Matt, Ian, I think the arguement btween Dave and Steve is one of interpretation, for ex. wiki on Rorty:
Main article: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Rorty argues that the central problems of modern epistemology depend upon a picture of the mind as trying to faithfully represent (or "mirror") a mind-independent, external reality. If we give up this metaphor, then the entire enterprise of foundationalist epistemology is misguided. A foundationalist believes that in order to avoid the regress inherent in claiming that all beliefs are justified by other beliefs, some beliefs must be self-justifying and form the foundations to all knowledge. There were two senses of "foundationalism" criticized in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. In the philosophical sense, Rorty criticized the attempt to justify knowledge claims by tracing them to a set of foundations; more broadly, he criticized the claim of philosophy to function foundationally within a culture. Ron: His criticism was of philosphical foundationalism within a culture. In other words, truth as defined syllogistically not in terms of belief verfied in expereince. That there always will be a descrepancy between truth in knowledge verified in experience and truth in statement of that knowledge. the problem of arguement from the particular expereince to the universal understanding. Not that truth statements can not be verified in expereince but universal foundational claims of statements that are true in every circumstance of human experiential verification are impossible simply because they rely on cultural contexts. To answer Steve, MoQ does not provide universal statements of truth but it DOES provide a universal context in which truth may be understood contextually. -Ron ----- Original Message ---- From: Matt Kundert <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 7:04:02 PM Subject: Re: [MD] Rorty's Relativism Hi Ian, Ian said: I see violent agreement on the middle ground that MoQ provides. Any need to "attack" (or defend) Rorty just seems spurious ? Matt: I'm sorry, Ian, while on the one hand your constant, long-standing effort to find middle ground and the like is commendable, on the other hand, it is starting to sound edgy and nullifying. As if you're going to start arguing that people should stop arguing. There's certainly a balancing act in all this (arguments, debates, conversations, etc.), but agreements, or what have you, can only be reached _through_ the conversations being had by motivated participants, not by fiat from someone that wants the conversations to stop. In other words, "spurious" is not the word you're looking for. You seem to have floated so high into the ether that everything's turned grey. _That's_ relativism. Relativism is pure Objectivism, pure Omniscience, just as the Blue Dude in Watchmen displayed so well. The more he knew, the less humanity he had. There's nothing _spurious_ about attacking or defending Rorty, or any other set of opinions (unless, of course, one's take a God/Buddha's-eye view of the world)--there are only good and bad attacks or defenses, good or bad opinions. Matt _________________________________________________________________ Get back to school stuff for them and cashback for you. http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB_BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1 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/ 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/
