From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Fri Aug 22 2003 - 20:24:55 BST
Scott,
Scott said:
What if I had said "because it is assumed that while there can be material explanations, there can be no valid (or useful, or something) immaterial explanations"? where an immaterial explanation is one that explains in terms of events that cannot be described in micro-structural terms. For example, to say "Mozart created melodies by tuning into the music of the spheres." There can, to be sure, be explanations that are neither material nor immaterial.
Matt:
You've given a very odd definition of "immaterial explanations." Here's why: if you had said, "because it is assumed that while there can be material explanations, there can be no valid ... immaterial explanations," under your definition of "immaterial explanations", I have to agree, there is no such thing as an immaterial explanation. Why? Because pragmatists think descriptions go all the way down, that no description gets anything Right or Correct, and that everything can be endlessly redescribed ad infinitum, til the end of eternity. There is no such thing as an event that cannot be described in micro-structural terms, just as there is no such thing as an event that cannot be described in macro-structural terms. There is no such thing as "cannot be described as...." Pragmatists think you can describe an event any damn way you want, the thing that counts is how useful the description is.
That's why I think your definition of "immaterial explanations" to be very odd. If you had simply meant the opposite of material, as in non-material, then sure, non-material explanations are valid and can be useful. But to say that an event can only be described in immaterial terms is to say that you've found the Correct Way to describe the event. Now, this isn't to say that pragmatists are reductionistic. Endlessly redecribing things is not the same as endlessly reducing them. The point of being a non-reductive physicalist is that the mind is not _reduced_ to the brain, that "Mozart created music by tuning into the music of the spheres" isn't _reduced_ to a Bloomian account of Mozart's anxious relation to his predecessors, and the table isn't _reduced_ to gluons and quarks. There are simply some instances in which it is useful to talk about the mind, the music of the spheres, and tables and some instances in which it is useful to talk about the brain, the anxiety of i
nfluence, and quarks. When a way of describing something dies off (such as talk about the music of the spheres), this isn't to say that dead way has been reduced to the new way, it is only to say that we find it more useful now to talk about heliocentrism than geocentrism.
Scott said:
Now let me ask you if you agree with Andy that the pragmatist is not looking for all-encompassing theories. If so, doesn't the phrase "every event can be described in micro-structural terms" sound all-encompassing?
Matt:
I've actually been weaseling around with this for a while. After all, one of Rorty's favorite definitions of philosophy is Sellars': seeing how things, in the broadest sense of the term, fit together, in the broadest sense of the term. So, I don't think its that pragmatists aren't looking for all-encompassing theories. They just aren't looking for Correct Theories. For instance, Rorty thinks Hegel's achievement to be wonderful, but only after acknowledging Kierkegaard's quip. What Rorty doesn't want, like Lyotard, are metanarratives. A metanarrative is not just a narrative that sits behind all others, it is _the_ narrative that sits behind all others. As long as it is simply one narrative amongst others, there is no problem, even if some of those narratives are quite large and encompassing.
The claim of "meta-" status is what pragmatists take to be paradigmatic of metaphysics (for good historical reasons, not to mention etymological). So, I have no problem with the Metaphysics of Quality as a narrative, as just one more way in which to decribe how things, in a very broad sense, fit together, in a very broad sense. What I have a problem with is claiming that the Metaphysics of Quality is what _really_ sits behind everything, that the MoQ is how things _really_ fit together, that the MoQ gets at how reality would describe itself if it had the chance. Pragmatists don't think reality can describe itself because only humans do that.
Matt
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