Essay on Pragmatist approach to truth

Imagine going through life learning and following what is believed to be the true , just to find out that it is a lie. In the story “ By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet the narrator, John is on a quest to find more knowledge, however he ends up discovering unexpected truths on his journey that affects his lifelong beliefs. The story leads the reader to an interesting question: what is the relationship between knowledge and truth? Knowledge is the education or information that is gained about a subject, idea, or experience. Gaining knowledge is often helpful and rewarding to a person, however the information or facts that is received is not always the truth.

Knowledge is defined as a true justified belief; however, what if it were impossible to differentiate between truth and falsehood? The Matrix addresses this question when Neo awakens from the Matrix and discovers that he has been living in a false reality. He is told that this new reality is the truth, and that his life in the Matrix was simply a computer program controlling his thoughts and actions (The Matrix). The Matrix presents the idea that truth is equivalent to objective reality, in contrast to Kierkegaard’s belief that only subjective truth combined with faith is necessary. However, both the movie and Kierkegaard believe in the importance of taking a leap of faith. In the movie, truth is shown to be reality, but they do not explain how to know when you are living in reality, because it is impossible to be entirely sure that you are living in reality.

However, questioning how we can know sensible objects involves complex questioning. Can anyone know a true object? This leads to issues of elitism.

A man once told me that there is no truth in this world. All the ideas such as Math, Science, Language, and even society is all made up. That the only reason two plus two equals four is based solely off of one man saying it does, and society agreeing with it blindly. But I tell you that there is no such thing as truth, but that itself is a truth.

The pragmatist is where the learner is doing the experience in an activity such as lab session or any other field work.

Pragmatism is an approach to deal with specific situations in a reasonable and logical way. “A difference to be a difference has to make a difference.” (Stoetz, 2005 p. 38) And that’s just what Progressive pragmatism did; it advanced America forward in lieu of any obstacles. Progressive pragmatism commanded social affairs in the beginning of the twentieth century, however, an entirely different form of pragmatism was developing; that which viewed institutions and not government as the wisdom behind American experience. Corporate pragmatism.

Pragmatism is described in the book as a method for settling philosophical disputes. It is based on the pragmatic theory of truth. This theory says that a 'proposition p is true if and only if the belief that 'p is true' works'; (Voices of Wisdom, 346). In order

Meleis and Schultz (1988) questioned the appropriateness of usage of word ‘truth’ in the context of complex human experience. Do I agree with this view? Yes, I do if it is used to generalize or to stereotype the human experience.

The first issue is what actually is truth? There are many things that we perceive to be true, depending on perspective or our beliefs, which differ from one person to the next, known as

My philosophy was quite encouraged by the underlying branches of philosophy that are found in a Pragmatist. I strongly believe that we are here to educate the children, if we are not attending to their needs then we are truly not teaching. Therefore, I bring up the three branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology and axiology according to a pragmatist point of view. The metaphysics believes that the truth is within the child, the individual. The epistemology finds reality within the child's construction of knowledge. The axiology finds value in the child becoming self-actualized; where the child reaches the highest level that they can. It is clearly seen that Pragmatist view goes side by side with my idea of education being all about the child.

Truth can be defined as conformity to reality or actuality and in order for something to be “true” it must be public, eternal, and independent. If the “truth” does not follow these guidelines then it cannot be “true.” Obviously in contrary anything that goes against the boundaries of “truth” is inevitably false. True and false, in many cases does not seem to be a simple black and white situation, there could sometimes be no grounds to decide what is true and what is false. All truths are a matter of opinion. Truth is relative to culture, historical era, language, and society. All the truths that we know are subjective truths (i.e. mind-dependent truths) and there is nothing more to truth than what we are willing to assert as true

Currently, three prominent ideologies dominate the governing style of the world today: socialism, liberalism and conservatism. Many political groups and leaders often follow or claim to follow a specific ideology. On the other side of the spectrum for those who follow one ideology specific, there are some individuals that knowingly or unknowingly that follow none and focus on practicality of ideas. Those individuals are referred to as pragmatist. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, pragmatism is based on the principle that emphasis on the usefulness, workability, and practicality of ideas, policies, and proposals (“Pragmatism”, n.d). Basically, a pragmatist would focus on the actions and/or the consequences rather than the doctrine. Even

William James studied pragmatism through psychology and religion. James thought originally about philosophy; “The whole function of philosophy ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to you and me, at definite instants in our life, if this world formula or that world formula be the true one.” In James’ book The Varieties of Religious Experience he took a positive attitude toward religion yet opposed the idealist schools of speculative ideas (Choron 283). James was a very methodical man. “Truth happens to an idea” was another theory of James’. In order for an idea to be true an event

The question of right and wrong has been battled over for centuries. Many conservatives still believe that truth is absolute, while others disagree, saying that truth is relative. I believe that truth is an individual’s perception of beliefs and decisions.

The most practical of analytical philosophy also included Moore, and Carnape. The American (neo) pragmatism philosophy is a philosophical movement that was given systematic terms by Charles Sanders Peirce and William James and later taken up and revamped by John Dewey. Pragmatists stress the practical purpose of knowledge as a way for acclimatizing to reality and controlling it. Pragmatism concur with empiricism in its emphasis on the importance of experience over a priori reasoning. However the truth had customarily been discussed in terms of communication with reality or in terms of coherence pragmatism embraces that truth is to be sought in the process of verification. Pragmatists translates ideas as means and plans of action rather than as images of reality; more specifically, they are recommendations and anticipations of possible conduct, hypotheses or forecasts of what will result from a given action, or ways of organizing behavior(Answer,2010)