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A Critique Of Wiredu’s Concept Of Truth
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1.5.THE PRAGMATICS THEORY OF TRUTH
In pragmatic epistemology, truth is regarded not as absolute but
relative. It is never in a perfect state. Immutable or eternal. Rather,
it can change from one generation to another. According to Wiredu…â€
Truth there is necessarily bind to point of view, on better truth is
view from some point and there are as many truth as there are points of
viewâ€.28
According to pragmatists, prominent among whom are
scanders pierce, Williams James and John Dewey, man should concern
himself with the things or events that can be perceived by the senses
and not with the abstract and the speculation.
Hence the criterion of truth must be traceable to experience. According to Williams James:
Truth
in our idea and beliefs means that ideas (which themselves are but
party of our experience) become true is so far as they helped us to get
into satisfactorily relation with other parts of our experience…Any idea
that will carry us prosperously from one part of our experience linking
things satisfactorily, working securely simpling saving labor: true for
just so much, true in so far truth instrumentally.29
This quota
from James Terminate in a term which embodied the instrument essence of
pragmatism and which brings some philosophers to assign the designation,
instrumentalism to the general pagmatic philosophy. According to
James, the function of thought is not to copy or image reality but to
form idea in order to satisfy the individual interest. Thus on
pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis, for instance, of God
satisfactorily in the widest sense of the world, it is true. However, it
is in dewey that we should be most interested, for Wiredu feels the
strong affinity with his theory of truth.
For Dewey, ideas
become true when their â€draft upon existence’ is honor by the verifying
facts they promise. The notion that truth some how exists antecedent to
and separate from inquiry in meaningless in Dewey’s thought for him
truth is notable. “Truth happens to be an idea†when it becomes verified
or a warranted assertion.
Dewey considers truth from the
point of view of verification and places it out the end of all
enquiries. Hence, following Dewey, Wiredu’s tense formulation of the
Deweyian posistion is that’s truth is warranted assertibility.30
Precisely
this portion emphasizes that truth is what rational inquiry warrants us
to assert. Instead of being a prior postulate, truth is here viewed an
end product din practice. In “Dewey wordsâ€.
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