and showing it to be valid or otherwise. This task has always to be accomplished by arguments and evidence appropriate to the specific case in question. If these demonstrations or demolitions work they work and there are no general "guarantees" other than the specific processes of arguing and showing that will make them work', 'An answer to relativism?', New Formations 10 (1990), p. 19. See also Rorty, 'Is truth a goal of inquiry? Davidson vs. Wright', pp. 281-300, for arguments to the same conclusion, though on more explicitly pragmatist grounds, and with a less favourable estimate of the importance of truth, than I have advanced here.
32. As Paul Hirst writes: ' "how then is the validity or invalidity of a belief to be assessed?" The answer is simple, by arguing and showing it to be valid or otherwise. This task has always to be accomplished by arguments and evidence appropriate to the specific case in question. If these demonstrations or demolitions work they work and there are no general "guarantees" other than the specific processes of arguing and showing that will make them work', 'An answer to relativism?', New Formations 10 (1990), p. 19. See also Rorty, 'Is truth a goal of inquiry? Davidson vs. Wright', pp. 281-300, for arguments to the same conclusion, though on more explicitly pragmatist grounds, and with a less favourable estimate of the importance of truth, than I have advanced here.
33. See Davidson, 'A coherence theory of truth and knowledge', in Ernest LePore (ed.) Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), p. 309. Since, as I argued in Section III above, whether a sentence is true depends on what it means, one cannot decide on the truth of a sentence in the absence of some account of its meaning, but equally one also requires knowledge of the world.
34. See, for instance, Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), pp. 231-6. It is interesting to note that Mark Okrent, arguing from an explicitly pragmatist point of view, also adopts a view of truth as something like a regulative idea. Okrent writes that 'Truth and rationality are thus norms which can be approached asymptotically, but never reached', 'The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth', Inquiry 36 (1993), p. 401.
35. See, for instance, Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), pp. 231-6. It is interesting to note that Mark Okrent, arguing from an explicitly pragmatist point of view, also adopts a view of truth as something like a regulative idea. Okrent writes that 'Truth and rationality are thus norms which can be approached asymptotically, but never reached', 'The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth', Inquiry 36 (1993), p. 401.
36. The argument that I have sketched here (and it is certainly no more than a sketch), and which was also suggested by my comments in Section III above, is one that can be found in the work of a number of twentieth-century philosophers, most notably, once again, in the work of Donald Davidson, but in a different form also in the work of Wittgenstein and also Heidegger. For a discussion and defence of the Davidsonian position, see Malpas, 'Self-knowledge and scepticism', Erkenntnis 40 (1994), pp. 165-84, and also Donald Davidson and the Mirror of Meaning, pp. 215-29.
37. The argument that I have sketched here (and it is certainly no more than a sketch), and which was also suggested by my comments in Section III above, is one that can be found in the work of a number of twentieth-century philosophers, most notably, once again, in the work of Donald Davidson, but in a different form also in the work of Wittgenstein and also Heidegger. For a discussion and defence of the Davidsonian position, see Malpas, 'Self-knowledge and scepticism', Erkenntnis 40 (1994), pp. 165-84, and also Donald Davidson and the Mirror of Meaning, pp. 215-29.
38. In this respect the proper place to find an analysis of finitude is perhaps less in the analyses of historicality to be found in, for instance, the work of Heidegger and Gadamer (though these are not irrelevant), and more in the articulation of the notion of indeterminacy in the work of Quine and Davidson and also, though in very different fashion, in the work of Derrida - such a notion is not, of course, absent from Heidegger either.
39. Michel Foucault, 'The concern for truth', Foucault Live (New York: Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series, 1989), p. 308.