Re: MD A metaphysics

From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 02 2003 - 21:54:59 BST

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    Then I noticed that I had bashing my head against the wall in front of me,

    David said:
    I am enjoying this exchange.

    Matt:
    Well, that makes one person. Wait, I think DMB is probably enjoying it. I think he likes being argumentative and self-righteous.

    David said:
    I agree that the problem with Rorty is his materialism or physicalism, I am happy with all the stuff he says about epistemolgy# and pragmatism but then he seems to go off in a completely unsupported physicalist direction.

    Matt:
    It is unclear how physicalism is supposed to be supported if not by its utility. It works. Mechanistic explanations work when trying to predict and control rocks. I don't know what else to say.

    Besides, if physicalism is unsupported, I fail to see how any alternatives have support. The question is what we take to be support, and that would seem to always be a question-begging affair. But that's what pragmatists predict: supporting your basic assumptions about the world, be it "physicalism works with rocks" or "don't be cruel to other people", will always be visciously circular.

    David said:
    What we call matter is just what the sciences currently picture it as being, which is constantly changing.

    Matt:
    Yes.

    David said:
    Rorty seems to do little more than make philosophy bow down to the physical sciences and I am not keen to buy that.

    Matt:
    Nope, sorry, not buying it. See either my reply to DMB or Part I of Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. If anything, Rorty wants philosophy to bow down to literature. On that, see Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity.

    David said:
    And if physicalism is not about reductionism what is it?

    Matt:
    Its non-reductive physicalism. See either my conversation with Scott this past month or "Non-Reductive Physicalism" in Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth.

    Matt

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