From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Mon Jan 13 2003 - 21:29:58 GMT
Hi Platt:
I think you either have a misconception of what Rorty's suggesting, or you
haven't provided anything that would make "objectivity" look any more inviting.
I think misconception because of your locution "solidarity truth." You
seem to be almost putting it side by side with "objective truth," as if
there are two kinds of truth, one based on intersubjective agreement, or
solidarity, and one on objectivity, your argument thus being that objective
truth is better than solidarity truth. But to argue this way is to either
misunderstand what Rorty's suggesting or beg the question. Rorty's not
suggesting that, of the two, "solidarity truth" is better than "objective
truth." He's suggesting that we eschew the notion of objectivity because
its incoherent. He's saying that what counts as objectivity should be
thought of as a much agreed upon truth, thus setting up a continuum between
opinion and knowledge.
I think this because you say things like, "It is common wisdom--a
solidarity-type truth,"
"Lomborg challenges the conventional 'solidarity truth,'" and your quote
from you logic book, "general assent to a claim doesn't not prove it to be
true." The first two make it sound like you are putting two kinds of truth
side by side and finding one of them lacking, and the last begs the
question in your favor.
The reason pragmatists think "objectivity" is chimera is because they can't
figure out how we are supposed to know when the time is right to call
something "objectively true." The notion of objectivity rests on the
correspondence theory of truth. For something to be objectively true, it
must correspond correctly to the world. But pragmatists, for the life of
them, can't figure out what that means. All they can figure out is that
when a theory is logically consistent, agrees with experience, and is
stream-lined of all superfluous info, those theories tend to work better
and are more useful for our purposes, and hence, more people agree with it.
To convince pragmatists that "objectivity" is a useful notion you have to
provide an explanation of what "corresponding correctly to the world" means.
So, when you say Lomborg is being vilified unfairly, I can only take your
word for it and lament the occurence. His research should be taken
seriously and tested by other people so there is corroboration on his
research: that's how science works. To say that, "This episode cannot help
but remind me of the persecution of Galileo by the solidarity of the Roman
Catholic Church and other instances in history where solidarity truth was
not only wrong but engendered cruel treatment of individuals who dared
question the reigning groupthink," clearly begs the question by positing
that Galileo had found the truth. If it doesn't (as I don't think it
should considering we've moved far beyond Galilean physics and astronomy),
then it is simply a case of an institution unfairly silencing an outside
voice. Pragmatists can still say that the Catholic Church and the Ministry
of Truth unfairly silence voices. One of the supreme ideas that
pragmatists rally around, holding hands in solidarity, is the idea of the
marketplace of ideas, and thus democracy. I can't see that you've provided
anything that undercuts that interpretation.
Matt
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Jan 13 2003 - 21:25:08 GMT