Cheryl Misak

British philosophy was notoriously hostile to American pragmatism when it appeared on the philosophical scene in the early 1900s Russell and Moore were especially critical of the work of William James. The aim of the journal _Mind_ was to examine ‘English inquirers and thinkers’ on the subject of the mind, or ‘mental science’. One would expect that the dysfunctional relationship between English philosophy and American pragmatism might be played out in a journal devoted to the English perspective on these topics. But the relationship between _Mind_ and pragmatism was entirely friendly. That relationship goes back to the very beginning—to Alexander Bain, the founder and financial supporter of _Mind_. Peirce and the other founders of pragmatism took his definition of belief, as that upon which we are prepared to act, to be, in Peirce’s words, ‘scarce more than a corollary’ of it. This paper shows how the relationship began and evolved.

This chapter traces and defends a distinctively pragmatist, epistemic approach to questions of legitimacy and authority. It finds its roots in the classical pragmatists C. S. Peirce, John Dewey, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, and also in Frank Ramsey, who drew on Peirce for inspiration. The argument is that pragmatism offers us a compelling account of the legitimacy and authority of law, of the bases on which legal directives are binding on the subjects over whom authority is claimed. According to this pragmatist account legitimacy and authority lie in the structure of political and legal institutions: in whether or not they are deliberative and democratic, and engaged in a culture of justification.

This chapter argues that two of the great pragmatists, C.S. Peirce and Frank Ramsey, had important things to say about the status of inferences to the best explanation. The entities we infer by an appeal to the best explanation cannot be inferred to exist with certainty. Nor can the principles we infer be inferred to be true with certainty. Rather, Peirce and Ramsey argue that we are justified in believing that the entities and principles in our best theory exist and are true. The difference here is important. It is the difference between being a pragmatist (of the objective sort) and a realist who reaches for too much.

Some pragmatists, Quine and Rorty for instance, have tried to follow the classical disquotationalist and say that there is nothing more to truth than what is captured by the schema: ‘p’ is true iff p. In this chapter, it is argued that we ought to learn a lesson from one of the best pragmatists—Frank Ramsey. He argued that while we must accept truisms such as that captured by the disquotational schema, we must then go on to fully explore what is entailed in asserting p. There is more to truth than what is captured by disquotation—as Ramsey (and Peirce) argued, true beliefs are those that would stand up to experience, evidence, and argument. Disquotationalism cannot account for this fact.

This paper draw outs and expands on three themes in Aime Thomasson’s Rethinking Metaphysics. First, I trace the roots of her central idea (that we only understand our concepts when we understand the roles they play in our lives) in classical pragmatism. I then offer some suggestions and ask some questions, emanating from the classical pragmatists C.S. Peirce, C.I. Lewis, and F.P. Ramsey, about Thomasson’s thoughts about truth and her thoughts about ethics. Along the way, I address what I take to be the most pressing question for the pragmatist or conceptual engineer: how to properly identify and assess the functions of a concept. I call this the standards problem for conceptual engineering.

Cheryl Misak argues that truth ought to be reinstated to a central position in moral and political philosophy. She argues that the correct account of truth is one found in a certain kind of pragmatism: a true belief is one upon which inquiry could not improve, a belief which would not be defeated by experience and argument. This account is not only an improvement on the views of central figures such as Rawls and Habermas, but it can also make sense of the idea that, despite conflict, pluralism, and the expression of difference, our moral and political beliefs aim at truth and can be subject to criticism. Anyone interested in a fresh discussion of political theory and philosophy will find this a fascinating read.

_Verificationism_ is the first comprehensive history of a concept that dominated philosophy and scientific methodology between the 1930s and the 1960s. The verificationist principle - the concept that a belief with no connection to experience is spurious - is the most sophisticated version of empiricism. More flexible ideas of verification are now being rehabilitated by a number of philosophers. C.J. Misak surveys the precursors, the main proponents and the rehabilitators. Unlike traditional studies, she follows verificationist theory beyond the demise of positivism to examine its reappearance in the work of modern philosophers. Most interestingly, she argues that despite feminism's strenuous opposition to positivism, verificationist thought is at the heart of much of contemporary feminist philosophy. _Verificationism_ is an excellent assessment of a major and influential system of thought.

