The working of truths: Stebbing’s debate with Schiller
摘要
According to the standard account, early analytic philosophy clashed with Pragmatism when Moore and Russell attacked the James-Schiller theory of truth from 1908 onwards. While recent scholarship has focussed on revising this account of the relation between the two traditions, one significant piece of the puzzle has remained overlooked: Stebbing’s debate with Schiller. The debate commences with Schiller’s attempt to answer Moore’s critique of the Pragmatist theory of truth. Stebbing enters the debate in 1912 by demonstrating Schiller’s answer to be inadequate, which Schiller addresses in two sets of replies. Contesting the received view of Stebbing’s later conversion to analytic philosophy, this paper will demonstrate that she defends a variant of Moore’s position, even as – far from being Moore’s ‘disciple’ – she advances beyond it. In the course of the debate, Stebbing raises a number of hitherto underestimated objections against any Pragmatist theory of truth that eschews the attempt to define truth. Stebbing centrally argues that, without espousing a definition of truth, any effort to set up criteria for truth, or to distinguish truths from truth-claims that work without being true, must inevitably falter. While Stebbing’s challenges push Schiller towards articulating a fallibilist form of confirmationism, this paper shows that he fails to adequately answer Stebbing’s main objection.