From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Oct 19 2003 - 20:53:33 BST
Scott, Matt, Platt and all:
Platt channeled David Horowitz:
It's no mystery why college campuses today have strict, politically correct
speech codes. It's the predictable consequence of Rorty's "intersubjective
agreement" which is a simply a not-so-subtle disguise for raw, power
politics.
Scott said to Platt:
I'm not concerned with political correctness crap on college campuses or
with Clinton's moral failings. I am concerned that you are grossly
misrepresenting what Rorty has said.
dmb says:
Matt is fond of linking Platt's view with mine, but we actually have very
little in common and this case highlights the difference. We both dislike
Rorty, but it is usually for different reasons. Platt tends to stress
morality and likes to voice the angry-white-guy conservative objections.
While I'd certainly go along with the objection that Rorty's pragmatism is
morally vacuous and ultimately nihilistic and destructive, I think mysticism
is really what makes the MOQ so un-Rortyian. And my problem with PC campus
codes is that they seem to reflect this ridiculous position that we can
change a person's beliefs by simply altering the terms they use, as if
forcing a person to use an "enlightened" vocabulary with somehow magically
make them an enlightened person. At best, all we get there is a false and
insincere intersubjective agreement, which is pretty much the definition of
an Orwellian nightmare. Now we turn to more relevant issues...
Here's the opening of Consequences of Pragmatism:
"The essays in this book are attempts to draw consequences from a pragmatist
theory about truth. This theory says that truth is not the sort of thing one
should expect to have a philosophically interesting theory about. For
pragmatists, "truth" is just the name of a property which all true
statements share. ...Pragmatists doubt that there is much to be said for
this common feature. They doubt this for the same reason they doubt that
there is much to be said about the common feature shared by such morally
praiseworthy actions as... They see certain acts as good ones to perform,
under the circumstances, but doubt that there is anything general and useful
to say about what makes them all good."
Scott said:
...what is your "philosophically interesting theory about truth"? Now if you
have one, the odds are that Rorty will not find it philosophically
interesting. In that case, when you and Rorty argue you are mutually begging
the question that that hypothetical theory of yours *is* philosophically
interesting. That is all that Matt is trying to say.
dmb says:
Is truth is a property of all true statements or is truth a species of the
Good? Is Good a noun, or is Goodness just a feature of morally praisworthy
acts? Is the MOQ is a philosophically interesting theory of truth or is
Rorty bored? Hard to imagine how we could have it both ways. Clash, clash,
clash. But I also wanted to point out that this is probably one of those
cases Scruton was talking about. It seems pragmatists refuse to engage the
actual issue at hand and instead responds that its come down to "mutual
question begging" or that we don't have enough common "vocabulary" and so
the pragmatists just shrugs and the conversation stops. It is "thrown out of
court"... And the thing that kills me here is that I find it impossible to
distinguish between what can simply be called a fundamental disagreement and
question begging, as Matt's long and tedious explanation described it. And
while I'm at it, what the difference between "vocabulary" and what is
commonly known as the "terms" of the debate? It all seems like a painfully
fancy way to say a very unfancy thing; that people disagree about stuff.
British philosopher Roger Scruton wrote:
"In his excellent book, 'Against Deconstruction,' the critic John Ellis
points out that the normal response of those who advocate
deconstruction to those who question it is not to reply with argument,
but to rule both the questions and the questioner out of court."
Scott said:
Rorty's position is not "think whatever you like to be true", but
that he doubts that one can find some method for deciding in all cases what
is true. So does Pirsig, with respect to finding in all cases what is moral.
...Do you have access to God's opinion on the matter? If not, what is your
method for determining whether it is good or bad -- and what assumptions to
you bring to bear to make that determination? ... Do you know of some
absolute standard by which one can determine whose opinion is closer to the
truth?
dmb says:
Decide in all cases? Access to God's opinion? Absolute standard to measure
the truth of opinion? This must be the kind of thing Blackburn was talking
about when he asked if it is "really possible to hold that only
old-fashioned metaphysical prigs talk unblushingly of truth anymore". I
still don't know who these divinely inspired absolutists are, but surely
Pirsig is not one of them and so I fail to see the relevance. And just
because we don't have access to God's opinion or the absolute truth,
whatever that is, it simply does not follow that we should abandon the
philosophical quest. It seems to me that the post-modern thing to do is live
with a certain level of uncertainty and ambiguity and work that into our
quest. Maybe that's what will make it philosophically interesting.
> Simon Blackburn wrote:
> "Non-philosophers who dip into his (Rorty's) writings may come away
> intoxicated by the scale, but also astonished by the message. How could
> anyone, for example, seriously hold, as Rorty has, that 'truth is what
> your contemporaries let you get away with,' or that 'no area of
> culture, and no period of history, gets Reality more right than any
> other.'? Is it really possible to hold that only 'old-fashioned
> metaphysical prigs' talk unblushingly of truth any more?"
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