Hi DMB,
Steve said:
I don't know about Sandy [Dr. Rosenthal], but I think you are
demonstrating a strange allergy to Rorty. In other words, for some
reason that I can't figure out you seem to have an over-active
immune system when it comes to him. For example, for someone who
sees truth as Pirsig and Rorty do and as you and I do--as a word
used to describe the quality of aesthetic intellectual creations--
the charge of relativism should sound about as on point as the
charge of blasphemy does to an atheist, but you seem to need this
word to have something to grab onto to try to club Rorty with. The
more I read of Rorty the more I agree with Matt K that you just
haven't tried to understand Rorty at all. If you gave him a chance
I bet you would really dig him.
dmb says:
Yes, much to Matt's chagrin I do not like Richard Rorty. I don't
think it's quite fair to call it "a strange allergy" or "an over-
active immune system" though. I mean, that certainly suggests that
my reactions are founded on some personal quirk on my part but what
if the guy really is poison? I've learned that there is a whole
school of pragmatism that distinguishes themselves in opposition to
Rorty's brand of the same. Sandra Rosenthal is a member of that
school, the classical pragmatists. Like me, they insist that
radical empiricism is central to the whole thing.
Steve:
I suppose the issue has something to do with the "linguistic turn."
While the classical and neo-classical pragmatists talk about
experience. Rorty focuses on language. I'd be interested in hearing
your take on the linguistic turn and what is lost in taking this turn.
As far as radical empiricism being "central to the whole thing," it
is interesting that Pirsig read James to be saying that he thought
that radical empiricism was "independent of pragmatism." So it seems
that someone can be called a pragmatist without talking about radical
empiricism.
Pirsig:
"James really had two main systems of philosophy going: one he called
pragmatism and the other radical empiricism.
...The second of James' two main systems of philosophy, which he said
was
independent of pragmatism, was his radical empiricism. By this he meant
that subjects and objects are not the starting points of experience.
Subjects and objects are secondary. They are concepts derived from
something more fundamental which he described as "the immediate flux of
life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its
conceptual categories." In this basic flux of experience, the
distinctions
of reflective thought, such as those between consciousness and content,
subject and object, mind and matter, have not yet emerged in the forms
which we make them. Pure experience cannot be called either physical or
psychical: it logically precedes this distinction.
In his last unfinished work, Some Problems of Philosophy, James had
condensed this description to a single sentence: "There must always
be a
discrepancy between concepts and reality, because the former are
static and
discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing." Here James had
chosen exactly the same words Phædrus had used for the basic
subdivision of
the Metaphysics of Quality."
Steve:
Another issue that may separate Rorty from other pragmatists is that
Rorty doesn't equate truth with "warranted assertability" which is
why, as I recall, Davidson never wanted to be called a pragmatist and
why Putnam didn't think Rorty was really a pragmatist.
DMB:
And may I remind you that ZAMM was criticized for relativism, that
Lila begins with Rigel accusing "the author" of relativism and that
one of the important things going on in the second book is Pirsig
denying that the MOQ is a form of relativism. I mean, we don't like
absolutism either but relativism is not the only alternative. This
is a pretty serious issue with practical consequences. I mean, if
there is no such thing as a universal truth, not even a provisional
one, then what happens to universal principles like "human rights"?
You don't have to be a reactionary to believe that relativism is a
moral disaster, you know?
Steve:
When I hear the charge of relativism being made, all it sounds like
is an epithet that a Rigel type uses when he disagrees with someone
else's morality. As I see it, Rigel is going to walk away unconvinced
by both Pirsig's and Rorty's protestations about being called a
relativist, but that doesn't make either one a relativist. I
completely understand that Pirsig and Rorty will be accused of
relativism by someone like Rigel, but I can't understand how you
would be interested in making the charge. Isn't asking if morality is
relative or absolute pretty much the same as asking whether it is
subjective or objective? It sounds like an atheist accusing another
atheist of blasphemy. It seems to me that neither you nor Rorty
should see these questions as on point--that both of you would be
unconcerned with finding an ahistorical foundation for your current
beliefs and instead be concerned with whether you have been creative
enough to invent better alternatives to your current beliefs.
Best,
Steve
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