From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Nov 04 2003 - 16:03:35 GMT
Matt,
Matt writes:
> DMB said:
> Rorty's truth is an adjective, Pirsig's is a noun.
>
> Matt:
>Pirsig, at the end of Lila, says that Good is
> a noun, not an adjective as we in the West have
> treated it (actually, most philosophers in the West,
> following Plato's footsteps, have treated Good as a
> noun, too, its just the logical positivists and
> laypeople who consider Good to be an adjective).
> Vicariously, this can be construed to mean that
> Truth is also a noun. Afterall, since "the Good" is
> basically the same thing as Pirsig's central term,
> Quality, Pirsig is saying that Quality is a noun.
> Since Quality is everything, that means everything
> is a noun. This is how Pirsig gives the same
> "concrete" existence to everything, from emotions to
> rocks (what concrete pans out to mean is different,
> depending on the levels and such).
>
> This is one of those places where I agree with DMB,
> where he has actually pointed out a point of
> divergence, but reply that this has continually been
> a point of criticism for me: I've never denied that
> it was a point of divergence. The criticism comes
> from the fact that Rorty suggests that if we think
> of morality and knowledge (and their operative terms
> "good" and "truth") as nouns, we will be much more
> likely to think that they should be objects of
> inquiry. To do that is to think that we be more
> moral and more truthful we need to inquire into "the
> Good" and "the Truth". This leads to a
> correspodence theory of truth.
>
> One caveat for all attentive philosophers: that was
> not an argument. It was a very, very brief
> summation of what I've been arguing for over a year.
Ain't it the truth. :-)
One quibble, however. Inquiry into "the Truth" leads to more than just
the correspondence theory. In the book "Truth-a History and Guide for
the Perplexed" by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, the author identifies
several theories that result from inquiring into Truth. 1. Apprehension
of the truth you feel.(Quality Truth), 2.The truth you are told.(Rorty
Truth), 3. Reason and sense perception. (Correspondence Truth).
In commenting on 2., the author writes:
"A 'well-justified' belief, in this variety of relativism, is one which
commands 'intersubjective agreement.' 'Intersubjectivity' is a post-
modern weasel word. It is a fancy way of saying that '50 million
western liberal intellectuals can't be wrong.' 'The requirement of
intersubjectivity,' according to one of the most influential of
contemporary writers who shares some of Rorty's views, 'is what makes
science objective.' This means, I suppose, that the criteria of
experimental demonstration by which scientific opinions are validated
have no ultimate justification except that scientists agree to accept
them. But how wide does agreement have to be before an opinion
qualifies as objective?"
How wide indeed?
As for pragmatism, the author says:
"The doctrine of pragmatists, which equates truth with usefulness,
amounts to a validation of self-interested and mutual contradictory
claims, because there is scarcely any belief--however false by
reasonable standards--that is not useful to some of the people some of
the time."
Which leads directly to Pirsig's point about Nazis being able to appeal
to pragmatism to suit their own purposes.
Platt
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