Okay, Matt. But if Rorty wants to just drop it and change the subject because traditional empiricism is hopeless and futile, which is basically what you've been telling me for several years, then his stance toward traditional empiricism is still different from the radical empiricists. Yes, they both reject those traditional forms and Absolutism but the radical empiricists don't want to change the subject and they don't think it's hopeless or futile. As pragmatists, they have a theory of truth and they expand and refine the notion of empiricism. Obviously, that's just not the same as giving up on it. I mean, if Rorty made an exception and said hey that radical stuff ain't so bad, that would be different. But he doesn't pick and choose like that. He just wants to drop everything from here to Plato, no? And this business of verbal behaviorism also seems very far away from Pirsig and James. I couldn't understand your explanation and I still don't think either of them get anywhere near such a thing. I don't know if it would be entirely accurate to say Pirsig is a Jungian, but that would be much closer. Both of them had mystical experiences and their expansion of empiricism accommodates that central feature of their biographies, their sense of what's true and real. One could even make a case that their philosophical views are a direct result of those profound psychological experiences. In Ant's movie, Pirsig says so explicitly. As I see it, Rorty is to Skinner and Freud as Pirsig is to Campbell and Jung, or something like that. Good to have you back. dmb ---------------------------------------- > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:49:29 -0600 > Subject: Re: [MD] Empiricism for dummies > > > Matt said: > A radical revolutionary isn't an official part of the political system--they > are in the business of overturning the political system. And just so with > James's radical empiricism. > > DMB said: > If I follow what Matt has said, Rorty just wants the whole thing to go away > so that "radical empiricism" comes to mean "not empirical at all". > > Matt: > No, that's not what I mean. I meant that, because empiricism as philosophical > empiricists had been promulgating it wasn't as empirical as they thought, > because they wanted some sort of reality-theory, that being radical about it > means _actually_ being empirical about it all, which does in its Rortyan way > mean giving up epistemology as the search for Absolute Knowledge, a > correspondence theory. (If one redefines epistemology in a non-theoretical > way, then Rorty isn't an anti-epistemologist, which is usually the kind of > mistake pragmatists who have a down-to-earth view of epistemology make when > they accuse Rorty of--I don't know--insanely trying to get rid of knowledge > or something.) > > My point was simply that a radical empiricism isn't an empiricism by > empiricist standards (the kind of post-Kantian standards in which it is > opposed to rationalism) because it rejects the whole problematic that made > empiricism a _philosophical_ position as opposed to just the way life is. > > Or, "radical empiricism" comes to mean "everything is empirical, silly, so > stop trying to demarcate something off that isn't." > > _________________________________________________________________ > Hotmail® goes where you go. On a PC, on the Web, on your phone. > http://www.windowslive-hotmail.com/learnmore/versatility.aspx#mobile?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_WL_HM_versatility_121208 > 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/
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