From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sat Nov 23 2002 - 20:12:59 GMT
Scott,
When I trailed off last time after hoping to convince you that Rorty
doesn't lead to nihilism, I was going to launch into an attempt. My way
in, though, was a quote from Rousseau that I picked up from a lecture I had
that day. My professor was quoting off the top of his head and when I went
back to the source, I found a passage that was a little different and not
really what I wanted. Fortunately, it was a translation problem and I've
subsequently found the translation I like.
Rousseau said, "Although men cannot be taught to love nothing, it is not
impossible to teach them to love one object rather than another." I take
this to be Rorty's position on nihilism: its just not possible. However,
it is possible to move from one alternative to another. This is what Rorty
wants. We can't just get rid of everything. A critique of "something"
must offer an alternative, or else the critique is just empty. If you want
to get rid of liberalism, you must give an alternative to liberalism. This
is something that Rousseau understood. As ironists, we look for the best
vocabulary possible. But we don't just eschew vocabularies, which is what
I take nihilism to be.
Now you give this thought on nihilism: "[Rorty] doesn't fall into nihilism
as long as he doesn't ask whether what he is doing is "fundamentally" worth
doing. If he does ask (but of course
he isn't likely to), then if he keeps with his secularism, he has nowhere
to go but nihilism." Having thought about this, I don't think this is a
fair statement. The reason is because I think Rorty can think there is
something fundamentally worth doing, it just doesn't happen to be expressed
in religion. Or, rather, his religion is the religion of democracy or
liberalism. I'm thinking of his talk about final vocabularies. In a final
vocabulary, a person finds words that "if doubt is cast on the worth of
these words, their user has no noncircular argumentative recourse. Those
words are as far as he can go with language; beyond them there is only
helpless passivity or a resort to force." (Contingency, Irony, and
Solidarity) This is what I take to be the ultimate grounding of faith of
final vocabularies. With the ironist, however, doubt is cast on her
vocabulary because she doesn't think her vocabulary has any special
connection with True Reality As It Is In Itself. But, while she has this
doubt, nothing changes in her final vocabulary unless she is convinced of a
suitable alternative.
So, I think Rorty can say what the ironic absolutist says: "I can't really
understand in what sense anything I do is fundamentally worth doing, but I
have faith that if I don't give up, and don't stop asking the question, and
take advice from those who do understand, then liberalism will be the last
conceptual revolution in politics."
At least, I think this, then, all makes sense. The only part I hesitate on
is the "take advice from those who do understand," because I don't think
there are people who understand, as in the Truth. What Rorty would replace
there is "and talk to other people to be exposed to alternative
vocabularies." But I think this difference is a minor difference in final
vocabularies between Rorty and so-called ironic absolutists.
Matt
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