From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 07 2003 - 18:21:08 GMT
Kevin,
>Would this be an example of what Matt (quoting Rorty) calls
>"incorrigibility of final vocabularies"?
Actually, that's not a quote. This is kinda' my fault. My putting
"incorrigibility" (from early Analytic Rorty) next to "final vocabularies"
(from later Post-Modern Rorty) is something I did, rather than Rorty. Its
apparently caught on, but I'd like to put a few things together on it.
Though I use the word "incorrigible" (and everyone is obviously free to put
the words together however they like), the word Rorty uses is "sincere."
The way "incorrigibility of final vocabularies" comes out in Rorty's text
is something "people are being _sincere_ when they stick to their own final
vocabularies." The thought Rorty is after is that, we aren't being
arbitrary when we insist that locutions be framed in our own language,
we're being sincere. When I say I don't want to do philosophy in Spanish,
French, Dutch, or German, I'm being sincere rather than arbitrarily
priveleging English.
Now, the incorrigibility of people who never listen to outside voices, who
think they've found the Truth and so wouldn't even conceive of altering
their final vocabulary, that would be being a "metaphysician" in Rorty's
sense, rather than an "ironist."
Other than these clarification notes (I always feel like I've
misrepresented Rorty when I read my bits about "incorrigibility"), I think
you are totally on the right track, Kevin. The only thing to realize is
that, from these clarifications, we're all incorrigibile to a certain
extent. As Karl Popper and Donald Davidson have pointed out, you can only
revise a few of your beliefs at a time, the others you have to hold still.
The interesting difference is between people who act as metaphysicians,
i.e. people who, as you say, think that "choosing the best analogy from
available data" is "the same as Finding The Immutable Truth," and ironists,
who simply think that they're choosing the best available analogy.
Matt
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