Hi DMB,
> Steve said to dmb: > Pretty much what I wrote about was that there is no single "THEE question of > truth" and that we should agree as pragmatists that there are a lot of > questions that we would both like to drop. Dropping those questions doesn't > mean that we can't ask new ones or are forced to "abandon truth" as you claim > Rorty has done. He hasn't. > > dmb says: > I'm a bit stunned by your denial. It defies belief. Steve: I am more than a little surprised myself that you continue to avoid answering the questions I've asked you. DMB: Like I said twice already, Rorty is famous for his refusal to do epistemology and he's famous for saying we should stop talking about truth theories. It not just MY claim. This fact is probably THEE central feature of the Stanford article on Rorty. > > "The broad scope of Rorty's metaphilosophical deconstruction, together with a > penchant for uncashed metaphor and swift, broad-stroke historical narrative, > has gained Rorty a sturdy reputation as an anti-philosopher's philosopher. > While his writing enjoys an unusual degree of popularity beyond the confines > of the profession, Rorty's work is often regarded with suspicion and > scepticism within academic philosophy. Steve interjects: It sounds like he is describing Pirsig, that is, it would sound that way if Pirsig had been thought to warrant an entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. DMB's quote continues: ... 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. Steve: Does the pragmatism of James and Dewey "account for the notion that a reasonable view of how things are is a view suitably constrained by how the world actually is"??? Haven't James and Dewey also dropped that notion? DMB's quote continues: This criticism is levelled against Rorty not only from the standpoint of metaphysical and scientific realist views of the sort that Rorty hopes will soon be extinct. It is expressed also by thinkers who have some sympathy with Rorty's historicist view of intellectual progress, and his critique of Kantian and Platonist features of modern philosophy. ... However, critics are concerned not only with what they see as a misguided view of belief, truth, and knowledge, whether relativist, subjectivist, or idealist in nature. An important reason for the high temperature of much of the debate that Rorty has inspired is that he appears to some to reject the very values that are the basis for any articulation of a philosophical view of truth and knowledge at all. Rorty is critical of the role of argument in intellectual progress, and dismissive of the very idea of theories of truth, knowledge, rationality, and the like. Philosophers such as Hilary Putnam and Susan Haack have increasingly focussed on this aspect of Rorty's views. Haack, in particular, frames criticism of Rorty along these lines in moral terms; to her mind, Rorty's efforts to abandon the basic concepts of traditional epistemology are symptoms of a vulgar cynicism, which contributes to the decline of reason and intellectual integrity that Haack and others find to be characteristic of much contemporary thought. The charge of intellectual irresponsibility is sometimes raised, or at last implied, in connection with Rorty's use of historical figures. ..." > > > For the third time, this is what it means to say that Rorty has abandoned > truth. Steve: Abandoning truth means abandoning theories of truth? You say it's the third time, but that is a new twist to me. It seems to me that you were unable to make your claim stick that Rorty is missing something by not talking about experience, then you moved onto "abandoning truth," but since Rorty obviously does talk about truth you've now tried to shift the argument once again to truth theories. But I've always said that Rorty does not claim to have a theory of truth and thinks we ought to give up the project of seeking a theory of truth, and I've spent a lot of time explaining why that is. I already quoted Rorty explaining why he doesn't think truth is the sort of notion we ought to try to have a theory about: "If the pragmatist is advised that he must not confuse the advisability of asserting S with the truth of S, he will respond. that the advice is question-begging. The question is precisely whether “the true” is more than what William James defined it as: “the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite, assignable reasons.” On James’s view, “true” resembles “good” or “rational” in being a normative notion, a compliment paid to sentences that seem to be paying their way and that fit in with other sentences which are doing so. To think that Truth is “out there” is, on their view, on all fours with the Platonic view that The Good is “out there.” To think that we are “irrationalist” insofar as it does not “gratify our souls to know/That though we perish, truth is so” is like thinking that we are “irrationalist” just insofar as it does not gratify our moral sense to think that The Moral Law shines resplendent over the noumenal world, regardless of the