From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Nov 03 2003 - 16:46:13 GMT
Platt said:
Remember that the Russians and Germans had enough "intersubjective
agreement" to put Stalin and Hitler in charge.
Matt:
And we had enough "intersubjective agreement" to put Gingrich and the
Bushes in power.
Andy:
And the US supreme court had enough intersubjective agreement to put
GWB in power. There is also nothing infallible about "intersubjective
agreement." There is no measure against which to measure it.
PIrsig:
"James would probably have been horrified to find that Nazis could use
his pragmatism just as freely as anyone else, but Phaedrus didn't see
anything that would prevent it." (Lila, chp.29)
Platt:
Proposing moral equivalence between Stalin, Hitler, Gingrich, Bush and
the U.S. Supreme Court is despicable on its face. But as Pirsig
suggests, postmodern neo-pragmatists have "never come forth with a
single moral principle that distinguishes a Galileo fitting social
repression from a common criminal fighting social repression. (They
have), as a result, been the champion of both. That's the root of the
problem. (Lila, chp.24)
Thanks to Andy and Matt, apologists for Rorty -- whose philosophy
contains "no measure to measure it" and no moral principles to guide
one's judgments -- the root of problem has been unearthed for all to
see. This lack of a moral compass, indeed this seeming pride in the
lack of "measurement," reminds me of Joseph Conrad's novel, "The Heart
of Darkness."
No further explanation of Rorty's "dangerous ideas" seems necessary.
Platt
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