dmb says:
.
What I'm disagreeing with is the neo-pragmatic assumptions that lead you to
assert that one can believe whatever they like just because there is no such
thing as an essence or a single exclusive, objective Truth. I also reject the
notion that one can only disagree with this in one way, by being an
essentialist or an objectivist. Remember that scene related by Pirsig wherein
William James's friends got into an argument about whether or not the man ever
got around the squirrel? James settled the debate by pointing out that there
was no practical difference between the two positions. No matter which position
you take, the consequences would be equally meaningless and so he decided it
was merely a verbal dispute, which means it was just a fake problem.
That's what pragmatism is all about, the consequences. The hypothetical theist
who keeps his views held privately represent just such a fake problem. If that
belief is never acted upon then there will be no practical consequence and so
his position is practically meaningless. In that case, his beliefs will never
have the chance to fail or succeed in the course of experience and so asking
about the truth or falsity of such a belief, for a pragmatist, is also quite
meaningless. It is so very inconsequential that one would be hard press to cite
a single example of such a believer. If he keeps it private, how would we even
know he holds that belief? But if that position is ever actually tested, ever
actually put into practice then we can say if it's true or not because the
consequences will become apparent. And that where my short list of current
events (chicken little rant) comes into the argument. As pragmatists, we can
only evaluate a belief by looking at
the consequences of i
t. Experience is the only place where truth and falsity have any meaning.
That's all "true" or "false" can ever mean, for a pragmatist. By talking about
the truth or falsity of "private" beliefs, which are by definition beliefs that
can have no consequences, you have abandoned the most basic principles of
pragmatism. In that sense, Rorty's public-private distinction is also
meaningless and it replaces the meaning of pragmatic truth with a rather
strange notion of truth as a means to serve our personal interests. It like
he's traded the pragmatist's slogan (truth is a species of the Good) for a kind
of consumerist slogan (truth is a species of goods and services). I don't know,
maybe he took that "cash value" thing a little too literally or whatever. In
any case, Rorty's take on it seems pretty crass and small minded to me.
Ron:
Aristotle makes almost the exact same arguement leading up to the theory behind
the axiom of non-contradiction and it is precisely how you explained above that
truth and falsity have any meaning, which is an arguement distinct from the one
Rorty as you characterize his position above,truth as a means to serve personal
interests, Socrates in Platos Protagoras makes a similar arguement with Sophism,
it is a love
for wisdom that allows pragmatic truth to have it's highest quality meaning.
There is a wisdom that comes along with pragmatic truth, for a metaphor
you may appreciate, the distinction is quite like the distinction between
biological and social quality. Pragmatic truth is thought by Rorty to be
biologically dominated and requires a wisdom of social level patterns
a love of wisdom a social desire for goodness, excellence, as a first
principle to come to the kind of social value good you seem to be requiring.
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