vicissitudes of spatio-temporal lives...For these reasons, the pragmatist does not think that, whatever else philosophy of language may do, it is going to come up with a definition of “true” which gets beyond James. He happily grants that it can do a lot of other things. For example, it can, following Tarski, show what it would be like to define a truth-predicate for a given language. The pragmatist can agree with Davidson that to define such a predicate – to develop a truth-theory for the sentences of English, e.g, – would be a good way, perhaps the only way, to exhibit a natural language as a learnable, recursive structure, and thus to give a systematic theory of meaning for the language. But he agrees with Davidson that such an exhibition is all that Tarski can give us, and all that can be milked out of Philosophical reflection on Truth." We've been through all this already. This is when you criticized Rorty for leaving out experience, which is when I asked you to explain what he is missing, which is when you dropped that line of criticism, and now we've come full circle. (It must be about time to shift to accusing Rorty of being a relativist again.) Now you add that he also has refused to do epistemology and quote this... DMB: In another section of the same article you can see this abandonment in Rorty's own words. > > Stanford: > "The upshot of Quine's and Sellars' criticisms of the myths and dogmas of > epistemology is, Rorty suggests, that "we see knowledge as a matter of > conversation and of social practice, rather than as an attempt to mirror > nature." (PMN 171) Rorty provides this view with a label: "Explaining > rationality and epistemic authority by reference to what society lets us say, > rather than the latter by the former, is the essence of what I shall call > ‘epistemological behaviorism,’ an attitude common to Dewey and Wittgenstein." > (PMN 174) > 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. 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. > Indeed, in TP he invokes it precisely in order to deflect this sort of > criticism. In "Hilary Putnam and the Relativist Menace," Rorty says: > In short, my strategy for escaping the self-referential difficulties into > which "the Relativist" keeps getting himself is to move everything over from > epistemology and metaphysics into cultural politics, from claims to knowledge > and appeals to self-evidence to suggestions about what we should try. (TP 57)" Steve: I find it pretty strange that you object to Rorty dropping epistemology while quoting a passage describing what Rorty calls his "epistemological behaviorism." DMB: > dmb continuesThis is just a more formal version of what Fish was saying in > the New York Times. See, we might agree that there are certain questions that > should be dropped, questions about thee objective truth or the essence of > truth for example. But Rorty thinks that dropping those particular questions > means dropping epistemology in general. James and Pirsig don't take that > approach. Instead of rejecting empiricism, they improve and expand it. In a > very real sense, they go in the exact opposite direction from Rorty. Steve: What is it that you think Pirsig and James say about knowledge that Rorty doesn't agree with? DMB: > Rorty's conversationalist view of truth and knowledge is one of those > metaphysical positions that doesn't know it's a metaphysical position. Steve: It depends on what you mean here by "metaphysics." Rorty's view is not a position on ontology beyond his antiessentialsim that you agree with. Pirsig uses the term to pretty much mean "philosophy." In that sense, Rorty has a metaphysical position. DMB: Please notice that the author of the article says "this is a central part of Rorty's position", that he repeats it and elaborates it in his writings. As I see it, this part of my argument is not even debatable. > > > And yet you deny it outright? Sigh. Please tell that's not what you meant. Steve: Of course I don't deny Rorty's position on theories of truth. We've debated that issue numerous times, so it is strange that you would think that I would deny Rorty's position. He doesn't think that philosophical inquiry into truth will help us determine what is true beyond simply saying with James that true beliefs lead to successful action, and if a theory of truth doesn't get us past James (as no offered theory ever has), well then it just isn't worth having. Just in case you may want to choose to answer any of the questions I asked previously, I'll re-post the following from my last post to you where I complained that you still hadn't answered my questions from the previous post... _________________________________________________________________________________________ Steve: I still don't see any answers to the questions I asked. I would love to read your answer to the question, "How does your talk about empirical reality add anything to saying that true beliefs lead to successful action? Does it explain anything more than that about justification of beliefs? What