Abstract

I argue in this chapter that we should not be quick to dismiss Hilary Putnam’s account of truth as (idealized) rational acceptability. Putnam defends the view that the role values play in facts and vice versa. What I argue for here does not amount to a full-blooded defense of Putnam’s account, but of an important component of a pragmatist theory of truth more generally. I defend the value of usability as particularly important and show how Jane Addams and subsequent feminist philosophers argue for an emphasis on implementation. In this, I adopt the pragmatist tradition of seeing what is true as tied to our epistemic aims. My defense of the value of usability provides a defense against objections like those raised by Hartry Field and reveals a startling claim: on some pragmatist theories of truth, a theory can be true despite having counterexamples!