From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sun Oct 06 2002 - 16:34:07 BST
Platt, everyone,
I'm sorry, I just have to say something:
Platt:
"Just to note in passing that Rorty is promulgating a pre-packaged belief
system which goes under the general "ism" of postmodernism.
"Rorty is no exception. His final vocabulary is just as incorrigible as
anyone's, as his and his acolytes frequent use of "final vocabulary" and
"incorrigible" testifies.
"So all options for the exploration of reality are fundamentally "pre-
packaged belief systems." Every once in awhile (rarely to be sure)
somebody comes up with a new option like the MOQ whose superiority
to other options is that it allows--indeed encourages--individuals to
determine for themselves which belief system has the highest Quality.
Ultimately, each person in his mind and heart decides what's true on
the basis of whether the truth in question is a good truth. Truth (reality)
is essentially an esthetic response."
Matt:
I'm sorry, Platt. I find this characterization of Rorty absolutely
laughable. Its as if, since the beginning of time, a universal,
ahistorical laugh has been waiting for you to say this, and has finally
found its joke to laugh at. Or, rather, its as if you haven't even been
listening to half of what I've been saying.
To say that Rorty uses a dogma and a pre-packaged system is to deny the
"metaphysician/ironist" distinction he makes, but I don't see a good reason
to do so. You basically accuse him of being a metaphysician, and the MOQ
being ironic, but without the distinction, I don't think its clear you can
say it. And with the distinction, I think its pretty clear that Rorty
would fall on the ironist side.
By saying that the MoQ allows "individuals to determine for themselves
which belief system has the highest Quality" (which seems pretty malleable
to me), you imply that Rorty does not, and ONCE AGAIN ignore the
distinction he makes between private truth and public truth. And, once
again, you don't offer a good reason to dispense with it. Or even
acknowledge that you're dispensing with it. Or even that you read the
places where I've specified it.
I'm sorry, I'm not mad, I'm just shaking my head.
Matt
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