真是探究的目標嗎？

http://www.phil-commune.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=560

ZEN

除了象語句與命題這些抽象的對象外，話語與信念也有真值。當我們說一個話語或信念是真的，我們就是在斷定該話語與信念的真值，因此，在我看來把“真”當作一個屬性並沒有壞處——一些信念與話語有而另一些則無。“真”這個詞也可被當作真值函項的聯結詞，在諸如語句“南極洲並不全部在南極圈之內，這是真的”中，陳述的真值取決於其中的否定性子命題。該陳述為真或為假依賴於這個子命題的真假，“這是真的”在交談中的功能是修辭性的，並沒有多餘的認識力。
按照我的理解，實在論是這樣一種觀點，即認為真判斷可以解釋為與實在的符合關係。這也許是一種不錯的主張，如果有人能夠以清晰的可理解的途徑為真的話語與信念分配對應的實體，並遵循一種可接受的語義學來談論這些實體。但並不存在這類說明。除非指明對應的方式，我認為沒有論據能夠支持實在論，同樣理由，也無法支持反實在論。在我看來，符合論的真理觀和認為話語（或語句）起摹畫作用的觀點有同樣的問題，除非有理解這一觀點的人能夠像描述真語句的摹畫作用那樣，指出假語句摹畫的是什麽。如果真語句不與什麽東西符合，那麽，真語句也不摹畫什麽東西。
在這些問題上，羅蒂是對的。在所附的他的論文中與我的主要爭點上——真不是探究的目標——他也是對的。羅蒂有時候對我的理解似乎是正確的，探究的目標是獲得信念的真值條件，除此以外沒有別的辦法能使我們的信念堅實。我們不能去做我們知道不能做的。如羅蒂所說，真理並不是有理由的可確定性標準之外的另一個標準。但是說真不是探究的目標卻有一個小小的誤解：真是這樣意義上的目標——我們開始思考時不一定有把握，但我們有更多的證據我們就可能更正確。在股票市場上，有的人根據內部消息投資，有的人則在大家跟風前先去請教掌握內部消息的人。很多時候羅蒂看來讚同把真與有理由的可確定性等同的觀點——實用主義者懷疑真與有理由的可確定性之間存在差別。既然他能認可有理由的可確定性是一種標準，為何他不因此接受真也是一種標準呢？
不過，羅蒂認識到說我們的信念是有理由的可確定的與說我們的信念是真的之間存在著差別。如他所說，可確定性聯係到更多的事情：證據的有效性、證據的可得性、能否被接受、證據支持的標準等等。而真並不與這些事情相關，我很高興羅蒂在這個問題上並沒有附和他的追隨者。當羅蒂談到對真概念的警惕，我猜想他的意思是提醒人們，可確定的並不必定代表是正確的。實際存在的差別難道不是明顯的？如果差別無關緊要又何需提醒？
羅蒂認為我持真理的冗餘論，雖然我拒絕符合論，但不能因此把我的觀點解釋為冗餘論，以及否認真是與可確定性不同的標準。不過我仍然反對把真當作具有認識論意義的概念。隻要有可能羅蒂就把我描繪成一個冗餘論者。不清楚他還想把我帶到多遠。可能像他發現詹姆斯所建議的“當你知道了關於可確定的一切，你也知道了真的一切”那樣。如果真不同於可確定性，如羅蒂所承認的，即使你知道了可確定的“一切”，你也沒有掌握真的全部。我認為關於真有很多可探究的。像羅蒂所指出的，我相信隻有聯係於說話、信念和可評估的意見，才能得到關於真概念我所要尋找的內容。
羅蒂承認，他對於是“把真歸結為可確定性”還是接受塔爾斯基的去引號綱領猶豫不定。但他知道真與可確定性並不完全一樣，而且他關於塔爾斯基的論述是錯誤的。《真之理解》內容豐富，並不僅限於去引號。當然你可以說每個T等式也具有去引號的作用。幸好羅蒂雖不怎麽情願但還是允許我保留我完整的真理觀。
我希望我的論述是充分的，但我懷疑還未做到。羅蒂想把我的主張——如“我們必須認為任何人的大部分信念與我們相符”和“構成真就是構成對我們的可確定性”——解釋成，我們大部分的常識和基礎信念是真實的。我同意這些主張，但並不同意他們對我理論的說明。我們所持有的信念是由感知和其他經驗引起的知覺信念，這是我們掌握的大部分真理的方式，它們的內容由它們的原因決定。不能在這裏展開這個論點。我在關於真的常識性概念中所相信的要點是：正像我們所認為的，存在著人、山、駱駝和星星，這些對象和事件具有我們知覺到的那些特征。我們的信念雖然隻是我們的，但這並不意味著它們不是真實的，不能有效描述客觀事實。


