From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 16 2003 - 18:29:15 GMT
Anthony,
Resident Rorty philosophologist stated:
We generally have no idea what any of us do in our non-forum time because it is rarely discussed. We are here to discuss philosophy, not talk about what political rallies we've recently organized.
Resident Pirsig philosophologist replied:
I'm sure that is a sentiment that Rorty would be happy to endorse with his avoidance of C.P. Snow's art-science dichotomy. However, remember that this is a forum about Pirsig's pragmatism. Not only does Pirsig show that C.P. Snow's dichotomy can be reconciled (because both art and science employ values), he clearly states that philosophy is not worth a damn if it doesn't improve real life.
Matt:
First, I'm not sure what you think the difference is between Rorty's avoidance and Pirsig's reconciliation. I find them to be almost indistinguishable besides residual scientism in Pirsig. Second, Rorty thinks that _nothing_ is worth a damn if it doesn't improve real life. That's the point of pragmatism. However, there are different ways of using philosophy to improve real life. One way is by thinking of philosophy as poetry, like those in the post-Nietzschean tradition. The goal here is for self-enlargement, self-creation, i.e. private type things. Another way is by thinking of philosophy as politics, like those in the post-Marxist tradition (in the wide sense in which Dewey, Foucault, and Habermas all fall into). The goal here is to clear away conceptual problems, dig out cruelty in our social institutions, i.e. public type things.
Anthony continued:
I suppose it could be argued that politics [I hope you meant "philosophy"] shouldn't be concerned with real life issues (such as health, education, welfare and war) but it's not a view that "holds much water" with us pragmatists. With all due respect, this is just one reason why we doubt that the SOM flavoured public/private split as Rorty formulated it in "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" (CON) will ever catch on. Moreover, by definition being an elitist manifesto targeted towards a few liberal intellectuals, Rorty's CON was certainly not written (as ZMM was, for example) to "catch on" in a general way.
Matt:
Third, I never said philosophy shouldn't be concerned with real life issues. Rortyans simply think that, for the most part, real life issues can be split into public issues and private issues. The point I was making with my original comments was that this discussion group is something we do on the weekends, something we do for fun, i.e. its part of our private lives. Since this is part of our private lives, I do not think there is anything that should force us to participate in anyone's particular project, whether they are doing poetic philosophy or political philosophy. The only thing that would suggest this, on pain of bad faith, is if 1) you consider yourself a by-the-book Pirsigian and 2) Pirsig thinks that (to reverse Rorty's formulation) philosophy has priority over democracy. If this is true in Pirsig, its a very unfortuante bit of Platonism to think that we have to rehearse scenes from The Republic before discussing campaign finance reform on the Senate floor.
Clearly I would shun it, but I think everyone else should flee from it, too. If its true, I think it quite clearly of a piece (a large piece) with SOM.
Fourth, on your prediction of Rorty's formulation of the public/private split, I'm not sure what you find so fantastic about it. As far as I've been able to tell, its simply a reformulation of Western democratic common sense, something every American, at the least, is born and bred with.
Matt
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