From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Mon Sep 22 2003 - 18:27:41 BST
Sam,
Sam said:
You make it sound as if there was no understanding of 'truth' involved in the evolution of my beliefs. I hold my beliefs because I think they're true, aka they have the highest Quality that I have yet found in my intellectual explorations. That may change - whether you call it DQ or the Holy Spirit, if you have a set of beliefs which rule out those things, and therefore the possibility of change, then you're eventually going to be marooned a long way from the current of truth. I see no philosophical distinction here between my beliefs and anyone else's on this forum, including yours. Why do you think that there is, that is, why do you think it is 'quite relevant'?
Matt:
I agree very much with Sam here and particularly when he says later, "And on many of those things we'd be on the same side - but maybe for quite distinct reasons!" One of Rorty's main projects has been to clear space for people's own ideas of self-perfection. This is at the heart of the Enlightenment political project, it is what prompted Jefferson to enunciate the separation of church and state, it is what prompted Eisenhower to say that religion is at the heart of America--whatever religion it happens to be. The heart of secularism isn't that people should be atheists, it is that people should leave religion for at home. What this century's most important political theorist (with the possible exception of Habermas), John Rawls, does is show that this separation should be expanded to cover philosophy, too. This means that all private projects of self-creation, be they called religious or philosophical or spiritual or literary or whatever name they are given, should be
privatized so that people can determine the meaning of life on their own without the interference of the state. Rorty argues that religion and philosophy should stay out of politics because it would stop the conversation. It doesn't matter how we got to our position of "cruelty is the worst thing we can do", be it from a Christian standpoint or a secular standpoint, from reading the Bible or reading Orwell. It just doesn't matter. What matters is that we got there and that we can then argue how we move from there to action, it is then that we can debate good policy.
Matt
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