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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jon Awbrey (talk | contribs) at 13:08, 21 December 2005 (→Begin Draft In Progress: rename head). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

"Another objection to the theory..." Surely this should be "An objection to the theory..." ? (20040302)

An objection to the theory is that it presupposes that for every possible statement, investigators are destined eventually to agree about it one way or the other. But this seems dubious: It has been argued, for example, that statements of beauty or moraliy are intrinsically controversial.

This objection is mistaken. The presupposition would only stand if it were assumed that all statements must have a truth value: Maybe Pierce would agree that statements like "She is beautiful" are not necessarily truth-holding statements.

The consensus theory of truth as defined is certainly in accord with such a response: As we can never agree as to whether or not "she is beautiful", the statement cannot be said to be true. But we cannot state that the counter-thesis ("she is not beautiful") is true either, otherwise we could come to an agreement about the first statement. Therefore, at least implicitly, Peirce states that according to the concensus theory of truth, not all statements can be assigned a truth value.

--I added this to the article.. Discussion is welcome (20040302)

Reference

In an article in "PC mag", John Dvorak discusses the utility of wikis. He encourages his readers to read this article, suggesting that it is this sort of truth that emerges on a wiki. See http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1835857,00.asp for details. Pcb21| Pete 12:44, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

The Matrix

Is not an irrelevant "See Also". The entire movie trilogy is predicated on the problems of a consesus theory of truth. That said, I'll add it to a list of semi-related things. --24.22.227.53 03:00, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

You need to add an explanation like this to where the reference appears in the article. Otherwise, it will strike all of the other people, like me, who haven't seen those movies as irrelevant. --Nate Ladd 04:23, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

I have seen all three "Matrix" films and I recall no direct mention of the consensus theory of truth in any of them. And it does come across a bit ridiculous, connecting a philosophic concept to a Hollywood movie. Why not put a "See Also" from the outer space article to Star Trek? --Gecko 18:30, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Just for those who haven't seen them: in the Matrix movies, most human beings are in fact living in vats, attached to feeding rubes and electrodes, and constantly fed messages that lead them (us?) to believe they/we are living active lives. This came about because way back in the 21st century when computers became self-conscious they decided they could live off the electric energy humans generate when humans thing they're living an active life but aren't. A few rebellious types have escaped from these vats, and are constantly dodging the sentries of the computer trying to trak them down or return them to a vat. The premise, in other words, is a computerized and collectivized form of Descartes' idea of a malicious demon, and implies that the consensus truth believed in by all those folks still in their vats who think themselves to be living a 'normal' life as that was understood back at the start of the 21st century, is false. --Christofurio 13:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Please see the discussion on the Talk:Existentialism for a critique of the "X in popular culture" sections of philosophy articles and a proposal for criteria for what should and shouldn't be in them. According to those criteria, the Matrix shouldn't be in this article. Jeremy J. Shapiro 14:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

State of the consensus theory of truth article

As it currently stands, I think that the article needs quite a bit of work, and I have started to do some of it but don't have time right now to do any more. Consequently I have left it in a lopsided state, i.e. by adding certain things and taking out a few others, it is not internally consistent. But I thought it worthwhile inserting at least the beginnings of additions. The article doesn't deal with counterfactual claims to validity, i.e. it seems too focussed on actual empirical consensus. It doesn't deal with Habermas's huge batch of recent work on this (including claims to validity other than truth claims), as well as critiques of his work by e.g. Rescher (which I've only read a bit of, so I can't yet fully represent his arguments). So I've just mentioned those things briefly but haven't had time to work them all out. I also temporarily took out the stuff about metaphysical idealism because it didn't seem relevant to the main thrust of the consensus theory of truth. Jeremy J. Shapiro 00:01, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Relation between pragmaticism and consensus theory of truth

I agree with Jon Awbrey's comment that in Peirce pragmaticism and the consensus theory of truth are not the same thing. For Peirce, as I understand him, the core of pragmaticism has to do with the meaning of statements ultimately coming down to practical operations carried out in and on the world. The consensus theory of truth isn't about people sitting around and agreeing about things, it has to do with the likelihood that investigators will have the same or similar results in their interaction with the world. Jeremy J. Shapiro 06:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Jon Awbrey's bold comments - it appears the article is in need of a clean-up - I am not even a good lay philosopher, and wouldn't attempt that task.. Anyone else? Jeremy? (20040302 15:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC))

I would joint others to participate but unfortunately because of work commitments would not be able to do anything before the second half of January. Jeremy J. Shapiro 16:25, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, sorry, will clean it up as I get acquainted with the wikimarkup,

style sheet, etc. Just kept running into that statement in my daily

web searches and it seemed to clang a bit, but it may take a while

to iron out all the wrankles. Not all that fussy about pragmatism

versus pragmaticism myself, so long as one says whose version of it,

but indexicality is the best policy with any philosophy, in any case.

