DMB said: Leaving aside the MOQ's re-conception of causation, the problem that concern's me here is that Sellar's dualism doesn't really reject the Cartesian problematic. In rejecting the myth of the Given, he is rejecting the possibility of finding justifications in the causal realm. It doesn't reject the gap between mind and world so much as declares it forever uncrossable. If I understand what's going on here, Rorty's emphasis on intersubjective agreement as a replacement for objectively verifiable truth is based on that declaration. No?
Matt: No. This is much debated, but the idea behind a distinction between a "space of causes" and a "space of reasons" is that an experience of a rock doesn't come preprogramed with a language, such that what the rock is is given to us. Sellars and McDowell and Brandom and Rorty and Davidson aren't saying that there's a gap that is forever uncrossable, rather that there isn't a gap--the two are just different. We can refer to the fact that there is a rock that just caused us to loose our balance, which justifies our saying, "I lost my balance because of the rock." But the rock and the linguistic tools we use to deal with the rock are different. This is nothing you disagree with, as its the same as saying that a rock is different than "a rock": we use quotations in writing to refer to the words, rather than the thing. Anti-empiricists in the Sellarsian tradition are just trying to avoid the metaphors of distance that plague empiricism, of packages of data that go from the rock into our minds. We have no problem using words to refer to words or things, we just think we need to avoid the idea that our words can get closer or farther away from the thing we are referring to. I don't know. I don't think I'm doing much good in trying to explain this anymore and I don't think I'm doing that great of a job. I'm also losing the thread of why its important because, after all, we are both trying so damn hard to make the other look like the Cartesian. For instance, you'll no doubt think that being "anti-empiricist" is a tell against Sellars, about it being hostile to Pirsig and real pragmatism, but in the sense I just used it, Dewey and James were anti-empiricists because they were holistic about experience, not atomists. I'm not prepared to rebut your view of Dewey or Blackburn's view of Rorty. I think its a tad off, but showing that would require time and energy I don't have. And the thing is, I think its only a tad off. You think I'm _way_ off, but I only think you're a little off. I don't know why, but that seems to be where I land. (For instance, you say, "Rorty would say that words and concepts are already in contact with the physical world." That seems weird with the word "physical" and I'm not sure why you threw it in there.) Good luck investigating Dewey. You look like you're finding what you want. My only suggestion is that while honing the differences between the past and present (which you've been concentrating on), you don't forget the similarities (which I've been concentrating on). Matt _________________________________________________________________ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec 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/
