How computational neuroscience revealed that the pragmatists were right

Teed Rockwell

pp. 57-70

in: Tibor Solymosi, John Shook (eds), Neuroscience, neurophilosophy and pragmatism, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Abstract

That fringe account of classical truth occasionally advanced by the pragmatists…attempt(s) to define any representation as an instance of genuine knowledge just in case, when deployed, it produces successful behavior or navigation...crudely, a true proposition is one that works... This tempts me hardly at all... if we define or identify what counts as truth, or as knowledge, in terms of the behavioral successes it produces, then we will not be able to give a nontrivial explanation of those behavioral successes.1