Matt said: ...If one stipulates that epistemology is possible only if there is an epistemic gap, then its easy to see how collapsing the gap shoves the area aside. What Rorty's usually criticized for is ignoring other things that people want to call epistemology. Which is fine, we can redefine the term, there are no authorities dictating how we have to use them (unless you're taking an exam).
dmb says: Does the traditional definition stipulate that? That alone would explain my confusion. If that's the case then yes, I certainly think we'd have to redefine it. It seems to me that we only need to remove that stipulation and we'd have a working concept. Then epistemology is simply the study of knowledge and its methods. That's the meaning I attributed to it anyway so I'd be all set to go (unless I'm taking an exam). Matt said: The trouble for Rorty is that his argument isn't so much that epistemology is only possible if there's an epistemic gap, but that the area is only _interesting_ if there is an epistemic gap, there is only work for people distinctively known as philosophers, as opposed to other inquirers like scientists and literary critics, if there is an epistemic gap. ...The questions I have about what you fill the gap with are about what it actually amounts to and how interesting that different direction is. Like methods of inquiry. Why would philosophers be better at investigating the methods of science than scientists, who are the ones actually using them? It seems to me that whatever that inquiry would be, it would be more like sociology than either what philosophy has traditionally composed itself as or even, say, physics. Or "legitimate knowledge". Why would a philosopher know more about what makes up a legitimate piece of science or literary criticism than a scientist or literary critic? Particularly when it comes to this one, I think legitimation is entirely a matter for people in the actual discipline than those from without. dmb says: Okay, I think I see the point here. If there is a distinctive role for the philosopher it would probably entail a comparative analysis of the methods employed in the various disciplines. As I mentioned, Dewey found a common pattern of inquiry in the two most succesful methods to date; common sense and science. I don't know how interesting that is, but it might be useful to develop a general theory of inquiry based on that common pattern. The people who practice in their particular fields would certainly have to play an important role and each discipline will need to develop methods appropriate to their subject matter, but looking at a wide range of methods in a comparative analysis would probably be the philosopher's task. This process would go back and forth indefinatley in a never ending process of improvement. For all I know this is already happening and many books have already been written about it. In any case, I think the philosopher can do some good, provide a service, by developing a broader and more coherent picture than can the specialists. I would even say that specialization has created some serious communication problems and that a general picture is like medicine for that sort of thing. Maybe such things would help to foster interdisciplinary collaborations, create openings in the walls of jargon, help the specialists to see their own work better and other things I haven't even imagined yet. Matt said: That being said, an investigation into things like methods and what counts as legitimate knowledge in physics or literary criticism would be interesting (and, from experience, is indeed interesting), but when people suggest successors to epistemology (particularly people who are philosophers) I always wonder whether they're thinking more like Quine, who thought a philosophy of science would limn the true structure of reality, or more like Kuhn, who essentially birthed the sociology of science. Quine bad, Kuhn good. But Kuhn's more like intellectual history. dmb says: Quine and Kuhn, eh? I gotta go with my broken-hearted positivist theory again here and now maybe I see where that "stipulation" in the definition of epistemology comes from. Both of these guys are of the analytic school and both are influenced by the vienna circle. Kuhn's famous book was published by them. As you know, there are a few scholars who see Rorty's pragmatism as a "mamby pamby postivism" (Teed Rockwell). But Dewey sometimes looks that way too and some of his defenders apparently feel the need to say it ain't so. I guess I'll be one of them in Dewey's case but in Rorty's case I think the charge pretty well sticks. Didn't he dimiss both pure experience and radical empiricism? If a guy wanted to get a kind of positivism out of pragmatism, dismissing those two elements would do the trick. Didn't mean to open that can of worms, but its a warm up to my answer. I'm not thinking of Quine or Kuhn and wouldn't tend go that way. Feels like a choice between absolutism and relativism but maybe they just don't suit my taste in thinkers. Dewey's take on formal logic makes a lot more sense to me. He basically says that the logical grows out of the biological, that it is an abstract analog to the temporal procedures of life. Its part of that common pattern we find in the everyday and scientific modes of inquiry. And I guess the same thing happens with language. It gets abstracted out of lived experience and in both cases there is a reification problem. I realize that Rorty says all that, but somehow Dewey didn't draw the same conclusions from that. It seems he and James were adjusting philosophy to these insights whereas Rorty sees it as a epistemology killer, etc.. Looks more like a fresh start to me. Or, to borrow an image from Pirsig, its like philosophy was living inside a dirty old sock and getting rid of that fictional epistemic gap and all the fictional metaphysical entities is like turning the sock inside out. Now it can breathe. I'd say the lighting was better too, but I know how Rorty would have hated that. _________________________________________________________________ Boo! Scare away worms, viruses and so much more! Try Windows Live OneCare! http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-us/purchase/trial.aspx?s_cid=wl_hotmailnews Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