This paper defends a Peircean account truth in politics and ethics. It also sets out a novel epistemic conception of democracy. Roughly, if we are to aim at truth, we must take into account all the relevant experience and sustain the conditions under which prevailing arrangements may be contested, an idea which is aligned with democratic politics. Along the way, it identifies a mistake inspired by Dewey and one by Peirce and shows how these mistakes are manifest in contemporary political philosophy.

Wittgenstein said (at some point between 1937and 1944) that ‘mathematics is after all an anthropological phenomenon’. This was an about-face from the view of mathematics expressed in the Tractatus, where he had said that mathematics consisted of ‘equations’. This paper argues that the shift was caused by Wittgenstein’s most important interlocutor, the great Cambridge mathematician, philosopher, and economist, Frank Ramsey, who died in 1930 at the age of 26. Both Ramsey and Wittgenstein came to see in 1929 that anthropological mathematics, or intuitionism, or what Ramsey called a ‘human logic’, fit better with the philosophical picture they were starting to develop. My argument in this paper is that by ‘anthropological’, Wittgenstein meant ‘human’, as Ramsey used the term.

_Verificationism_ is the first comprehensive history of a concept that dominated philosophy and scientific methodology between the 1930s and the 1960s. The verificationist principle - the concept that a belief with no connection to experience is spurious - is the most sophisticated version of empiricism. More flexible ideas of verification are now being rehabilitated by a number of philosophers. C.J. Misak surveys the precursors, the main proponents and the rehabilitators. Unlike traditional studies, she follows verificationist theory beyond the demise of positivism to examine its reappearance in the work of modern philosophers. Most interestingly, she argues that despite feminism's strenuous opposition to positivism, verificationist thought is at the heart of much of contemporary feminist philosophy. _Verificationism_ is an excellent assessment of a major and influential system of thought.

Cheryl Misak argues that truth ought to be reinstated to a central position in moral and political philosophy. She argues that the correct account of truth is one found in a certain kind of pragmatism: a true belief is one upon which inquiry could not improve, a belief which would not be defeated by experience and argument. This account is not only an improvement on the views of central figures such as Rawls and Habermas, but it can also make sense of the idea that, despite conflict, pluralism, and the expression of difference, our moral and political beliefs aim at truth and can be subject to criticism. Anyone interested in a fresh discussion of political theory and philosophy will find this a fascinating read.

Cheryl Misak presents a pragmatic account of truth. C. S. Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, argued that truth is what we would agree upon, were inquiry to be pursued as far as it could fruitfully go. In the course of the past century pragmatism has remained one of the most significant movements in American philosophy. Misak's book is one of the landmark publications in recent pragmatist thought. She pays attention both to Peirce's texts and to the requirements for a suitable account of truth. This new paperback edition includes a brand-new additional chapter, along with a new preface and revised bibliography.

This chapter is an edited transcription of an author-meets-critics session at the Truth 20|20 Conference, on Cheryl Misak’s book, Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers (2020, Oxford University Press). Misak provides a brief overview of Ramsey’s life and the remarkable philosophical significance of his work. Blackburn raises a biographical-philosophical question about the origins (in history and in Ramsey’s thought) of what is now called the ‘Ramsification’ of a theory, and whether this was novel with Ramsey or whether the basic idea had appeared earlier in works by Newman and Russell. Hornsby raises questions about Ramsey’s work on truth, particularly to do with his stance on correspondence theories and endorsement of pragmatism. Hornsby further raises some skeptical concerns that a pragmatist account suitable for completing Ramsey’s project will ever be forthcoming.

This chapter is an edited transcript of a panel discussion at the Truth 20|20 Conference. The discussion centers around a discussion between P.F. Strawson and Gareth Evans recorded for the Open University in 1973. In the ensuing discussion, Strawson’s and Evans’ comments on truth are compared both to Ramsey’s work on truth just before his death, and also to contemporary pluralist accounts. One of the major themes of the discussion is the distinction, suggested by Strawson and Evans, between a ‘thin’ notion of truth suitable for application across a variety of domains, and a more substantive notion appropriate for certain domains but not others. The panelists consider whether these two notions could be made to fit into a coherent overarching account, and whether the theory of truth is the right place to locate this ‘thin’/‘substantive’ distinction.