Is there a way to move the Note to Editors to here while we work on it?

Jon Awbrey 19:00, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Note to Editors.

Re: "The consensus theory of truth, originated by Charles Sanders Peirce who called it pragmatism, and later pragmaticism, holds that a statement is true if it would be agreed to by all those who investigate it if investigation were carried sufficiently far in that particular direction."

It is a false attribution to attribute "The consensus theory of truth" to C.S. Peirce. It is a false equation to equate "The consensus theory of truth" either to pragmatism or to pragmaticism.

I understand that writing an encyclopedia involves a certain amount of simplification, ignoring many of the nuances that specialists may wrangle over, but there's only so far that one can go with this simplification before it becomes a question of misinformation.

It might be a good idea to consider whether there really is such a thing as "the" consensus theory of truth. In other words, there is no consensus about what the consensus theory of truth is or ought to be. The only way to handle this is to do what any good lexicon would do, provide the variety of definitions for the variety of meanings that are actually current in practice or important to the history of the term.

Many readers will not care what term you use so long as you provide a definition. So you could call the various consensus theories: (1) the Gallup consensus theory, (2) Peirce's consensus theory, (3) Kirkham's theory of Peirce's whatever theory, (4) Peirce's omega point theory, (5) de Chardin's omega point theory, ad inf., so long as you give a characterization or a definition of each.

Other readers will expect your attribution of a theory to a tradition to stick to the terms that are actually used in the tradition itself. For the sticklers, then -- and who isn't on the wrong kind of day? -- it would be best to observe the following principles of attribution:

  1.  When we say that "P originated the Q-theory of R", the phrase Q
      should be one that P actually used, characteristically and as
      a matter of principle, to describe P's theory of R.

  2.  When we want to report the fact that the source S describes
      P's theory of R as a T-theory of R, then we should say that
      "S describes P's theory of R as a T-theory of R".

That addresses the issue of false attribution. I will address the false equation another time.

Jon Awbrey, 20 Dec 2005

Work Area

I will keep a working draft here while I work on it over the next few day? weeks?
Jon Awbrey 03:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Draft 1

Jon Awbrey 03:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The label "consensus theory of truth" is currently attached to a number
of otherwise very diverse philosophical perspectives.  Thus it becomes
a reasonable question whether there is any such thing as "the" consensus
theory of truth, that is, whether there is any single principle that all
of these approaches have in common, or whether the phrase has become
a catch-all for many unrelated positions.  At present, there does not
seem to be much consensus as to what a consensus theory of truth is,
or ought to be.
As it a rule, it is important to distinguish the types of labels that the
writers of a given tradition adopt for themselves, characteristically and
as a matter of principle, and the types of labels that different schools
of thought try to stick on each other.

Any person who has a comprehension of the everyday meanings of the words,
"consensus, "theory", and "truth", and who hears them put together in this
way for the first time, would quite reasonably think that the phrase refers
to some such idea as that "the truth is nothing but whatever the majority
believes".  Most philosophical traditions that go by the title in question,
or have it laid on them, would have something more complicated and qualified
than that to say for themselves, however.  This rest of this article takes up
a sample of that variety.

End Draft In Progress

Jon Awbrey 07:12, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Good stuff, Jon, though I feel that the middle paragraph is more of a defence for the other two, and may be excised with no problem. I rephrased a little bit, but stuck the text in more or less verbatim. Now we need to find some way of describing the history of this phrase, as well as the ways in which the phrase has been interpreted!

Sorry if I mislaid your intent during the rephrase - please adjust accordingly. I also did a rough job of trying to link the remainder of the article as was, but clearly this needs to be rewritten eventually. (20040302)