Could you rephrase, maybe? I think it's basically the same as what you've understood, about the infinite regress and intrinsic values.
I think there have to be other ways to beat or accomodate the infinite regress. I'm not saying that such a thing is trivial, or not prone to all sorts of other problems, but I think we should be investigating in its direction. Which is all very good, but it seems to me that you're putting the cart before the horse with this post. Here, you seem to be saying 'we ought to adopt an account of truth which grounds its value, and this is instrumentalism (or any other suggestion that does the same thing)'. Now it seems to me we only have a reason to adopt such an account if and when you can show us that it actually does grounds the value of truth. It's like I'm living in my correspondence-coherence-or-whatever-house on the seaside, and you come in and yell 'the tsunami of ungrounded values is coming! You must come with me to my house of instrumental truth where you will be safe.' Now, if your house looks just as fragile as mine, I have no reason to go with you. I might as well sit here playing solitaire and wait for the wave to hit. If you can show a coherent way to ground the practical values that are meant to ground truth, then the appeal to come over to the instrumentalism hut will be persuasive.
But since we tend to want to keep what we think is intrinsically valuable pretty sparse See, my feeling here is basically along the lines of 'just because we're less epistemically limited, we're not for that reason completely free to value whatever we want'. I can only value certain things - truth may be one of them, and people can certainly induce me to do so by various non-discursive but also non-arbitrary methods. But we're unlikely to suddenly value this keyboard. Or perhaps what I mean (I'm not all that sure, actually, oh well :S) is that criticism of particular values has to start from within our system of values, so the ones closest to the 'centre' of the 'web of values' (Quine just popped into my head, slightly unnerving fellow) don't suddenly get 'ID-checked' and challenged to immediately prove their value or we chuck them out.
If you can show a coherent way to ground the practical values that are meant to ground truth, then the appeal to come over to the instrumentalism hut will be persuasive.
You are, of course, absolutely right. I wrote this post more to try and motivate the inquiry into instrumentalism (by showing that there was something unsatisfying about the hut you're in) than to actually convince anybody that it was a good idea. My intention is to write more posts in the future looking into some of the problems with instrumentalism, but now to have something to point back at to when people say "But why are you trying to save instrumentalism anyway? It's stupid!"
I can only value certain things
I think this is a question that needs to be answered empirically. But my impression of people's capacity to value is that they often confuse what is instrumentally valuable with what is intrinsically valuable. Or, rather, whatever capacity we have to value doesn't always keep track of which things were valuable first. It turns into a big tangled mess of valuation...which isn't necessarily such a bad thing at all:
criticism of particular values has to start from within our system of values, so the ones closest to the 'centre' of the 'web of values'
I'm glad you brought this up, because this is precisely the kind of thing which I think can save instrumentalism. Rather than having a set of grounding, foundational values, a web of values might be able to ground each other in a coherent but radically revisable way.
I wrote this post more to try and motivate the inquiry into instrumentalism Oh right. Jolly good then. It makes sense when seen in that light.
I think this is a question that needs to be answered empirically. I think it's a question that needs a combination of empirical and phenomenological investigation. But that's probably beside the point.
It turns into a big tangled mess of valuation Certainly. So it is incumbent upon philosophers, presumably, to try to untangle it.
Rather than having a set of grounding, foundational values, a web of values might be able to ground each other in a coherent but radically revisable way. I suppose so, although I'm sceptical about whether truth can be removed from that web. But that's more a question for your future posts.
Well, no, I'm just saying it's what this post itself seems to be about. Or something. With truth. Being valuable. Or somehow related to value of some sort.
I think it's basically the same as what you've understood, about the infinite regress and intrinsic values.
I think there have to be other ways to beat or accomodate the infinite regress. I'm not saying that such a thing is trivial, or not prone to all sorts of other problems, but I think we should be investigating in its direction.
Which is all very good, but it seems to me that you're putting the cart before the horse with this post. Here, you seem to be saying 'we ought to adopt an account of truth which grounds its value, and this is instrumentalism (or any other suggestion that does the same thing)'. Now it seems to me we only have a reason to adopt such an account if and when you can show us that it actually does grounds the value of truth. It's like I'm living in my correspondence-coherence-or-whatever-house on the seaside, and you come in and yell 'the tsunami of ungrounded values is coming! You must come with me to my house of instrumental truth where you will be safe.' Now, if your house looks just as fragile as mine, I have no reason to go with you. I might as well sit here playing solitaire and wait for the wave to hit. If you can show a coherent way to ground the practical values that are meant to ground truth, then the appeal to come over to the instrumentalism hut will be persuasive.
But since we tend to want to keep what we think is intrinsically valuable pretty sparse
See, my feeling here is basically along the lines of 'just because we're less epistemically limited, we're not for that reason completely free to value whatever we want'. I can only value certain things - truth may be one of them, and people can certainly induce me to do so by various non-discursive but also non-arbitrary methods. But we're unlikely to suddenly value this keyboard. Or perhaps what I mean (I'm not all that sure, actually, oh well :S) is that criticism of particular values has to start from within our system of values, so the ones closest to the 'centre' of the 'web of values' (Quine just popped into my head, slightly unnerving fellow) don't suddenly get 'ID-checked' and challenged to immediately prove their value or we chuck them out.
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You are, of course, absolutely right. I wrote this post more to try and motivate the inquiry into instrumentalism (by showing that there was something unsatisfying about the hut you're in) than to actually convince anybody that it was a good idea. My intention is to write more posts in the future looking into some of the problems with instrumentalism, but now to have something to point back at to when people say "But why are you trying to save instrumentalism anyway? It's stupid!"
I can only value certain things
I think this is a question that needs to be answered empirically. But my impression of people's capacity to value is that they often confuse what is instrumentally valuable with what is intrinsically valuable. Or, rather, whatever capacity we have to value doesn't always keep track of which things were valuable first. It turns into a big tangled mess of valuation...which isn't necessarily such a bad thing at all:
criticism of particular values has to start from within our system of values, so the ones closest to the 'centre' of the 'web of values'
I'm glad you brought this up, because this is precisely the kind of thing which I think can save instrumentalism. Rather than having a set of grounding, foundational values, a web of values might be able to ground each other in a coherent but radically revisable way.
Or something like that.
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Oh right. Jolly good then. It makes sense when seen in that light.
I think this is a question that needs to be answered empirically.
I think it's a question that needs a combination of empirical and phenomenological investigation. But that's probably beside the point.
It turns into a big tangled mess of valuation
Certainly. So it is incumbent upon philosophers, presumably, to try to untangle it.
Rather than having a set of grounding, foundational values, a web of values might be able to ground each other in a coherent but radically revisable way.
I suppose so, although I'm sceptical about whether truth can be removed from that web. But that's more a question for your future posts.
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Do you think it needs to be for the project to work?
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