From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 09 2003 - 23:07:17 BST
Platt,
First I want to say that I know you aren't attacking me as in saying I'm a dirty bastard. But, on the other hand, I follow enough in Nietzsche's idea that we are our philosophy to feel comfortable in translating an attack on my philosophical position as an attack on me. I don't believe that philosophical positions just hang out in space waiting to be discussed and bantered about. Philosophical positions reflect beliefs and people hold beliefs and I don't believe there is anything more to the "self" then a web of beliefs and desires. (Those last two sentences, in fact all of the sentences before, during, and after this one, are philosophical positions, and therefore part of my beliefs. As I typically do, I acknowledge that you may not agree with the stance I've just elaborated and that I may be begging the question. If that is the case, then consider me to be explaining myself.) That said, philosophical discussion is at a level that typically maintains its cool. The o
bvious tilt of my last post wasn't because I was deeply and personally affronted, but because I'm frustrated with your line of argument. It seemed to me that you were willfully ignoring certain passages and distinctions I made.
Platt said:
More to the point, you might want to report what Rorty thinks of the usefulness of beauty.
Matt:
Rorty doesn't talk a tremendous amount about the concept of "beauty", to my knowledge, except to say that it is thin, like the terms "true" and "good". By thin, Rorty moreorless means undefineable, which pretty much matches with Pirsig.
As for usefulness, I think Rorty would respond exactly the way I did. Rorty finds wild orchids beautiful and sexy. Why? Who knows, he just does. Their use extends to the degree in which they please him. In other words, very useful.
Platt said:
I simply have no use for Rorty's truisms, like, people need people to define a word.
Matt:
But are they really truisms, then, if you don't have a use for them? I would say, no, which means you should interpret or refute the "truism" you disagree with. And for the record, Rorty doesn't think you need other people to define a word. You can define a word any way you like. That doesn't mean people will agree to your definition, though.
Platt said:
You also might want to report on what Rorty thinks of the usefulness of logic.
Matt:
Logic's great as far as I know. It does some neat tricks. In fact, Rorty is usually esteemed as being quite good at it, particularly in lieu of his early phase as an analytic philosopher where he used symbolic logic. Logic is good for keeping your beliefs coherent.
I know you've been trying to tag Rorty with this self-referential paradox, a contradiction. But the first rule of logic is that logic does absolutely nothing without assumptions. Any person whose taken 1st semester logic will tell you that. And when you change your assumptions, you change your consequences. I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to convince you that Rorty changes the assumption that substantiates your charge of irrationality. But you don't believe me.
Platt said:
More truisms: "All words are defined by other words." "Without sour, there is no sweet." Oops. Sorry. In Rorty's philosophy there are no truisms because truth depends on whatever some intersubjective community says it is, e.g., if everyone says the emperor's clothes are gorgeous as he stands there buck naked, then the emperor's clothes are gorgeous.
Matt:
Sure there are truisms. As I already alluded to, however, truisms will be different for different communities because different communities will have different assumptions with which they base logic off of. So, what spiral out to be truisms will be different, depending.
The "emperor's new clothes" analogy is a typical and persuasive technique in trying to get people to think that the pragmatist is crazy. I will simply point out that people should notice how it relies on ocular metaphors to gain its effect. The Truth is "out there" in front of people, if only they can pierce through and see it.
Platt said:
What role does beauty, the aesthetic response, play in Rorty's practical, socially-patterned world?
Matt:
This question boggles my mind. Beauty plays the role it usually plays. I don't understand the question because I have no idea what you are getting at. I already stretched out utility to a size where it includes beauty, where a choice of utility is the same as an aesthetic choice, but you don't care. You come back with "practical" as a epithet. You also come at me with "socially-patterned" as an epithet, but last time I checked Pirsig said our world is socially-patterned. Quality as a consensus of evaluations, and all that.
So I don't know Platt. I have no idea what your angle is. Beauty is all around us. Rorty's a literature nut, he loves wild orchids. I'm not sure what you want, what would satisfy your questions.
Well, I think I do, but I'm not giving you a universal, ahistorical treatment of beauty.
Platt said:
To repeat. Arguing against your beliefs is not a personal attack.
Matt:
Sure it is. When I discuss stuff around here, its another way of saying that I'm "soul searching". The degree to which people will get upset about arguments against their beliefs depends on how much that person identifies with that particular belief, how essential it is in how they describe themselves to themselves. If you argue with a priest about his belief in God, it is quite possible that he might get upset. If you argue with him about his belief in the tastiness of chocolate, he might not. The other variable is how playful you are. If you are always serious, then you will always get upset. If you are always playful, you will never get upset.
I think it is important to get upset once in a while. It is important to be affronted by certain beliefs that other people have, like beliefs of the inferiority of Jews and the like. Political and moral beliefs are beliefs we should be ready to stand unflinchingly behind (depending on how important the belief is: reduction of cruelty? very important. the Democratic party is better than the Republican party? not so important.) However, most philosophical beliefs, I believe, are best treated playfully. Which is why I'm not really that affronted.
Matt
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