tools do you have for justifying beliefs to others that Rorty could not use? Is Rorty somehow forced to accept others's wishful thinking and "whatever pleases me" arguments as true because he doesn't talk about radical empiricism?" I didn't see anything in your posts to suggest that there is any value-added in talking about empirical reality in better explaining truth. ... I understand completely that you think that Rorty has left something important out by not talking about empirical reality. I'm still wondering what that something is. What is the practical difference between James saying that true beliefs lead to successful action and saying that true beliefs lead to successful action IN EXPERIENCE? Does that last bit add some explanatory power? Does it keep us from getting fooled or keep us from being able to fool others? Can you cut and paste directly in the parts that directly answer the following? Because I still don't see any answers. (1) What tools do you have for justifying beliefs to others that Rorty could not use? (2) Is Rorty somehow forced to accept others's wishful thinking and "whatever pleases me" arguments as true because he doesn't talk about radical empiricism?" DMB adds: > Let me add that the radical empiricist claim that true ideas agree with > experience is not the same as the traditional empiricist's claim that true > ideas correspond to reality. Steve: I understand that. DMB: While both generally agree that all our knowledge comes from experience and by thinking about what experience provides, they have completely different assumptions about what reality is, what truth is, and what experience is. Basically, for the radical empiricist, reality is an experience continuum. For a positivist, reality is physical and is thought to exist regardless of whether or not it is experienced. Agreement with the former is nothing like correspondence to the latter for lots of reasons but basically we're talking about two completely different worldviews, the mystical and the material. Steve: Even though the theory of truth that says that what is true corresponds with objective reality is different from a theory of truth that says that what is true corresponds to empirical reality you still have at least one problem in common. Before this theory can be said to add anything to James's notion that truth leads to successful action you will need to explain the microstructure that allows us to compare an assertion to empirical reality for correspondence in the same way that the positivist has a problem trying to compare a bit of language to objective reality. Otherwise you are not offering anything we don't already have. You are doing no more than saying that opium helps people fall asleep because it has dormitive power. It's just doesn't offer anything that I can see as an explanation. I suspect you will want to expound on how truths are empirically verifiable. How exactly is that accomplished? I doubt that you can add anything to the notion that true beliefs lead to successful action as Rorty supported by quoting James by expounding and generalizing about the verification process. Consider again what Rorty said about truth in that essay... "For the pragmatist, the notion of “truth” as something “objective “ is just a confusion between (I) Most of the world is as it is whatever we think about it (that is, our beliefs have very limited causal efficacy) and (II) There is something out there in addition to the world called “the truth about the world” (what James sarcastically called “this tertium quid intermediate between the facts per se, on the one hand, and all knowledge of them, actual or potential, on the other”). The pragmatist wholeheartedly assents to (I) – not as an article of metaphysical faith but simply as a belief that we have never had any reason to doubt – and cannot make sense of (II). When the realist tries to explain (II) with (III) The truth about the world consists in a relation of “correspondence” between certain sentences (many of which, no doubt, have yet to be formulated) and the world itself the pragmatist can only fall back on saying, once again, that many centuries of attempts to explain what “correspondence” is have failed, especially when it comes to explaining how the final vocabulary of future physics will somehow be Nature’s Own – the one which, at long last, lets us formulate sentences which lock on to Nature’s own way of thinking of Herself. For these reasons, the pragmatist does not think that, whatever else philosophy of language may do, it is going to come up with a definition of “true” which gets beyond James..." Steve: It seems to me that your theory of truth still has the problems of (III) above if you want to get beyond truth as leading to successful action to something more--whatever it is that Rorty is supposed to be missing. What is this correspondence supposed to be like between an assertion and empirical reality before we should say that the assertion is true? 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/md/archives.html
