Steve said:
Putnam's analysis of the is-ought problem is a good example
of pragmatism's "combination of fallibilism and antiskepticism."
We subscribe to fallibilism in that none of our beliefs are held
to be immune to criticism and the possibility of needed
correction in light of new evidence and arguments, but our
fallibilism does make us extreme skeptics about the possibility
for knowing anything at all.
Matt:
This is the excellent lesson taught be Peirce in "The Fixation
of Belief"--Cartesian "radical" doubt is really fake doubt.
Pragmatism since that time has been antiskeptical as in
anti-Cartesian, and to rehabilitate skepticism qua doubt,
Peirce talked about fallibilism. Fallibilism encapsulates the
pragmatist approach to doubt--specific and particular, not
general and total(izing). The closest we get to
re-approaching Cartesian skepticism is in Rorty's figure of
the ironist, one who has "continuing doubts" about her
beliefs--the difference is captured by the "s": "radical
doubt" about a totality transformed into nagging,
particular-belief-attached doubts.
This fallibilism, and the notion of having to hold some
beliefs in place in order to doubt others that Steve
elaborated, is captured too by Wilfrid Sellars' slogan that
science is that which can place any belief in doubt--just
not all at once (a sentiment and image Pirsig comes close
to in his comment in Lila about science using a pencil).
Good post.
Matt
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