From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Sun Mar 20 2005 - 19:33:55 GMT
Matt,
(This is an overdue reply, and even so, I'm not sure I will get to all the
interesting points raised.)
Matt said
To restate again, the definitions I'd like to use:
1) Metaphilosophy: What way of life are we going to follow?
2) Philosophy: How do things, in the broadest sense of the term, hang
together, in the broadest sense of the term?
3) Metaphysics: How do things _really_ hang together?
Scott said:
I think there is one additional distinction to make, though, within the
category "metaphysics". One might call it "finalizing" or "asymptotic"
metaphysics versus (as Whitehead describes his) "speculative" metaphysics.
[skip]
Matt said:
Okay, I can except this point insofar as I think I need to amend my
explanations of the definitions. Because I wouldn't take "speculative
metaphysics" to be metaphysical according to my definitions. To my mind,
speculators like Whitehead, Royce, Sanatayana, and Pirsig are not (in their
better moments) trying to get Reality to pin down their moves. They are
simply redescribing large amounts of reality in terms of whatever.
So, I should add some further explanation as to the interplay between
metaphilosophy and philosophy. I said that "when doing philosophy . we try
and develop a vocabulary with which we try and get the rest of our
vocabularies . to hang together. Doing metaphilosophy involves a
conversation about which form of life is better, which kind of philosophical
vocabulary we should be using to get our other vocabularies to hang
together. One way of describing metaphysics, then, is as a particular kind
of philosophical vocabulary, a kind of philosophy that tries to have
metaphilosophical consequences." This last part about metaphysics isn't
quite right, though you read it the way I want it to be read (based on my
further comments right afterward) when you say that metaphysics tries "to
have metaphilosophical consequences that are determined by Reality."
As I see it, doing philosophy can vault us up into metaphilosophy, that
philosophy can have metaphilosophical consequences, or rather, some
philosophies won't be appropriate for some forms of life. This isn't so
much because of any "metaphysical hammering," but because the two are more
like on a continuum, there isn't a hard and fast distinction between the two
(which is why philosophers like Cavell say that there isn't any such thing
as metaphilosophy and why Rorty himself doesn't talk much about
metaphilosophy anymore). Sometimes when doing philosophy you are forced
into a discussion about what form of life we want to be. This happens when,
for instance, there isn't anywhere else for the conversation to go, when a
straight out argument isn't going to work because both sides seem to be
begging the question over each other. (This is what I see occurring with
our discussion of consciousness; we both appear to be begging the question
to the other, so we are forced to discuss which form of life we'd rather
be.) What distinguishes "metaphysical philosophy" from "speculative
philosophy" (which I'm stealing from you in place of "non-metaphysical") is
that metaphysics tries to get things hammered down by something else, i.e.
Reality, whereas in speculative philosophy the only thing doing any
hammering are people.
I think this now sets the contrasts down right. Good call on the fault
line. The question for me now is why nominalism, Darwinism, and your
philosophy are metaphysical _according to the above definitions_.
Scott:
I'm afraid I am not sure that I see how that changes things. For example, a
theologian is engaged in redescription, but behind that is a Reality (God)
and within it is an acceptance that Reality really is in a certain way that,
for instance, precludes Darwinism. And for a materialist, Reality really is
in a certain way that, for instance, precludes life after death. So I do not
see how either of these beliefs escape the "How do things_really_ hang
together" formula, or the revised formula "metaphysics tries to get things
hammered down by something else, i.e. Reality, whereas in speculative
philosophy the only thing doing any hammering are people".
Perhaps I need a better example of what counts as a case of Reality pinning
down a metaphysician's moves. I can see cases where a presumed methodology
does so, e.g., Descartes trying to be mathematical. This would count as
someone being metaphysical as a consequence of being foundational. So I can
see that Whitehead can escape being called metaphysical by this definition,
in that he is saying: "let's think (in our philosophical moments) in terms
of process rather than in terms of thingness".
So, as I see it, a nominalist and Darwinist is a nominalist/Darwinist due to
a belief about Reality, namely that *there is* a non-linguistic,
non-conscious reality, for example, in the asteroid belt, or on earth before
there was life.
Matt said:
For
instance, you commented that you can do metaphysics without the
correspondence theory of truth, but I have no idea how you would do this,
partly because I was tailoring the definition of metaphysics to be identical
with representationalism/foundationalism. If I'm reading you correctly, you
think we can have foundationalism without representationalism, metaphysics
without correspondence, but I have no idea how that would be done. Part of
Rorty's efforts in the last 20 years has been in showing how every attempt
to keep foundationalism-sans-representationalism intact, like Susan Haack's
"foundherentism," just devolves into Rortyan pragmatism unless it makes a
realist, representational move, which is the move I see you trying to make
with your Peircian claim. (It goes the other way, too, of course. The
other half of his efforts have been in continuing the attack on
representationalism-sans-foundationalism, which is all any realist is these
days. There are very few people who are both since the late seventies,
early eighties, surrounding the release of books like PMN.)
Scott:
The way I do it (or think of doing it -- this is all up in the air at this
point), is to make representation the foundation, though "representation" no
longer works since there is no assumed presence to be re-presented. There is
plenty of correspondence, but it is not a case of language corresponding to
non-language, rather it is metaphoric/analogical extension of one language
to allow translation with another, only some of which are human.
What makes this foundational is that I see certain words as having absolute
application. Such words are, first of all, 'language', but also 'criteria',
'pattern', 'language-game', 'reason', 'value', 'abstract', 'context', and so
forth (plus many synonyms). Now these words as a foundation are anything but
"clear and distinct", and in fact, as I see it, to talk about them, rather
than just use them, requires the logic of contradictory identity. But -- and
here it gets metaphysical -- I assume that all that happens everywhere is
the same sort of thing: creation happens by the creating of criteria,
"things happen" is a consequence of contradictory identity, and so forth.
So where a pragmatist sees pseudo-problems, I see foundation, avoiding
(maybe) the error of traditional metaphysics of privileging one side of a
duality over the other. This may mean that I am taking the language of
metaphilosophy and turning it into metaphysics.
(I'm going to stop here and get to the rest Real Soon Now),
- Scott
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
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 : Sun Mar 20 2005 - 19:39:52 GMT