Video Q&A: Truth & Generosity
Neal responds to your questions and to Colin McGinn's criticisms of the principle of charity.
Hello everyone,
We’re getting close to the end of our Truth & Generosity series, so I’ve put together this video interview for you as a sort of recap of the book. In it, Neal responds to a few of your questions from the comments section as well as to excerpts from Colin McGinn’s blog post, Principles of Radical Interpretation. Although McGinn is there targeting Donald Davidson’s principle of charity, not the principle of generosity you’ve been reading about here, I’m hoping this Q&A throws Neal’s version into relief.
Oh, I haven’t forgotten the BONUS chapter. It’s coming! I promise!
Tina
P.S. Ed Gibney from Evolutionary Philosophy has done a thorough and generous review of our book, and we are very grateful for his thoughtful treatment!
https://www.evphil.com/blog/review-of-truth-generosity-by-weiner-forsee
Here’s the same video on YouTube.
And, as always…
Ha ha that sign off, "Oh thank god" is priceless. Now I feel bad for doing my long review and putting Neal back in the hot seat. : )
I'm not sure that McGinn and the other questions are really getting the point of the principle of generosity. To me, it's not that generosity *gives* us truth and understanding of one another. It's that there is (presumably) a single truth out there and so we should generously believe it is possible to understand one another and work together towards that truth. In my review, I have quibbles with T&G's language whenever it says "truth" is reached or guaranteed, but if you just changed that to "currently accepted facts" can be reached, then maybe that wouldn't trip my skeptical alarm bells.
Does that rephrasing resonate at all? I'm not as good at listening to arguments as I am at reading them. With philosophy, I often need the time to read things repeatedly in order to get them.
I tried to watch, but my hearing is so bad at this point I really need the CC. Are you planning to post this on your YT channel?