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Pragmatic Scruples and the Correspondence Theory of Truth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2010

Richard Kenneth Atkins *
Affiliation:
Fordham University

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Cheryl Misak has offered a pragmatic argument against a position she calls “scientific transcendentalism.” Scientific transcendentalists hold that truth is something different from what would be believed at the end of inquiry; more specifically, they adhere to a correspondence theory of truth. Misak thinks scientific transcendentalists thereby undermine the connection between truth and inquiry, for (a) pragmatically speaking, it adds nothing to truth and inquiry to ask whether what would be the results of sufficiently rigorous inquiry are really true and (b) they can only accept it as an article of faith that inquiry leads us to truth. I defend “scientific transcendentalism” against Misak’s objections.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2010

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