From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sat Jan 18 2003 - 23:52:41 GMT
Jonathan,
Having not been here as long as others, I'm glad you said it again.
The only thing I would revise is the use of "solidarity truth," which Platt
coined. As a slogan for the Rortyan, pragmatist position I think it is a
little misleading. As I said to Platt, it makes it seem as though it is
complementary to "objective truth," which is the case for the pragmatist.
Her point is that all that objectivity seems to cash out to is the
agreement of people in the speech community. The peer review process in
academia is a great example of this, too. In all, the description you gave
seems to be fully commensurate with the Kuhnian description of the process
of "normal science" and "revolutionary science."
You might enjoy these articles by Richard Rorty on this subject, Jonathan:
"Solidarity or Objectivity": This article is a wide glance at the two
positions: "Those who wish to ground solidarity in objectivity -- call them
'realists'" and "those who wish to reduce objectivity to solidarity -- call
them 'pragmatists'". As he says at the end of the essay, "The rhetoric of
scientific objectivity, pressed too hard and taken too seriously, has led
us to people like B. F. Skinner on the one hand and people like Althusser
on the other -- two equally pointless fantasies, both produced by the
attempt to be 'scientific' about our moral and political lives. Reaction
against scientism led to attacks on natural science as a sort of false god.
But there is nothing wrong with science, there is only something wrong
with the attempt to divinize it, the attempt characteristic of realistic
philosophy."
"Science as Solidarity": In this essay, Rorty attempts to unbind and
understand why, "In our culture, the notions of 'science,' 'rationality,"
'objectivity,' and 'truth,' are bound up with one another." Rorty offers
some alternate conceptions of how rationality and science might be thought
of and draws on, and covers some of the reception of, Kuhn's work in the
philosophy of science.
"Is Natural Science a Natural Kind?": Here Rorty draws out more fully the
implications of Hempel's and Quine's questioning of basic logical
empiricist premises by following the "fracas over Kuhn's and Feyerabend's
claim that some scientific theories were incommensurate with predecessor
theories." He paints the pragmatist picture by defending it against the
realist, Kuhnian relativist, and the Kuhnian instrumentalist. Rorty ends
the essay by pointing out "that natural scientists have frequently been
conspicuous exemplars of certain moral virtues" and "scientists are
deservedly famous for sticking to persuasion rather than force, for
(relative) incorruptability, for patience and reasonableness," but we
shouldn't "think that the prevalence of such virtues amoung scientists has
something to do with the nature or their subject or of their procedures."
"On a pragmatist view, rationality is not the exercise of a faculty called
"reason" -- a faculty which stands in some determinate relation to reality.
Nor is the use of a method. It is simply a matter of being open and
curious, and of replying on persuasion rather than force."
All three of these essays can be found in Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth.
Matt
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