dmb said to Steve:
This attitude [Dewey's] is compared to Rorty's. Hickman quotes him saying,
"Liberals have come to expect philosophy to do a certain job - namely,
answering questions like 'Why not be cruel?' and 'Why be kind?' - and they feel
that any philosophy which refuses this assignment must be heartless. But that
is a result of a metaphysical upbringing. If we could get rid of the
expectation, liberals would not ask ironist philosophy to do a job it cannot
do, and which it defines itself as unable to do."
Steve replied:
Rorty doesn't think "our hands are tied morally." He thinks we should avoid
cruelty. He just doesn't think that philosophy will ever make good on its
promise to provide an ahistorical foundation for our belief that we should
avoid cruelty.
dmb says:
Hmmm. Could it be that you didn't notice who was saying, that "answering
questions" about why we should be kind or not be cruel is "a job it cannot do,
and which defines itself as unable to do". Rorty said that. I mean, the
question is not about Rorty's personality traits or his own moral
sensibilities. It's about the consequences of his pragmatism or the effects of
his philosophical position. I understand that he has reasons for holding "the
position that philosophy is incapable of addressing ethical issues", as Hickman
puts it. "Rortian postmodernism" ties our hands morally, Hickman says, because
Rorty thinks "there is no adequate common denominator for human experience."
What I don't get is why we need an ahistorical foundation to address ethical
issues. Who ever decided that foundationalism and groundlessness are the only
two options? That's my point, really. The classical pragmatists reject both of
those options.
Steve said:
Experience can't serve as the sprt of foundation that philsopher's of the past
have promised. It can't give us any to the question, "why be kind?" can it?
dmb says:
I don't know fulfilling what philosophers of the past have promised but I fail
to see why experience isn't good enough to address ethical issues. Pirsig
grounds his MOQ in experience and it discusses morality and values all day
long. So what's the problem? Why are we "incapable of addressing ethical
issues" just because there is no such thing as eternal truth or whatever? This
kind of all-or-nothingism always baffled me.
Steve said:
We all certainly make assumptions. The question is, what makes an assumption
metaphysical? For Rorty, the claims that he calls metaphysical are the ones
that you agree that pragmatists don't want to make. It sounds like you and
Rorty don't so much disagree here but are just using the word to mean different
things.
dmb says:
Well, first of all, it's not just me. There is no shortage of Rorty critics,
especially among the pragmatists in academia. What Hickman and others point out
is that the pragmatists sought to reform metaphysics whereas Rorty thinks we
should just drop it altogether. Same with truth theories and epistemology. I'm
trying to show you that Pirsig, James and Dewey differ from Rorty about what to
do AFTER the attack on modern foundationalism has cleared the way. You see how
Pirsig in Lila first rejects positivism, traditional empiricism and the
assumptions of SOM but then goes on to adopt an expanded form of empiricism,
namely radical empiricism. He adopts the pragmatic theory of truth as well.
This is not something Rorty would approve of and in fact adopts only selected
parts of Dewey. Hickman and others see this as an injurious misreading of
Dewey, a misrepresentation of Dewey. Basically, all agree with the
deconstruction part but Rorty goes a different way after that. His work is
almost entirely negative whereas the classical pragmatists add a positive
project, a reconstruction project after the demolition.
Steve said:
Of course we can and should promote kindness and oppose cruelty, and we are in
no way paralyzed if we follow Rorty anymore than Pirsig is promoting
relativism...
dmb says:
I never subscribed to "the notion that the Metaphysics of Quality claims to be
a quick fix for every moral problem in the universe". But we certainly are
talking about relativism here. In the same way that there is a middle ground
between absolutism and relativism, there is a middle ground between
foundationalism and utter groundlessness. Professionals like Hickman are using
the term "platform" to describe a provisional, modest kind of ground to stand
upon.
"Dewey's commitment to evolutionary naturalism stresses the commonalities which
can serve as platforms on which global publics can be formed and from which
they can be launched. Second, the Pragmatic method has implications with regard
to cultural conflict, and consequently the problem of relativism. Pragmatism,
as I have characterized it, advances a moderate version of cultural relativism
but rejects a stronger skeptical version known as cognitive relativism."
A self-described cognitive relativists explains that it "takes as its object
judgments in general" and it "is based on two theses: 1) The truth value of all
judgments is relative to some particular standpoint (otherwise variously
referred to as a theoretical framework, conceptual scheme, perspective, or
point of view). 2) No standpoint is uniquely or supremely privileged over all
others." (from a 1996 issue of PHILOSOPHICAL FORUM)
To the extent that first thesis describes perspectivism it is consistent with
classical pragmatism, Hickman explains. But "the second thesis is somewhat more
complex", he says, "but if it is taken to mean that with respect to judgments
in the general sense all perspectives or standpoints are equally valuable, or
even that they are equally valuable for the solution of specific problems at
hand, then it is inconsistent with the experimental methods of classical
Pragmatism." Inquiry, he says, "usually tends to render some perspectives or
standpoints tenable and others untenable". "...one of the core features of
Pragmatism is its perspectivism. But the Pragmatist's perspectivism is the
result of limited access; it is not the result of intellectual promiscuity."
If I understand Hickman rightly, the cognitive relativist thinks we need a
God's-eye view or a uniquely privileged standpoint in order to say that some
perspectives are better than others and they differ from the pragmatists on
this point. The pragmatists emphasis on experience as the test of truth, on
experimentation and inquiry, lets us get at the relative merits of the various
perspectives without anything so grandiose. James and Hickman both use a
metaphor from a third pragmatist, whose name escapes me. Pragmatism is like a
big hotel with a different kind of inquirer in each of the rooms. They all
there own perspectives, their own areas of interest but they all must pass
through the corridor to get to their rooms. The pragmatic theory of truth is
something they all have in common, meaning each of their perspectives will be
tested in experience, which is the only place where the word "truth" has any
meaning. This is what keeps the occupants from being intellectually promis
cuous and yet it allows for an unlimited number of different perspectives.
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