From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sun Aug 24 2003 - 04:10:36 BST
Matt,
Well, I haven't seen how Davidson uses 'metaphor', but I don't think it is
one, and I don't think it fits on either side of a literal/metaphorical
division. In any case, "Emptiness is not other..." comes from the Heart
Sutra, so it actually has been a part of a community for about 2000 years (a
subset of Buddhist philosopher/practitioners). If it ever did become
intelligible, it would lose its usefulness.
So, you may be asking, how does that community find it useful. Aside from
practice (meditating on it), it also is a vital piece of a philosophical
approach that is neither Philosophy nor philosophy, as Rorty defines them in
the intro to "Consequences of Pragmatism". Being neither, of course it will
not be attractive to either camp. Nevertheless, I figure it is worth laying
it out, since, though Rorty would probably see it as Philosophy, none of his
pragmatic objections apply to it, though his secular ones would.
The (subset of) Buddhist philosophy holds that there are two truths, the
conventional and the absolute. The conventional defnition of truth is
identical to the pragmatic one, as the name implies. It's all language
games, or narratives, or however you want to put it. However, what one
cannot do at the conventional level is say anything that corresponds to the
reality of the absolute level, except note its existence (with 'existence'
X-ed out, or as the Buddhist tetralemma puts it "One cannot say it exists,
it doesn't exist, it both exists and doesn't exist, it neither exists nor
doesn't exist"). But, of course, as Rorty puts it, there is a lot of effing
of the ineffable. The trick is to restrict this effing to statements using
the logic of contradictory identity. Because they speak of
self-contradictory identity, they lose their ability to correspond with
anything. In fact, one can't build a coherent truth out of them either.
The phrase "The logic of contradictory identity" comes, as I've mentioned,
from Nishida Kitaro, but I think it is the same as Coleridge's Law of
Polarity, and of Derrida's differance (though he probably wouldn't approve
of this use of it). It is also present, though not perhaps as starkly, in
the Western tradition of negative theology (Pseudo-Dionysius, Scotus
Erigena, Nicholas of Cusa, others). (Where Hegel fits I'm not sure.) And, as
I see it, it is the only way to "discuss" the relation between DQ and SQ
without reifying them. There's more than a tension between them. There is
contradictory identity.
Lastly, I'll remark that it is also the only way, in my opinion, to approach
awareness, which is what my argument that you don't see the problem in is
getting at. Another version of it is that we are aware of time as successive
(events following each other) and as durational (something enduring). The
(strict spatio-temporal) materialist viewpoint can only encompass the
successive, and can only wave its arms at the durational (or more likely,
ignore it). Yet without the durational one cannot be aware of the
successive, and without the successive one cannot be aware of the
durational. Anyway, my conclusion is that to relate duration and succession
requires the logic of contradictory identity: though they are opposites,
they require each other and constitute each other.
- Scott
----- Original Message -----
> Scott said:
> What do you make of my claim (no, that's too strong -- call it an
experiment in dogmatics) that my dogmata are "better" because they are not
understandable? (Example of a non-understandable dogma: form is not other
than emptiness, emptiness not other than form.) This notion of mine derives
from pragmatism, and also Nietzsche's saying: "It is not a question of
having the courage of one's convictions, but of having the courage to
*attack* one's convictions." Now I don't think one can actually go that far,
at least not all the time, but having non-understandable dogmata seems to me
like a possible middle ground. It means that one cannot settle down with
them, but can only deal with them in a questioning manner, which leads to
self-deconstruction. They can only be approached with the logic of
contradictory identity, so one is ceaselessly kept off balance, and one's
Imagination (in Coleridge's sense) is exercised.
>
> Matt:
> I think of this claim in terms of Rorty's use of Davidson's
literal/metaphorical division. When something isn't understandable, like
"form is not other than emptiness, emptiness not other than form," (which,
you're right, makes no immediate sense to me) that means that we don't have
an established language game in which it is housed. It is a metaphor, an
unintelligible string of marks. However, as we keep using that string of
marks it we will eventually create a language game in which to house it and
it will become intelligible, it will become literal, a dead metaphor.
That's intellectual progress.
>
> But, just because we say something unintelligible doesn't mean we are
saying something that will eventually become literal. The change from
metaphor to dead metaphor is a sign of that series of marks' perceived
usefulness. If a series of marks never becomes inscribed into a language
game, then I'm not sure how useful we should think that series of marks, at
least in a wide global sense (for individuals, that's another story). Your
proposal is that we always keep things unintelligible, that we keep our
final vocabulary from being understandable. I think this is like saying
that we should always be shooting in the dark, without ever trying to
literalize anything.
