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A pragmatic theory of truth is a theory of truth within the philosophies of pragmatism and pragmaticism. Pragmatic theories of truth were first posited by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. The common features of these theories are a reliance on the pragmatic maxim as a means of clarifying the meanings of difficult concepts ...
His pragmatic theory of truth was a synthesis of correspondence theory of truth and coherence theory of truth, with an added dimension. Truth is verifiable to the extent that thoughts and statements correspond with actual things, as well as the extent to which they "hang together," or cohere, as pieces of a puzzle might fit together; these are ...
This "modification" of the consensus view is an appeal to the correspondence theory of truth, which is opposed to the consensus theory of truth. Long-run scientific pragmatism was defended by Charles Sanders Peirce. A variant of this viewpoint is associated with Jürgen Habermas, though he later abandoned it. See also. Confirmation holism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that views language and thought as tools for prediction, problem solving, and action, rather than describing, representing, or mirroring reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics—such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science—are all best viewed in ...
Correspondence theory is a traditional model which goes back at least to some of the ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. [2] [3] This class of theories holds that the truth or the falsity of a representation is determined solely by how it relates to a reality; that is, by whether it accurately describes that reality. As ...
Pragmatism and negative pragmatism are also closely aligned with the coherence theory of truth in that any testing should not be isolated but rather incorporate knowledge from all human endeavors and experience. The universe is a whole and integrated system, and testing should acknowledge and account for its diversity.
Peirce's pragmatism was the first time the scientific method was proposed as an epistemology for philosophical questions. A theory that succeeds better than its rivals in predicting and controlling our world is said to be nearer the truth. This is an operational notion of truth used by scientists.
A later variation of the pragmatic theory was William Ernest Hocking's "negative pragmatism": what works may or may not be true, but what fails cannot be true, because the truth and its meaning always works. James's and Dewey's ideas also ascribe meaning and truth to repeated testing, which is "self-corrective" over time.