From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Wed Jan 15 2003 - 21:01:39 GMT
Scott,
Scott said:
My problem was a real one:
how to describe how people process language (I was a grad student in
Cognitive Science).
Matt:
Alright, I take the point that their might be a problem, possibly
unsolvable, in the processing of language. Being as I know nothing about
cognitive science, what the current mood is in the discipline and the like,
I'm sure you'll understand my reticence on falling over to your side. I've
only read what you've said. To make a proper choice, I'd have to read a
bit more. Like you said, it took you years to see the problem. My only
hope is that, if this is a very problematical anomaly, then a genius will
arise to reshape the discipline.
Scott said:
What I find disingenuous is when you say you don't want to be led back to
metaphysics. What you and Rorty are doing is assuming a metaphysical stance
as given and making points from it, and then claiming that "we don't do
metaphysics". Darwinism only makes sense from a materialist perspective.
Matt:
Well, I find it disingenuous that you'd force pragmatists into the position
of having a metaphysics, whether they know it or not. That's the clearest
case of begging the question. Rorty is a nominalist. The nominalist claim
is that words don't refer to anything essential in the world, they simply
help us cope with the world. Rorty and the pragmatists aren't assuming a
metaphysical materialism. They're trying to cope with the world. One way
of coping with the world is seeing that the biological material of today
came from the biological material of yesterday, and that it changed a bit
in the interim. Another way of coping is to see the world as having been
created 4,000 years ago by God, who placed each animal and plant in the
world as we see them now. Another way is to see the world as having been
created yesterday by a gigantic computer matrix, who placed us all here as
is, even with memories that make it seem like we've been here longer. The
pragmatist will resist any attempt to say essentially what an atom is, or
what an electron is, or what an oak tree is, or what a human is. They just
want to see how different ways of viewing the world helps us cope with it.
To say that our attempt to cope with the world is a metaphysical stance,
begs the question because as far as we can tell, we are not debating about
how the world _really_ is, we are just trying to deal with it.
Also, I don't see how Darwinism only makes sense from a materialist
perspective. As far as I can tell, whether you think all things are atoms
in a void, ideas in our mind, or Quality has no bearing on how evolution
works. Everything still evolves, its just what's _really_ evolving
changes. Pragmatists want to cut out the middle man and say that stuff's
evolving, but what that stuff _really_ is will never be solved or widely
agreed upon.
Matt
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