From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Nov 29 2003 - 17:39:13 GMT
Hi Matt (also Mark and all Rorty acolytes)
Given your numerous compliments of me and Mark, namely our simplistic,
quasi-slanderous, incomprehension of Rorty's pragmatism, I suppose it
would be best simply to ignore your total inability to explain yourself
in plain English (other than frequent use of childish expletives) and
let your defense of the indefensible rest. But, in good conscience I
cannot. For Rorty's philosophy is not only unsound but dangerous to a
free society, as Mark explained.
> Mark said:
> The worrying thing as far as i can discern is that matt's position gives
> the green light to any despot who wishes to impose a social imperative
> under the guise of intellectual argumentation. What a pile of garbage.
>
> Matt:
> Right.
>
> Well, I have yet to hear either of them explicate good reasons for
> thinking that's what my position does, though I have talked ad nauseum
> for why it doesn't. In fact, usually their aren't very many reasons
> given at all. They usually just say that pragmatism is a despot's tool,
> or group/social thinking, or trapped in the "Emporer New Clothes" and
> leave it at that, thinking "Well, its just obvious, of course!" I
> always give responses to why this isn't the case, but no longer. I
> refuse to explicate their own positions for them any longer so I can
> respond to them. I'll simply take it that they don't have any good
> reasons and that they are simply firing from the hip with irrational
> impulses.
Right. Well, check out the following for irrational impulses:.
From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
"Rorty's least favorite pragmatist is Peirce, whom he regards as
subject to both scheme-content dualism and to a degree of scientism. So
it is not surprising that Haack, whose own pragmatism draws inspiration
from Peirce, finds Rorty's recasting of pragmatism literally unworthy
of the name. Rorty's key break with the pragmatists is a fundamental
one; to Haack's mind, by situating himself in opposition to the
epistemological orientation of modern philosophy, Rorty ends up
dismissing the very project that gave direction to the works of the
American pragmatists. While classical pragmatism is an attempt to
understand and work out a novel legitimating framework for scientific
enquiry, Haack maintains, Rorty's "pragmatism" (Haack consistently uses
quotes) is simply an abandonment of the very attempt to learn more
about the nature and adequacy conditions of enquiry. Instead of aiding
us in our aspiration to be govern ourselves through rational thought,
Rorty weakens our intellectual resilience and leaves us even more
vulnerable to rhetorical seduction. To Haack and her sympathisers,
Rorty's pragmatism is DANGEROUS, performing an end-run on reason, and
therefore on philosophy." (emphasis mine)
Lest you think Haack is like me and Mark, that is, unable to comprehend
a philosophical argument, you might check her credentials:
"Susan Haack (B.A., M.A., B.Phil., Oxford; Ph.D., Cambridge), formerly
Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge, and then professor of Philosophy at the
University of Warwick, is presently Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and
Sciences, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Law at UM. Her
areas of interest include philosophy of logic and language,
epistemology and metaphysics, philosophy of science, including issues
of scientific testimony in court, Pragmatism, and feminism."
Rorty says objectivity is not a matter of corresponding to objects but
a matter of getting together with other subjects, otherwise known as
his "intersubjective" principle of proof. First, are we to infer that
this statement itself is true only if enough people say it is? Second,
are we to understand that there were two truths about Jews during WW II-
-the truth of the Jewish community and the truth of the Nazi community?
When you disrobe Rorty's philosophy of its abstruse verbiage and jargon
(contingent, essentialism, historicist, poeticized, recontextualize,
ahistorical, final vocabulary, etc.), mostly designed to impress rather
than express, not only does his philosophy amount to "The Emperor's New
Clothes," but Rorty himself is ultimately exposed as bereft of
intellectual quality. And that's the naked truth.
Platt
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