RE: MD NAZIs and Pragmatism

From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Feb 09 2003 - 18:34:55 GMT

  • Next message: Mari: "Re: MD NAZIs and Pragmatism"

    Andy and all pragmatists:

    Thanks for the Rortyisms. I've been trying to see what problem Rorty thinks
    he is solving and the quotes you dished up helped a little bit. I saved just
    a couple of assertions that seem to get at the heart of this percieved
    problem.

    Andy quoted Rorty:
    "'Platonism' in the sense in which I use the term does not denote the (very
    complex, shifting, dubiously consistent) thoughts of the genius who wrote
    'Dialogues.' Instead it refers to a set of philosophical distinctions
    (appearance-reality, matter-mind, made-found, sensible-intellectual, etc):
    What Dewey called 'a broad and nest of dualisms.'" pg xii

    DMB says:
    Rorty does not use the word "Platonism" to denote the thoughts of Plato? It
    means instead a "nest of dualisms"! Oh, Lord! No wonder I'm confused.

    Andy quoted Rorty:
    "Dewey thought, as I do, that the vocabulary which centers around these
    traditional distinctions has become an obstacle to our social hopes." pg
    xii

    DMB says:
    This seems to be the problem that pragmatism is trying to solve, but I don't
    get it. How is the vocabulary an "obstacle to our social hopes"? As my old
    philosophy professor used to say, understanding the question is the most
    important and most difficult thing in philosophy. The answer to a question
    only makes sense if one first knows what the question is really about. And
    this is what I can't see. How does the traditional philosophical distinction
    stand in the way of our social hopes? What are these social hopes? Put
    another way, what is the goal and how does "Platonism" frustrate that goal?
    Make this clear to me and I shall write an epic love poem in your honor.

    Thanks,
    DMB

    PS It seems to me that Rorty is saying that the last 25 hundred years of
    Western Philosophy ought to be ejected. This strikes me as just about the
    most extraordinary claim I've ever heard and so to persuade me of its truth
    would take extraordinary evidence.

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