>
> Or, I don't know. The way I'm interpreting this is clearly a consequence
of Davidson's thorough-going naturalistic account of language. But I'm not
sure what to say about how _good_ it is. The "strong poet," the person who
wants to create her own language, creates metaphors, unintelligible strings
of marks, that will only make sense of her own life. But her strings of
marks are only unintelligible to other people. To her, they at least make
partial sense, though probably in a very unexpressible kind of way (that's
why she creates a new language, because the old one can't express the way
she feels or senses things). What I think you are suggesting is that we not
even understand ourselves.
>
> That doesn't make sense to me. And then you go on to say, "It means that
one cannot settle down with [their dogmata], but can only deal with them in
a questioning manner," which seems to me a pretty close description of the
ironist. What I can't piece together is how the ironist fits with "not
understanding your dogmata." The ironist understands her dogmata, she just
doesn't think it gets anything Right about the universe, so she's always
looking for better dogmata. I don't think self-deconstructing dogmata
really means or does anything. What matters for the ironist is finding an
alternative to her dogmata, not simply deconstructing her own dogmata.
Deconstruction doesn't lead to alternatives, it simply plays on internal
inconsistencies. The first two thirds of Philosophy and the Mirror of
Nature was a deconstruction of (primarily) analytic philosophy. If that had
been all that was in PMN, it wouldn't have been nearly as controversial as
it was. Those parts of PMN w
> ere basically just recapitulations of deconstructions done by Quine and
Sellars (well, of course there was a lot more, but Rorty himself admits the
great intellectual debt to Quine and Sellars and that the main
deconstruction of analytic philosophy was from Quine's "Two Dogmas of
Empiricism" and Sellar's "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind"). What was
controversial was the alternative to the mirror metaphor that Rorty offered
(a conversation metaphor) and the consequences he drew from it. Most of
Rorty's post-PMN writings have revolved around describing his alternative
and relieving the tension between his alternative and already established
linguistic practices.
>
> I've never been sure what to make of this "logic of contradictory
identity." I'm not sure what it is or what it does. I think of
contradictions the way Aquinas did: when you meet a contradiction, make a
distinction. The moral is that if you meet two propositions that seem
mutually exclusive, contradictory, but that both would appear to be true,
you should make a distinction in your central terms to ease the tension
between the two propositions. This is making your web of beliefs and
desires coherent. Without this coherence, I think a person would tend to
get a headache if they reflected on their beliefs as a whole and I'm not
sure the headache is better than not having the headache.
>
> So, I don't know. The way I understand a person's "dogmata," those words
in the person's final vocabulary, is that they are very thin and
unexplainable in non-circular terms. They are understandable, but the only
response a Shklarian liberal can give when an interlocuter asks, "But why
should we minimize cruelty?" is an incredulous look and a definitive
"Because. That's what we do around here." Unexplainable, but
understandable.
>
> Scott said:
> I have no experience of God (N.b., I am just using "God" as an example).
Talking about it with others is no substitute.
>
> Matt:
> There is, clearly, a difference between talking about God and believing in
God. I think that difference can be summed up by the difference between
serious and playful. The atheist, who would for all other intents and
purposes rather not talk about God, talks about God in a playful, "for the
sake of argument" kind of way, whereas the theist takes the conversation
seriously because his identity is bound up in that conversation (unless he
can convince himself, becaue the atheist isn't taking this particular
conversation seriously, to he himself not take this particular conversation
seriously). I think the same can be said for other people who take things
very seriously, like sports. If your identity is bound up tightly in a
particular conversation, then you will take it very seriously and, possibly,
be offended if others poke fun at it or think that that particular
conversation is optional. For you, the conversation isn't optional, and
shouldn't be for anyone. Again, I th
> ink this is a attitudinal difference about conversations, not a difference
in kind of conversations.
>
> Scott said:
> what I hear the materialist saying is that if science can't explain it,
then it is not explained (and more radically: it isn't happening)
>
> Matt:
> But that is certainly not what Rorty is saying.
>
> Scott said:
> one reason I keep recommending Barfield's "Saving the Appearances: A Study
in Idolatry" is that he sheds a lot of light on why the scientific
revolution and the materialism that followed happened when it did, why it
did, and what's wrong with it (the science is not what's wrong, it is the
idolatry -- belief on an independently existing objective reality).
>
> Matt:
> I'm not sure if I had mentioned it, but I did pick up Barfield at a used
bookstore and I'm hoping to get a chance to read it soon (its so small, it
should take long). I should simply mention that Rorty is after the same
idolatry, what you can call "scientism." The first three essays in
Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth are attacks on this idol, more of Rorty's
efforts to get rid of God and his doubles.
>
> Matt
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