Years ago, I took a single class on epistemology (the study of truth). I remember thinking it was the most important class I took at uni. The lessons have stuck.
This week's post is about the four theories of truth, and how you may use it to think better:
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What has been most interesting for me, writing this, was the observation that pragmatism is still relatively underused as a method of reasoning.
And also — ironically — while the philosophy of pragmatism emerged in the US, it was Singapore who perfected it.
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(Or rather Singapore who lived longest with it).
Consequently, Singaporean thinkers are the ones who are most familiar with its problems.
I don't spend much time in my piece on the problems of pragmatism, but I think I wouldn't have known about them without living in SG.
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i always think of the example of pushing birth control when your beliefs call for celibacy as being a good example of "pragmatic"
what class of examples are bad uses of pragmatism as a guide?
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I've noticed that I have quite a few Singaporean friends who decided to convert to Christianity based on a combination of social signalling effects(correlated with old money), and a self-aware placebo effect(since it is advantageous, I have no problems believing it)
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Will you write on the problems of pragmatism? Curious on your thoughts on the differences between personal pragmatism and state pragmatism.
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Also, judging the success of pragmatism over the long term in light of Goodhart's law ("When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."), the Principal Agent problem, and standard criticisms of utilitarianism seems subjective.
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