Hi Steve, that's pretty much how I would see it too ... as regards Harris ... I was impressed with his pragmatic philosophy behind the militant headlines.
It's great to have Dave and Matt again debating the varieties of (classical & radical & neo) pragmatism worth having. in order to see where the differences are significant (if at all) to a pragmatist. The timing is good because I've unpacked and been re-reading my Rorty recently. I can see why Dave might find his tone almost nihilist, but so far the differences between the pragmatists sound to me more like cup half-full vs cup half-empty - analytic (accentuating differences) vs synthetic (accentuating their fit). Although I have a better feel for Rorty than I did previous times around this loop, I still don't yet have a feel for what is fundamentally different about the "radical" pragmatism in the James / Dewey / Pirsig stream. Still reading and listening. Working my way backwards to Emerson (and Thoreau). You have to smile when Dave says "it's all about Bob" :-) For me this all illuminates (and is illuminated by) the MoQ. Ian On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 7:13 PM, Steven Peterson <[email protected]> wrote: snip > > I've been very interested in the so-called militant atheist movement, > especially in Sam Harris. Atheists are generally described by theists > as materialists since they do not endorse the supernatural. I have > been wondering if someone like Harris may be better described as a > pragmatist. ... How would a > pragmatist argue that religion isn't a good tool? > 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/
