From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Thu Oct 03 2002 - 21:47:17 BST
Platt,
I'll choose this particular battle:
>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...."
>
>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.
I have a friend who's a dance major in the university here. While he's sharp
in some respects, he has an extreme distaste for intellectualizing. While
sometimes it borders on the side of stupidity, most of the time it is a simple
apathy for that mode of discourse. Well, the Dance Department requires that he
take an aesthetics or philosophy of art course to complete his major. While
taking it, we would often talk about some of his readings and lectures (when he
attended them). He wasn't stupid. He understood what some of the theories
meant, he just thought it was stupid to theorize about art and beauty. After
I'd translate what some guy was saying about art, he'd say, "Well, why the hell
didn't the guy say that!" So, he coined the word "philosospeak" for what I and
many other academics do. Philosospeak is simply the highly sophisticated,
idiosyncratic vocabulary that academics tend to use when discussing their
subject material. Its like learning another language in some respects.
And that's what its all about: learning another language. If you don't
understand the language, it seems unfair to describe the other as stupid (as my
friend might) or even murky or quirky (as Platt might). Think of how silly it
would be to point to a German edition of the Critique of Pure Reason and say
its murky and quirky, when you don't even know how to read German (after its
been translated into English is another matter). The point I think Scott was
saying is that, as a professional philosopher, he's actually quite easy to
read. Because any professional philosopher you read is going to have a
sophisticated vocabulary that he or she uses that, if you are not familiar with
it, will seem impenetrable.
Rorty realizes that he uses a sophisticated (aka complex) vocabulary at times.
Most of his books are not for laypersons. I suggest Philosophy and Social Hope
as an introduction because most of those essays don't wax as heavily into his
tightly woven vocabulary. So, when Platt says that Rorty's quirky and murky, I
translate this to, "I'm still not familiar with most of the words or references
he makes."
I understand Platt's feelings however. As a gesture of sympathy, I'll reprint
the autobiographical frontpiece to the essay on Rorty and Pirsig I'm working
on:
----------
When I got sucked into Richard Rorty's "philosophy" it was, honestly, quite by
accident. Nine months after my first reading of Lila and subsequent conversion
to Pirsig's MoQ, I found myself in a Chicago bookstore on my way out to San
Francisco to visit my sister. It was my winter break and my parents and I were
traveling by train, so I needed some reading material (at the time I had yet to
accumulate the library of books-I've-never-read-yet-should-be-reading that I
seem to be cursed with now). At the time, I was currently in the phase of
Pirsig-acceptance where I was looking to "shore up" Pirsig's defenses towards
mainstream philosophy. That meant, on Pirsig's own recommendation, reading
James in particular and pragmatism in general.
The map of contemporary philosophy was still largely unsketched for me. I
kinda' knew that there were two traditions, loosely identified as Analytic (or
Anglo-American) and Continental Philosophy. I knew Moore, Russell, and
Wittgenstein were Analytic and the Existentialists were Continental, but that
was about all I knew. I assumed pragmatism fit on the Anglo-American side and
what little reading I did seemed to confirm that fact, but that didn't make any
sense to me. My first two essays on Pirsig were on the similarities between
Pirsig and --Continental-- Philosophy. I was very confused on where to
turn to.
It was with all that confusion that I found myself in that Chicago bookstore
and that is when I stumbled into a book entitled Consequences of Pragmatism. I
thought, "Hmm, pragmatism. I need to know more about that and this is about
its consequences. Perfect!" And it was by a guy I had heard mentioned in my
Contemporary Philosophy class (though it was never exactly explained who he was
or what he stood for). So, I naively bought it and got on the train.
I started to read the introduction. It purportedly would explain to me what
pragmatism was. Well, I slogged through for about 15 pages and gave up. The
author kept using a lot of Greek, Latin, and German and kept referring to
people I'd never heard of and things like"“technical realism" and "intuitive
realism" and "verificationism" and "psychological nominalism." All in all, I
didn’t understand a damn word he was saying. I was reminded of Pirsig’s
warning in ZMM about technicians. Rorty certainly appeared to be one.
So, I skipped to one of his essays at the end of the book, "Method, Social
Science, and Social Hope." This was a lot easier to read and it looked a lot
like Pirsig. It referred to people I'd heard of like Plato and Aristotle and
Galileo and Kuhn. I was quite happy. Unfortunately, as soon as it started
talking about stuff I didn't understand, I tuned out again. But the seed had
been planted: Rorty is a place of at least semi-agreement.
Fast forward one year. The landscape of contemporary philosophy now looks a
lot less fuzzy. I can pick up on where to place new names and terms in the
philosophical landscape much easier. I decided to pick up Consequences,
again. My library was quite large by this point, but of all the books
Consequences was the one that my eyes kept falling to. I just knew there was
something important to be discovered in it. So I started reading. And
reading. Essay after essay seemed to be pure gold. I found myself turning
into a Rortyan.
But the question that always drove me through the essays was, "How does this
affect Pirsig?" In some places it was bad, others, not so much. It was
difficult to get a handle on exactly how Rorty would view Pirsig, but a clear
picture was forming: Rorty wouldn't like Pirsig much at all. Another picture
was forming, though. I don't exactly feel as though Rorty has all the
answers. This may seem an innocuous statement. "Of course, Rorty doesn't have
all the answers. Neither does Pirsig." But I once acted like Pirsig did, or
at least I thought I could find how Pirsig would formulate all the answers. I
think most people go through that stage early in their lives. They have a hero
of some sort, maybe God, and then, as a person matures, the hero gets replaced
or told to move over and make room. I had never been satisfied with God, but I
was never satisfied with Reason alone and in walked Pirsig with the answer to
my prayers.
Going through a stage of Godlike figures isn't bad as long as it's
temporary. Mine was and I wish to explore the rise and fall of Pirsig in my
own philosophical enterprise. With that, Rorty played an important role in
solidifying an outside voice to turn to when Pirsig left me dissatisfied.
----------
Nine months ago I had read about five of Rorty's essays and was very
impressed. Four months ago I had read about eleven of his essays and a book
critiquing his philosophy (Hall's excellent book) and was starting to think
like him. A month after that I wrote the first "Confessions" post. The
snowball had started and now I've read 35+ essays, sections of Philosophy and
the Mirror of Nature, sections of Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, and his
"amateurish essay in American intellectual history" Achieving Our Country,
amidst a litter of commentaries and secondary source material.
As Squonk commented a while ago "you really like him don't you?" I do and I
think an appreciation of him, like an appreciation of anybody, requires a
certain understanding of his language. I would toss out the distinction
between clear writers and murky writers. Saying a writer writes "clearly and
concisely" is simply a compliment paid to writers who are using a vocabulary
and way of speaking we understand. If the writer appears murky and quirky,
then it is encumbent upon you, the reader, to learn the language, if you think
there is anything of use in the writings. If you don't think there is anything
worth reading in the writer (as Platt might now say of Rorty), then saying he
is murky and quirky is simply to state your unfamiliarity with the way he
writes and the subsequent implication that you are not going to learn that
language.
If it were simply Kant you were saying that of, Platt, I would agree. But,
amongst our many other disagreements, we must add the worthwhileness of reading
Rorty to the pile;-)
Matt
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