Hi Matt Valid points about what is left for philosophers to do. Seems to me that the best thing philosophy can do is look at the concepts and language we use and create new ones that can do new things. You see, science & other forms of making sense of experience can't be got going without the right philosopho-poetry being done first. As someone said: Language speaks.
DM ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matt Kundert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, October 15, 2007 5:59 AM Subject: Re: [MD] subject/object: pragmatism > > > > > > Matt said: > ...Radical empiricism says experience IS the world. I want people to > notice how the verb "to know" appears in the first, but not the second. > The difference is that in traditional empiricism, you had to do > epistemology, you had to study how we know things. In the second, you > don't because it is assumed that we already know things about the world > because we already are always connected to the world. This is why, if > empiricism is an epistemological doctrine, pragmatists find themselves in > the strange position of asserting a position that denies the problem area > (much like their offering of a "theory of truth" that isn't a theory at > all). > > DMB said: > Hmmm. I don't think I follow you here. How does the switch to radical > empiricism mean we're now longer doing epistemology? Our last reading for > class was Dewey's "the Pattern of Inquiry" and it seems pretty clear that > he's redefining knowledge and truth along these new lines, not to mention > radical empiricism itself. Is there some sense in which these are not > epistiemological? I mean, "we are already connected to the world" and so > there is no longer an unbridgable epistemic gap, but there is still the > task of sorting out different kinds of knowledge, the methods of inquiry > and what counts as truth or warranted assertions, as Dewey'd put it. > > Matt: > As you said, Dewey's process of reconstructing philosophy included > redefining many of the key terms and projects, experience, reality, > metaphysics, epistemology, etc. Rorty's trajectory from Dewey and James > mainly involves the rhetorical choices in which terms we are going to > bother haggling over with the traditionalists. I agree, Dewey is > redefining knowledge and truth along new lines, and the sense in which > they are not epistemological is the sense in which they don't answer any > of the questions that Descartes and Kant built into the subject area of > epistemology--they deny the questions (like, how do we get the subject and > object back together?), which is why Dewey sometimes derisively referred > to contemporary philosophers as being involved in the "epistemology > industry". > > What Rorty argued in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is that once one > gets rid of the epistemic gap, then nothing really remains in the area to > form a suitable subject. All you have left to do is find suitable > redefinitions of things like truth and knowledge so as not to repopulate > that area. As an example of trying not to repopulate the area, take one > of your examples of what philosophers would still be employed to do: "what > counts as truth or warranted assertions". Would philosophers really be > involved in that? Why would a scientist ask a philosopher if he's making > a warranted assertion? Doesn't he already know if he's making a warranted > assertion given the context of his scientific work, his hypothesis, > experiments, evidence, etc.? I see most of the candidates you listed as > repopulating the should-be-evacuated area because they sound like Kant's > notion of philosophy as a super-science. I think pragmatists should be > wary of that. > > Don't get me wrong: this doesn't spell the death of philosophy. There are > things for philosophers to do, principally of the sorting kind of thing, > getting things to hang together, as Sellars said. But I think we need to > be wary of continuing old projects, and I don't think we should be too > attached to old rhetorical flourishes, like "the study of knowledge." > > Matt > > _________________________________________________________________ > Peek-a-boo FREE Tricks & Treats for You! > http://www.reallivemoms.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us > 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/ > 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/
