"What _is_ truth?" is the wrong question, according to the pragmatist. Better to ask: "what is going on when humans correctly say something is true?". [[Pragmatism says we call a belief true when we think it is deserving of belief]]. This may sound like sociology rather than philosophy—an attempt to describe how we in fact _do_ go about things, but not an attempt to say how we _should_ go about things. Interesting enough, but what about those "should" questions? The pragmatist would say that we can only talk about "shoulds" in the context of particular ends that we take as a given. Hungry? You should go to the kitchen. You want there to be less suffering in the world? You should... And by what standards do we evaluate these particular ends? How do some become popular, while others do not? Competition and selection pressure. See also: [[Naturalism blurs the descriptive and the normative]], and [[Naturalist accounts of normativity are grounded on adaptiveness]]. ## Notes We must not begin by talking of pure ideas—vagabond thoughts that tramp the public highways without any human habitation—but must begin with men and their conversation. —C. S. Peirce Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet. —Jeremy Bentham