From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Tue Oct 28 2003 - 18:02:50 GMT
Hi Matt
My interest in metaphysics is to look at
the existence of this capacity for drawing
lines in the sand. To understand the ontology of
existence is to describe this cutting of the sand
and the games that result in this activity. These
are the metaphysical-ontological assumptions of
pragmatism that are not discussed. I think Pirsig
has the same interest in a non-essentialist metaphysics.
Taking a holist stance is metaphysics, how does Rorty justify
his holism?
Also, I can't imagine Rorty talking in some of the ways you suggest below.
I might dig out some interview quotes at the weekend.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT" <mpkundert@students.wisc.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 2:15 AM
Subject: Re: MD What makes an idea dangerous?
> David,
>
> David said:
> I take the Rorty-reader to say that the two cultures have different values
and that you cannot say one is superior to the other. They have different
language games and live in different worlds. I have heard Rorty take a
position of 'no way to judge' in respect of so-called primitive cultures.
>
> Matt:
> This isn't quite right, though many have interpreted Rorty as saying this.
Rorty says that we cannot judge either culture to be _transcendentally_
superior, or objectively superior. This is because we cannot "leap out of
our skins" or take Putnam's "God's eye view" or take the view from nowhere.
As you say, we are always in a contingent time and place. However, this
does not still our judging heart, nor should it, nor could it. As ironists,
we enjoy meeting new people and exchanging views. But I think Rorty's point
is that some views are simply beyond the pale, things we simply cannot put
up with and still get a decent night's sleep without being awoken by
nightmares of people eating babies.
>
> The Rortyan position is not about silence at all. Its about continuing
the conversation. Rorty doesn't know what it would be like to give up
binary thinking. We can make anything and everything into a binary. The
trick is to not think that a pair of poles gets at the way reality really
is. This is why I think Pirsig is right to say that reality is a pile of
sand that we can split into two in any infinite number of ways. This is
Pirsig agreeing with Rorty's point about the game of redescription and
recontextualization. I think Pirsig is wrong, however, to think of this as
still playing metaphysics (taken in the Platonic tradition). Pragmatists
agree with Pirsig that there is no perfect opening in metaphysics. We take
this as the suggestion that we should stop doing metaphysics. Metaphysics
is the game of constructing the perfect game, a transcendental game in which
you'll always win, thereby precluding the need to continue playing the game.
Pragmatists take Pirsig'
> s suggestions as breaking the spell, as suggesting that there can be no
winner. Whatever game we play after that, though, one thing is for sure, it
is not metaphysics. It is a de-transcendentalized game of redescription,
each person trying to make the other's position look bad. The trick of
pragmatist philosophy is to keep cutting the sand until you come up with a
cut that is more useful, looks better. This is, essentially, the same game
that philosophers have been playing, except that pragmatists drop the
pretention that the object of the game is to stop playing. Pragmatists
don't think the game will ever stop.
>
> Matt
>
>
>
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