From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Fri Sep 05 2003 - 18:23:45 BST
Hi
as long as a pragmatist says phyisicalism is just another language game,
and its status is entirely provisional I am happy, especially if they stick
to using it in the language
game it belongs in: physics, and do not try to reduce
other conversations to physics; mind you particle physics
is finding physicalism a less and less useful concept! Maybe I am
saying non-reductive physicalism! But are we sure that such a thing
is ever suggested? Does Rorty say anything about non-reductive physicalism
or is this your invention Matt?
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT" <mpkundert@students.wisc.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 10:37 PM
Subject: Re: MD A metaphysics
> David, Platt,
>
> David said:
> But physicalism makes Rorty an inconsistent post-modernist, as Andrew
Bowie says in his book on Schelling: "The important fact that makes one
sceptical about Rorty's position is that Rorty himself actually does retain
a ground, in that he, albeit somewhat inconsistently, advocates a form of
physicalism, which involves a questionable ontological commitment of the
kind he critisises in others."
>
> Platt said:
> This is precisely the criticism I've levelled at Rorty ever since Matt
began touting his philosophy.
>
> Matt:
> I gotta' hand it to Platt on this one. He has been leveling this exact
criticism at Rorty and myself for the past year (amongst many other repeated
criticisms). And I've been answering the criticism in the exact same way
for the past year: non-reductive physicalism does not retain an ontological
commitment. Ontology is optional. If you think ontology is not optional,
and therefore any form of physicalism or any other belief has an ontological
commitment, then you are begging the question. Pragmatists don't want to
have that conversation and they refuse to be pulled into it. As DeWeese
suggested to Pirsig, Do not enter the arena.
>
> Is begging the question a big deal? Only if you want to gain a
dialectical hold over a person and wrestle them to the ground.
>
> Matt
>
>
>
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