From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu Oct 03 2002 - 16:25:10 BST
Hi Scott:
First, thanks for explaining Rorty views on absolutes. It seems he
absolutely "finds no value in looking for absolutes." (-:
> You are forcing your contingent vocabulary of absolutes, universals, and
> self-evident truths (which didn't exist until Philosophers created it) on
> Rorty, and then calling him inconsistent because he declines to adopt it.
> That's not logical.
Rorty's refusal to accept common meanings of words reminds me of the
Great Prevaricator who, in giving Grand Jury testimony, replied to a
question, "Well, it all depends on what your definition of 'is' is."
> But more importantly, how does a belief in Quality as an absolute ward off
> torture? Quality is undefinable. It is does not come with a sticker on it
> saying "Thou shalt not torture". That sticker is a fairly recent pattern of
> sq. Now I happen to have faith that there *is* something beyond little ol'
> egoistical me that *does" say that torture is always wrong, but I sure as
> hell don't know how to demonstrate it, even if I presuppose that Quality is
> an absolute. How does one, without recourse to an appeal to the beyond (and
> therefore not something we have any vocabulary for) respond to the
> torturer?
First, for the one being tortured the situation, like in the hot stove
example, is directly, immediately, and preconceptually perceived as low
Quality. Unless one is a masochist (as Matt pointed out), direct
experiences of low quality are to be evaded if possible, a "universal,"
natural moral behavior occurring at all levels. Second, a society that
condons torture is harming itself by blocking a potential champion from
preventing social deterioration, as illustrated in the story of the brujo and
the Zuni. To respond to a torturer, one need only recall Galileo's story.
(The answer is similar to Pirsig's rationale against capital punishment.)
As for Rorty not being a quirky, murky writer, I offer this passage as
evidence:
>From the Introduction to "Consequences of Pragmatism"
"It is the impossible attempt to step outside our skins-the traditions,
linguistic and other, within which we do our thinking and self-criticism-
and compare ourselves with something absolute. This Platonic urge to
escape from the finitude of one's time and place, the "merely
conventional" and contingent aspects of one's life, is responsible for the
original Platonic distinction between two kinds of true sentence. By
attacking this latter distinction, the holistic "pragmaticising" strain in
analytic philosophy has helped us see how the metaphysical urge -
common to fuzzy Whiteheadians and razor-sharp "scientific realists"-
works. It has helped us be skeptical about the idea that some particular
science (say physics) or some particular literary genre (say Romantic
poetry, or transcendental philosophy) gives us that species of true
sentence which is not just a true sentence, but rather a piece of Truth
itself. Such sentences may be very useful indeed, but there is not going
to be a Philosophical explanation of this utility. That explanation, like
the original justification of the assertion of the sentence, will be a
parochial matter-a comparison of the sentence with alternative
sentences formulated in the same or in other vocabularies. But such
comparisons are the business of, for example, the physicist or the poet,
or perhaps of the philosopher - not of the Philosopher, the outside
expert on the utility, or function, or metaphysical status of Language or
of Thought."
I submit to you that very few would be able to play back what the hell
he's talking about. But, if your point is that he is less quirky and murky
than, say, Kant, I would agree.
Finally, Rorty's "contingent vocabulary" reminds me of that great sage,
Humpty Dumpty who, in "Through the Looking Glass," has the following
exchange with Alice:
When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it
means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so
many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's
all."
And that's what's frightening. If the criteria for and meaning of truth is
what groups develop "contingently" over time, then truth is determined
by the group that has the most power, or "mastery" over other groups.
We've seen this occur in the pragmatism of the Nazis (Chap. 29), and
we see it today in the pervasiveness of scientism.
But, I could be wrong.
Platt
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