Hi DMB,
Steve said to Marsha:
I think we should always defend ourselves against the charge of
relativism since it is used as an epithet and a way of dismissing
someone without having to address their arguments.
dmb says:
I think you're being unfair here. While it's certainly possible to
use the word as a dismissive epithet, there are also thoughtful
people who see relativism as a genuine problem, as a real position
held by real people with real consequences. Ironically, you seem to
be dismissing the whole thing as nothing but dismissive. I mean, do
you really think that pragmatists like Hildebrand and Rosenthal are
just using the term to dismiss Rorty without having to address his
arguments? The stuff they publish is reviewed by their peers and if
they were engaged in such shoddy scholarship as that, they'd be
very quickly attacked and humiliated for it.
Steve:
The sorts of things that such philosophers who want to engage Rorty
often say is that Rorty "leaves himself open" to the charge of
relativism rather than arguing that Rorty is actually endorsing
relativism. I would think that any pragmatist shouldn't be interested
in making such a charge personally though they may want to note that
philosophers of the SOMish persuasion will call him that. The thing
is, those sorts of philosophers will the same the same thing about
Putnam and Hildebrand and Rosenthal and Pirsig because from the SOM
perspective that is exactly what they are.
Steve continued:
While we can like the slogan "man is the measure of all things"
because it captures the notion that unlike theists and rationalists
we are not looking for a great, non-human, ahistorical power to
tell us right from wrong, we also still deny being relativists
because we deny the absolute-relative distinctions on the same
grounds that we deny the objective-subjective distinction. It's the
same thing as not wanting to be called a subjectivist.
dmb says:
Yea, that's not a bad way to look at what Pirsig is doing but Rorty
and his critics have already managed to reject the subject-object
distinction as primary and yet the relativism debate continues
despite that. The demise of "objective truth", theism and
metaphysics more or less spells the end of absolutism but that
shift raises new questions about relativism. I mean, postmodernism
in general has been struggling with this issue as it seems to leave
no alternative except some kind of relativism and Rorty was among
those articulating that postmodern shift. And to the extent that
Pirsig resembles this, he's been accused too. Now, because of
Rorty, pragmatists of all kinds have to defend themselves against
such charges. Pirsig's defense of the MOQ is unusual if not unique
but the classical pragmatists use the distinction between
relativism and "perspectivism" as a defense.
Steve:
I really don't see how there could be a debate among pragmatists
about relativism unless it is about Rorty "leaving himself open" to
to such criticism by others. How can relativism be described in
pragmatic terms as something to be concerned about? Can you give a
definition of relativism as you see pragmatists applying to Rorty?
Steve said:
Pirsig later brings back the terms subjective and objective without
their metaphysical baggage where subjective is just taken to mean
social and intellectual patterns or "things that are hard to get
agreement about" and objective is taken to mean inorganic and
biological patterns or "things that are easy to get agreement
about." Absolute and relative could be retooled in the same way,
but I still think that we should avoid using such terms because
doing so implies accepting an SOM premise that we don't accept. We
can just say that some morals are easy to get agreement on and
others not so much, and we can argue our case for the morality of
our position.
dmb says:
...And in the following sections of a Stanford encyclopedia of
Philosophy one can see that the issue of Rorty's relativism is of
concern to a wide range of philosophers.
"Epistemological behaviorism leaves no room for the kind of
practice-transcending legitimation that Rorty identifies as the
defining aspiration of modern epistemology.
Assuming that epistemic practices do, or at least can, diverge, it
is not surprising that Rorty's commitment to epistemological
behaviorism should lead to charges of relativism or subjectivism.
Charges by who? SOMers? And what could such people mean by the term
that should be taken seriously by a pragmatist?
Indeed, many who share Rorty's historicist scepticism toward the
transcending ambitions of epistemology—friendly critics like Hilary
Putnam, John McDowell and Daniel Dennett—balk at the idea that
there are no constraints on knowledge save conversational ones. Yet
this is a central part of Rorty's position, repeated and elaborated
as recently as in TP and PCP.
I suspect the issue has to do with Rorty's notion of knowledge as not
being knowledge *of* something like "The Way Things Really Are" but
rather the power to be able to use a thing or be able to put it in
relation to something else for some purpose. Knowledge is a
linguistic thing for Rorty rather than trying to get into the right
relationship to the essence of something. He's not saying that
reality just lets us believe anything we want until someone else
tells us it ain't so. Beliefs are habits of action for pragmatists
held to be provisionally true if they lead to successful action and
discarded when they don't serve.
4.1 Critical Responses
As we have seen in connection with Rorty's attitude to science, it
is particularly Rorty's treatment of truth and knowledge that has
drawn fire from philosophers. While a great variety of philosophers
have criticized Rorty on this general score in a great variety of
ways, it is not very difficult to discern a common concern; Rorty's
conversationalist view of truth and knowledge leaves us entirely
unable to account for the notion that a reasonable view of how
things are is a view suitably constrained by how the world actually
is.
Since pragmatists want to drop the notion of "how the world actually
is" it makes perfect sense that SOM philosphers would criticize what
he doing.
DMB:
My point? It's not very reasonable or fair to dismiss these
criticisms as some kind of quirky misunderstanding or as otherwise
illegitimate. There are smart, sincere people on both sides of what
many philosophers consider a legitimate debate. These people don't
charge Rorty with relativism to dismiss him but to engage with what
he's saying. I mean, in that world it's not too easy to get away
with mere name calling or mere dismissal. Acting like that in the
world of academic philosophy is likely to get you dismissed. And
called names. ;-)
Steve:
It's not that Rorty isn't open to criticism by smart people. It's
just that I can't see how a pragmatist or anyone not taking the
subject-object picture for granted could make the particular
criticism of relativism with respect to Rorty. I'm sure that
professional philosophers mean something more than what people
generally seem to be doing with the word relativism, but I also can't
tell what that is.
Best,
Steve
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