From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Thu Nov 13 2003 - 10:01:30 GMT
Hi Matt
Paul said:
If you believe that there is a world out there (reality) that
descriptions don't represent, then the two (reality and descriptions)
are not the same and surely you have made a description/reality
distinction?
Matt:
Well, no, because the distinction is between books and rocks, sound
waves and light waves. Everything is part of reality, its just that we
can split reality up in different ways, like between "rocks" and
"talking about rocks".
Paul:
Okay, we can split reality up in millions of ways for the duration of a
discussion, but when you say things like "the world causes us to have
beliefs" you are making a metaphysical distinction between "the world"
and "beliefs" by postulating a fundamental causal relationship.
Matt:
Davidson helps us out in this regard because he makes a distinction
between reasons and causes. The world (rocks and trees) can cause us to
hold certain beliefs, but it cannot supply reasons for our beliefs
because reasons are discursive. However, reasons can explain our beliefs
and they can also cause us to have beliefs. What realists think is that
the world "out there" can give us reasons for our beliefs, that it can
explain our beliefs by saying that our beliefs correspond with the
world. Pragmatists don't want to say that. They say simply that the
world causes us to have certain beliefs and that our descriptions can
explain themselves.
Paul:
The assertion that "the world causes us to have certain beliefs" assumes
a pre-existing world, a world of causal pressures at least. I think that
making this assumption lands you in metaphysics, whether you want to
call it something else or not - or to put it another way, by making such
claims you have started a conversation with metaphysicians whether you
walk away or not :-)
Furthermore, by engaging in the conversation and then ducking
metaphysical questions about the nature of this "causal pressure," I
think you run into the same problem as Niels Bohr when he refused to
comment on what went into experiments. You deny objectivity, as did
Bohr, but as with Bohr, objectivity is replaced by intersubjectivity
which effectively collapses object into subject (or more specific to
neo-pragmatism, collapses objects into language). I say this because,
unless you make it a further metaphysical category, even your "causal
pressure" has to be taken as a linguistically constructed notion.
Pragmatists might object to this with talk of belief in an external
world of stubborn physical reality but then they are quick to deny they
are making an ontological claim. This is why I suggest that Rortyan
pragmatism is linguistic idealism in denial.
cheers
Paul
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