Hi DMB,
Steve said:
...Cindy Sherman believes that the role of the artist in society is to
expose its myths. Later I read Joseph Campbell who wrote that the role
of the artist is to create myths. I realize that these two people have
a very different idea of myth. Sherman meant that the artist reveals
the lies that society tells about itself while Campbell meant that the
artist creates the context in which experience will be interpreted.
Though they meant different things, I still think there is something
interesting about the mythologist seeing the artist as creating myths
while this artist sees herself as a debunker of myths. ..
dmb says:
That's an interesting way to frame things. You're right to notice that
Sherman and Campbell are using the terms "myth" in two completely
different ways. In fact, they're approximately opposite ways of using
the word.
Steve:
If they are making opposite claims based on the opposite use of myth
then maybe they are saying the same thing.
DMB:
But if I were to play along with this framing, I'd want to remind you
what Campbell says about theists and atheists. Both of them take
religious myths as facts. The former accepts this facts as true and
the latter rejects this facts as untrue. Campbell says they are both
wrong because myths can't be rightly understood when they're taken
literally. Myths are written in a symbolic language and their
truthfulness can only be approached by reading them as symbols, as a
picture language that refers to psychological truths or spiritual
experiences. If we extend this notion to Rorty, by analogy anyway,
he's an atheists. He takes metaphysics literally, as a set of factual
claims, and says that they're not true. He opposes those who also take
it as fact but think it is tr
ue. And I would draw an analogy between Pirsig (who recommends
Campbell in Lila) and Campbell. He thinks its worthy and valuable only
when you don't take it literally at all.
Steve:
Are you saying that we should not take the MOQ literally as a
metaphysical system? I'm not sure what that means but maybe it is
something like Rorty's ironism.
DMB:
I mean, its interesting that Pirsig and Rorty use the word
"metaphysics" so differently. The former thinks it's something
everybody does, that it's unavoidable for anyone who is capable of
making sense of the world. This is just a way of saying that its
impossible to NOT have a world view, however deliberate and articulate
that may or may not be. People just can't function without some way to
make sense of things. By that definition, it would be absurd to say
that we ought to abandon metaphysics. On the other hand, if we adopt
Rorty's use of the term, where metaphysics is supposed to be about
eternal truths and ultimate foundations, Pirsig isn't going to touch
that with a ten foot pole. ( I once got into a fist fight with a ten
foot Pole (he was from Warsaw) but that's an entirely different
story.)
Steve:
The idea in the Ironism thread was to consider the question of whether
Pirsig means something different from what is traditionally meant by
metaphysics in philosophy. I think Rorty's use is the traditional view
though not how traditional metaphysicians would like to be
characterized. I also think Pirsig is doing something different when he
claims to have created "A metaphysical system"--one of many possible
descriptions--as opposed to claiming to have uncovered the true nature
of reality.
DMB:
But more to the point, the thing that bothers me about Rorty is that
his project is almost entirely negative. He and Pirsig are not all
that different right up to the point where the tearing down ends and
the new construction begins.
Steve:
That was what I meant with the Sherman/Campbell deal. I think Rorty's
project as far as philosophy is concerned was mostly negative. He was
calling for an end of Philosophy as the activity of trying to unpack
the essences of Truth, Reality, Reason, etc in favor of philosophy as
one form of literary criticism.
DMB:
Pirsig doesn't just reject SOM or foundational metaphysics, he also
says something positive. He replaces SOM with the MOQ, as we all know,
whereas Rorty more or less leaves things hanging. He has strategies
for dealing with the emptiness that exists where SOM once stood but,
like you say, he wasn't out to create a new system. He didn't even
think such a thing was needed or possible or desirable. I suppose that
has a lot to do with his particular way of diagnosing the problem,
that he thought there were good reasons to avoid this positive second
half. But as I see it, this just means Rorty's pragmatism is sort of
half-baked. He tore down a house that needed tearing down but then
left us an empty lot.
Steve:
Yes, Rorty cleared some intellectual space so that new work can be
done, but he did not want to offer a new philosophical system. Instead
he made suggestions about how we should look at systems in general. You
can call that "half-baked" if you want, but there is still the question
of whether we are better or worse off for Rorty's work in clearing
space. You've been suggesting that we are worse off, and we can
continue to discuss the issue.
Steve said:
Students who only read one philosopher tend to be swayed by the
arguments. ...The students see that all these philosophers or
religions have promised a deep foundation for their ethical systems
and claimed to have such a universal grounding which was later shown
to be empty and that all these philosophers and religions discovered
different and contradictory things about the good life. They decide
that the best we can hope for are systems that are self-consistent and
are getting the idea that being self-consistent isn't even that hard
to do. Now what went wrong here? How were these students turned into
nihilists or skeptics or relativists? The problem isn't that they were
never taught the one system that really does have the sort of
universal grounding that was promised. The problem was that they
learned to expect that any legitimate moral claim needs to have the
sort of foundation that was promised, some transcultural or natural
law, the sort of foundation for justifying our
moral beliefs that we are just never going to get.
dmb says:
That's not how I experienced it at all. In fact, I had to be convinced
that any philosopher had ever been willing to claim eternal truths.
Steve:
In my experience of discussing philosophy with people you are
exceptional in this regard.
DMB:
I had thought that only religious fanatics made such claims. Then I
saw that philosophers had made such claims. But then I realized that
most of those philosophers were religious fanatics of one kind or
another. Plato and Hegel spring to mind, for example. As I see it,
their absolutism was thinly disguised theology. I mean, the idea that
our morals are underpinned by the founder of the universe was
something I saw as quite ridiculous when I was in 7th or 8th grade.
Steve:
I don't that even Rorty would say that it was a ridiculous idea. I see
it as a project that didn't pan out.
Steve said:
One of the things he tried to get us not interested in asking was "is
it absolute or relative?" For that (and, admittedly, for being too
careless in the unfortunate pragmatist tradition of making pithy
slogans that were right in what they rejected but too easily construed
as wrong or misleading in what they asserted) he was often labeled a
relativist. But I think it is wrong to do so unless all you mean by
the term is that he had given up on the sort of grounding for ethical
and factual claims than was promised by philosophers of the past.
Instead of trying to "lend our current practices the prestige of the
eternal," he gave us ideas about how to create a future that will be
"unimaginably better than the present."
dmb says:
Okay, let's agree that Rorty is right about the impossibility of
lending "our current practices the prestige of the eternal". Let's
agree that such nonsense is completely off the table.
Steve:
If such nonsense is off the table then it's hard for me to see what
difference you see in Rorty's relativism and your view.
Best,
Steve
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