[原文]
Aside from abstract objects like sentences or propositions, if such there be, the only things in this world that are true are some utterances and some beliefs. When we say an utterance or a belief is true, we predicate truth of that utterance or belief, so I see no harm in holding that truth is property: some beliefs and utterances have it and some do not. The word ‘true’ also operates as a truth-functional connective, as in ‘It is true that Antarctica is not wholly within the Antarctic Circle’: its truth table is like that of negation with the truth values reversed. Because, in this use, it maps true utterances onto true, and false onto false, its function in conversation is rhetorical. Cognitively it is redundant.
Realism as I understand it is the view that predicational use of truth can be explained in terms of a relation of correspondence. This would be an interesting claim if anyone could come up with an intelligible and illuminating way of individuating the entities to which true utterances or beliefs correspond, along with an acceptable semantics for talk about such entities. But there is no such account. Until there is, I see no point in declaring oneself a realist, or, for that matter, an anti-realist. I see no difference between a correspondence view of truth and the idea that utterances (or sentences) ‘represent’, except, perhaps, that if one understood the idea, one could talk of what false as well as true sentences represent. But if there is nothing for true sentences to correspond to, neither is there anything for them to represent.
On these matters, Rorty has me right. He also has me right on the main contention of his present essay, that truth is not a goal of inquiry. This seems to me correct if understood as Rorty sometimes puts it: it is a goal of inquiry to find substantiating evidence for our beliefs, and there is noting more we can do in trying to firm up our convictions. We can’t try to do what we know we can’t do. As Rorty says, Truth isn’t a norm in addition to the norm (norms?) of justification. But it is a little misleading to say truth isn’t a goal: it’s the same goal, since we are bound to think, not always correctly to be sure, that the more evidence we have the more apt we are to be right. People who invest on the basis of inside information on the stock market, or who consult a tout before the races certainly believe so. Much of the time Rorty appears to endorse the view that truth and justification are identical: pragmatists are ‘suspicious of the distinction between justification and truth’. He also thinks justification is a norm. Shouldn’t he conclude that truth is a norm?
However, Rorty knows there is a difference between our beliefs being justified and our beliefs being true. As he says, justification is relative to many things: the availability of evidence, the expense of obtaining it, our audience, our standards of evidential support, and so on. Truth is not relative in these ways, and I applaud Rorty for not going along with many of his followers who would say that it is. When Rorty speaks of the ‘cautionary’ use of the concept of truth, I take him to mean that it is often useful to remind people that being justification isn’t necessarily being right. Is it obvious, then, that there is no sense in which the distinction matters to practice? Why remind someone of a distinction if it doesn’t matter?
Just the same, Rorty may be justified in calling me a quietist with respect to truth, since I reject correspondence theories, don’t think the idea of representation can be cashed in, and agree that truth is not a norm in addition to justification. I also disavow all other attempts to treat truth as an epistemic concept. If that is sufficient, in Rorty’s eyes, to make me a quietist, so be it. But it’s not clear how far he wants me to go. For example, he finds James’s suggestion that ‘once you understand all about justification, you understand all there is to understand about truth’ (Rorty 1995, p. 282) persuasive. If truth differs from justification, as Rorty seems to allow, then there has to be something about truth you don’t understand when you understand ‘all about’ justification. I certainly think there is a lot more to say about truth. As Rorty recognizes, I believe what I call the content of the concept of truth can be brought out only by relating it to speech, belief and the evaluative attitudes.
Rorty confesses that he wobbles between ‘trying to reduce truth to justification’ (ibid.) and embracing some from of minimalism like ‘Tarski’s breezy disquotationalism’ (ibid.). But he knows truth isn’t identical with justification, and he is wrong about Tarski. The Wahrheitsbegriff is about as far from breezy as you can get, and the reason is that it isn’t a form of disquotationalism. You can say if you want that each Tarski-style truth definition has an element of disquotationalism, but none of these definitions is a definition of truth, as Tarski proves. Fortunately, Rorty seems to be willing, perhaps reluctantly, to let me have my more full-blooded view of truth.
I hope this is pretty much all that needs to be said. But I have an uneasy sense that it may not be. Rorty wants to explain away my claim that most of our simplest and most basic beliefs are true as ‘saying that most of anybody’s beliefs must coincide with most of our beliefs’ (ibid., p. 286) or that ‘the pattern truth makes is the pattern that justification to us makes’ (ibid.). I agree with these claims, but do not agree that they give my reason for holding that most of our beliefs are true. The beliefs I have in mind are our perceptual beliefs, the beliefs that are directly caused by what we see and hear and otherwise sense. These I hold to be in the main true because their content is, in effect, determined by what typically causes them. This is not the place to expound the argument. The point is that I believe in the ordinary notion of truth: there really are people, mountains, camels and stars out there, just as we think there are, and those objects and events frequently have the characteristics we think we perceive them to have. Our concepts are ours, but that doesn’t mean they don’t truly, as well as usefully, describe an objective reality.