From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Nov 29 2003 - 21:05:38 GMT
Platt:"Rorty says objectivity is not a matter of corresponding to
objects..."
DM:
Well I still suggest that you read Rorty for yourself,
simply my understanding is that Pirsig too rejects the
correspondence theory of truth and that Anthony McWatt
agrees with this view. Your quote is an interpretation
of Haack's interpretation of Rorty, as far as I know Haack
does not use the word dangerous in her work with respect
to Rorty, a strange idea with respect to a philosopher.
I wonder what danger he poses? I can see that from a conservative
or authoritarian point of view you could say that Rorty might
encourage a sort of lazy relativism amoung students, but
Rorty's values and politics are pretty mild, liberal, democratic,
pro-American, but considered enough not to allow the notion
of greater equality to fall out of his agenda. I can think of a few
more dangerous people who do not spend most of their time
reading and writing 'books!'. If you want Rorty to be less
dangerous you should stop giving him all this free publicity.
Anyway, relativism has a long history before Rorty comes along.
What do you think the big danger of relativism is if applicable to
Rorty? At worst the relativists will just sit around not knowing what
to do for the best! You seem to be angry. What really makes you
angry about the current state of things? Me too actually. Like universities
that turn out endless students who would struggle to explain how their
subject relates to others, especially across the science/humanities divide.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Platt Holden" <pholden@sc.rr.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 5:39 PM
Subject: Re: MD The Matt-Paul _Discussion_
> 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
>
>
>
> MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
> Mail Archives:
> Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
> Nov '02 Onward -
http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
> MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
>
> To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
> http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
>
>
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 29 2003 - 21:12:07 GMT