From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Jul 24 2005 - 15:52:34 BST
David,
Matt said:
In this sense, since as long as a word is understood by the vast majority of
a culture, people will have an attitude about it, Rorty isn't suggesting
that we can suddenly one day have _no_ attitude towards it: there will be an
attitude, but it will be one of "Weh---should I care?"
David said:
I think that Rorty is suggesting you can simply drop it.
Matt:
Mmm, I don't think so. Given the terms of debate we are using and his
intentions, I don't think Rorty is suggesting we can simply and willfuly
drop a concept or belief in toto. I pretty sure he's talking about what is
or isn't central to our own self-understanding. At some point, I stopped
thinking about God. He's not central.
Matt said:
However, in the long run of a culture, words can drop out of use so much
that people just won't have an attitude about it, largely 'cuz no one will
have heard of it or understand it.
David said:
Why would no one have heard or understood this word when originally by your
own definition this word "is understood by the vast majority of a culture".
What caused the huge shift in values? I think that such a shift occurs
because new patterns have been introduced which encompass the older ones
which are now not so valuable anymore. Unlike what Rorty suggests where
suddenly, for no reason, the patterns are "simply dropped".
Matt:
Most people don't know what phlogiston is. Most people, after being told
what it is, don't care what phlogiston is. And I don't think phlogiston has
been encompassed by anything, either. It was rejected by the scientific
establishment, the same as Aristotle's telos for rocks. Newton's gravitas
didn't encompass Aristotle's idea of why rocks fall, it replaced it.
Ptolemaic astronomy wasn't encompassed by Copernican. There was a coup
d'etat. The cause of a "huge shift in values" is a replacement value, a
replacement pattern, idea, concept, belief. But I don't think it
necessarily encompasses it. And people won't have heard or understand
common words from the past because people gradually stopped hearing or
understanding the word: they stopped using it because it wasn't useful.
They stopped using it because it wasn't central to their self-understanding.
Matt
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