From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Thu Feb 12 2004 - 23:56:43 GMT
Wim,
Wim said:
I didn't mean 'defining pragmatism as self-denying philosophy/vocabulary' (for your peace of mind I'll forget about metaphysics) in the sense of 'denying that it IS a philosophy/vocabulary' but in the sense of denying it's own (social) relevance. Judging from your (24 Jan 2004 12:48:55 -0600) quotes form Locke, Hegel, Wittgenstein and Stanley Fish I was wrong: pragmatism can't be defined by it, as self-denying is shared more widely among philosophers. You're sure they didn't happen to be in a modest mood and
said (or implied) something different at other times?
Matt:
I guess I understand what you mean by "self-denying," but I would think it even harder to define pragmatism by it being that, it would seem, poetry and football are typically both self-denying enterprises, too.
But my quotes from Locke, Hegel, Wittgenstein, and Fish were in reference to what _I_ took you to me, not what you meant. As far as what you meant, Locke certainly felt that philosophy had a large role to play in society. Hegel I'm pretty sure did. Wittgenstein didn't and Fish certainly doesn't. Of course, in Locke's time, it was still possible for philosophers to have large social influence. Times have changed and that's not quite true anymore.
Wim said:
Asking the questions 'how' and 'what can we know' doesn't imply a leap out of experience yet. Only answers other than 'experience' resp. 'the patterns in experience' do.
Matt:
As I just responded to Paul (in the "Objectivity..." thread), pragmatists don't see the point in continuing to ask the questions if the only answer we need is "experience." In the old days, that answer would never fly. Nowadays, however, it does because we've scaled back what we are looking for in an answer. The pragmatist scales it back so far that when she answers "experience," its basically the same thing as saying "mu."
Wim said:
I'm glad that according to you pragmatism is a specimen of philosophy. That implies that it at least seeks wisdom. Doesn't 'wisdom' imply recognition as such by (and relevance for) other people than the wise themselves?
Matt:
What philosophy implies depends on what kind of philosopher you want to be. I don't think there is a natural kind of thing called "philosophy" that you can do injustice to. Philosophy is probably the most nebulous and amorphous area of study there is. When you define a discipline, the idea is to exclude others from it for some purpose, for instance, to honor those who are shining examples of your discipline (e.g., Galileo and not Aristarchus). The same goes for philosophy, but with so many people in the
world and through history, the variation and proliferation of purposes is amazing. What the professionals have been involved in during the 20th century has been a campaign to try and diagnose what "real" philosophy is. Pragmatists of different stripes during this same century tried to block their every move. We think you can apply the honorific title "philosopher" on your favorites, and you should, but that doesn't mean the others aren't philosophers, it just means tha
t _for your purposes_ they fall under the measuring stick.
So, when I say, "Depends on what kind of philosopher you want to be," I can think of at least two examples. Derrida and Rorty. In Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Rorty describes a way of reading Derrida as attempting to scare away his own demons and make fun of the things he thinks silly, not as offering up wisdom for anybody (except possibly those people, like Rorty, who fear the same apparitions). Rorty, on the other hand, can be seen as offering wisdom in that book, as telling people how they might
think about things to make their lives a little bit better. For instance, a way of thinking about Derrida, Foucault, Heidegger, and Nietzsche that doesn't get in the way of your liberal, social aspirations. I think Rorty has been one of the most prominent public intellectuals in the past 20 years and I think Rorty has given us much wisdom and good counsel.
Wim said:
To what extent DO you agree with (that last part of what I wrote):
Matt:
I was speaking in general. Like I am with quite a few other people, almost all of whom are uncomfortable with this thought, I think I'm in general in large agreement with you about philosophy (and also, in this case, politics). Our differences, I think, come down to terminology and practical suggestions. We have people from all over the world from all sorts of backgrounds. To expect them to all come onto a discussion site and be able to converse without any translation problems, I think, is silly, except
that is what some people seem to expect. I'm sorry, but almost everybody here speaks a different philosophical language, let alone, periodically, a different language period.
I don't think what I'm saying is all that exciting. I find Jonathon Marder's reaction to me and Rorty to be the most telling: he finds us boring. He's already assimilated the appropriate parts, so there's not much there of interest. I would love for there to be more of that. But I think a lot of people are aggitated about all of the hoopla surrounding my posts without really being able to see that we aren't really all that different philosophically. I think some people are so desparate to distance
themselves from the style of pragmatism I've been espousing that they are willing to say nonpragmatist things, all the while, as far as I can see, claiming to be pragmatists.
I've simply been trying to punch up the consequences of people's metaphilosophical decisions, the consequences of the metaphors, images, vocabularies that they use. I think other people simply mince my words far more than they should. I don't think they are nearly as charitable as they should be and I don't think they want to grasp the vocabulary I'm offering. Many simply repeat their first impression over and over again until I get tired of trying to give them a second one.
