Re: MD Irrationality

From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Sep 19 2002 - 15:04:37 BST


Hi Matt the E and Wim:

P to Wim:
> >Appears you may be showing solidarity with Matt, Rorty and the
> >postmodernists. (-: I don't think you can drag the MOQ into an anti-
> >rational, anti-logical, anti-Aristotelian program where "vocabulary"
> >substitutes for reason, correspondence with reality, and economy of
> >explanation.

M:
> Ok, some of your lumping I'm not getting (or, rather, I don't agree with).
> I can understand how you, say, lump me and Rorty in postmodernism. I
> haven't exactly shirked that lumping. However, I don't understand what
> anit-rational or anti-logical refers to. I understand what some of the
> things that anti-Aristotelian refers to and I rejoice in it, particularly
> being against Aristotelian essentialism.

A quote from your "food for thought"post of 15 Sep:

"For Rorty desires a poetized culture, a literary culture, a culture whose
vocabulary 'revolved around the notions of metaphor and self-creation
rather than around notions of truth, rationality and moral obligation."

Aristotle, of course, was the "self-creator" of formal logic which I gather
Rorty is no fan of. A bit of "irony" there wouldn't you say.?

> As for "vocabulary" subsituting
> for reason, correspondence and economy, I'm not quite sure what you mean,
> besides the fact that reason and economy of explanation don't need to be
> replaced.

Surely you wouldn't hold Rorty up as a shining example of "economy of
explanation." (-:

Again, poetry tops reason in Rorty's ideal world, and poetry is nothing if
not "vocabulary" (often run amok). If I understand Rorty, he's more
interested in how things are said rather than the validity of what is said.

But I could be wrong.

Platt

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