Wim said:
That suggests defining 'vocabulary' as 'whole set of metaphors used by someone'. Shouldn't the reasoning behind eschewing/preferring certain metaphors be part of the definition?
Matt:
"Vocabulary" could be defined that way, but I'm not sure what your question is. I'm not sure why the reasoning behind the metaphors is excluded. This is what I mean by mincing. I have no idea what kind of dialectical hold you are trying to get on me, but by all means, have it.
Wim said:
My main problem is with your distinction between public and private and the way you use it to marginalize what we are doing on this list.
Matt:
Its true, from a certain point of view what I say can seem to be marginalizing, but that's only if you think that the MD must be a tool for political revolution. I see it as a tool for personal revolution and so don't find it marginalizing in the least.
(By the way, you are much more attentive to my writings then I am. Stop. Seriously ;-)
Wim said:
To what extent is this distinction and it's moral usage (some things 'should' stay at one side of the divide) typical for pragmatism, for Rortyism or for general American political correct thinking, I wonder?
Matt:
I think its typical of most Americans. I think most Americans agree with Jefferson's "separation of church and state" which is an incarnation of the old, Enlightenment idea of a public/private split.
Wim said:
I see no dividing line between public and private. There's a continuum from things that are mine and completely inaccessible for others and things I identify with which I share with others. There's a continuum from discussions in my own head to discussions in which the whole world is involved. Defined in this way I don't see much reason to say that some things should 'belong' at the private side of the continuum.
Matt:
This is the another place where I think you've minced too much. You referred early to the public/private split Americans would like to have as "absolute." I don't think that's quite right. I told Anthony in one of my replies to him that, as you say, there is a continuum between public and private. There is no sharp, absolute dividing line, right, but there is certainly an obvious difference between the extreme poles. As a practical measure, Enlightenment intellectuals created the public/private split to
increase their privacy, their freedom to do what they want. As a practical measure, Americans decided that religion should be a purely private affair. That decided that after seeing the many, many very long religious wars plague and soak European soil with blood.
And I think there is a equivocation going on in what the public/private split means, one that I know I've perpetuated. When you say, "There's a lot of public things (things shared among citizens, even some politics) going on in which the state doesn't and shouldn't meddle (or maybe should meddle, but doesn't). For instance art, religion and science are all fields of shared human activity that are or should be free from state intervention (not necessarily always from state support) AND that are or should be to a
large extent public to have a positive role in society," this highlights the equivocation. When I say that Americans, indeed any nation or people that thinks there is something called a "human right," erects a public/private split, its not about whether the activity is a shared human activity. Its about whether we should legislate what people do in such activities, or whether we should let them do what they want. You are right, theoretically democracies can do wha
tever the people want them to do, the rule of the mob that Plato ridiculed in the Republic. What Enlightenment liberals have been urging since Robespierre and the Terror is that there are some things that democracies should _never_ be allowed to do.
The equivocation happens again when you say, "In other situations large scale economic activities organized by the state should be handed over to other types of association of citizens. (This is often wrongly termed 'privatization', because as long as they stay large-scale, a lot of people participate and should have a say in them. They have to stay relatively 'public'.)" "Privitization" doesn't mean "relegated to an individual," it means keeping the state out of its business. Just because a lot of people are
doing something doesn't mean the state has a responsibility to stick its nose into it.
When you say, "Even though politics should not be dictated by a SPECIFIC philosophy or religion, the shape of a society as a whole is unavoidably shaped and even should be shaped by people's highest goals," I absolutely agree and one general outline of what people's highest shared goals should be is what Enlightenment liberals have been pushing for two centuries: the more freedom I have to do what I want as I long as it doesn't hurt other people, the better. I still agree with Rorty that probably the last
conceptual revolution in politics has already been enunciated by J.S. Mill. I think you are absolutely wrong to say, "Politics should contain philosophical and religious discussion on pain of degenerating into sterile counting, weighing and compromising between incomparable 'private' views that are on principle equivalent." The weighing and compromising doesn't occur between quite possibly incomparable private views. And they certainly aren't equivalent. But that our p
rivate views, for instance our views about Plato or God, are quite possibly going to be incompatible is exactly what one of America's forefathers, James Madison, predicted. It is the nasty horn of the dilemma of freedom, but it is the horn we have to take. Its not that our private views are equivalent and its not that we are weighing them. The entire point of making them private is to make them besides the point. We only weigh and compromise the thin strip of land where compromise is possible. That's what
public views are and public debate is. I don't know how to debate with you about God or any other religion in a way that will see a resolution. Philosophers have been doing it for 2500 years without success. When we see that type of statistic, liberal democrats go, "Well, maybe we just should talk about that, and instead talk about something we might see some resolution and compromise on."
That's the point of keeping Plato's Republic off the Senate floor.
Matt
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