Hi DMB, > Steve: > > I'm asking for more specifics here. Though our truth claims await future > justification or falsification, reality doesn't just hand us the standards > for deciding what sorts of expriences ought to be considered support for our > claims and what sorts of experiences should count as evidence against our > claims. > > dmb says: > > Radical empiricism says ALL experiences can be counted as evidence for or > against our claims. It insists that all kinds of experience be accounted for > in our philosophies and says that anything beyond experience should not be > included in those accounts. This empiricism is so radical that experience and > reality amount to the same thing.
Steve: No doubt any experience CAN be counted as evidence, but how do you decide which particular experiences OUGHT to be counted as evidence for or against a given claim? Where do those standards for what ought to be counted as evidence in a given situation come from? I previously offered three scenarios for you consideration in answerring this question: "The warranted assertibity of my claim to be an expert horseman will be tested based on whether or not I can actually ride a horse. What about my claim that Jesus actually existed about 2000 years ago? What about my claim that the square root of two cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers? What about my claim that there is probably intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?" How are such claims "tested by experience"? I'm skeptical toward your implicit claim that experience can do this testing of knowledge claims for us. I think that your appeal to radical empiricism simply doesn't do much in terms of epistemology. > Steve said; > ... I don't know how else such claims could be tested if not in the course of > human inquiry. But you recite the refrain "tested by experience" as though > reality sets up parameters and does the testing for us and then communicates > to us the outcome of the test. > > dmb says: > > That interpretation is quite bizarre. Do you imagine this is about something > other that human experience and human claims? Obviously, it was William James > who set up the parameters of radical empiricism people do the testing and > telling. Steve: Yes, you got it. People do the testing and telling. They do all the doubting and believing that is ever done, and there are no standards for justifying beliefs that float free of all human being's doubts and needs to have good beliefs for satisfying particular human desires (often including a desire to get agreement with other humans on certain sorts of beliefs). The standards for evidence are human standards determined based on human doubts rather than determined by Experience! or Reality! That is all you should take away from Rorty's slogan "no nonconversational constraints on inquiry." > Steve: > This question of second order justification is also quite relevant. Until you > can make sense of this question, you shouldn't get on Rorty's case for saying > "no nonconversational constraints on knowledge" because second-order > justification (how we can be justified in our standards for justification) is > what Rorty is talking about in that quote. He doesn't think that there is > anything nonhuman we can appeal to in a conversation to say what ought to > count as a good justification. I'm pretty sure that you agree with Rorty on > this point. Don't you? > > dmb says: > Ah, but see the meaning of that quote is at the heart of our dispute. Steve: So you agree that there isn't anything beyond nonhuman we can appeal to in a conversation to say what ought to count as a good justification? Certainly we can't say to someone who disagrees with us "well Experience says..." Even if we say, "logic dictates..." or "according to scientific law..." we are still not appealing to anything that floats free of all things human. As James said, "The trail of the human serpent is thus over everything." There is nothing like Pure Experience that not only provides content to our awareness but also provides us with some Pure way of interpreting that content or any Pure Reason to tell us how to apply those standards of interpretation that could serve as a useful basis for epistemology--a way of justifying our beliefs that is any more than a cultural construct, i.e., "conversational." DMB: I don't know if you realize it or not, but this all about the difference between language and experience. It is Rorty's belief that appeals to experience would count as one of those non-human justifications. Steve: This interpretation of Rorty is simply absurd. You seem to think that Rorty has ruled out criticizing Bob's belief that Sam died sometime last year by pointing out that Rich told him that he played dominoes with Sam just this morning. Rorty is just saying that Experience or Reality or Reason is not going to settle the matter for us as to whether Sam is reall dead or alive. Rorty never thought that we can't talk about experiences in justifying beliefs. (What else could we possibly talk about to make a case for a belief if not the content of experiences?) What we ought to rule out is not appeals to our experiences but rather appeals to Experience! Because, as I keep reinforcing "the immediate flux of life" can't provide standards of evidence and justify beliefs for us. James's radical empiricism as epistemology doesn't give us anything that we didn't already have in helping us have justified true beliefs. It doesn't prevent us from accumulating any new bad beliefs. We can drop it without sacrificing any good beliefs. In other words, as an epistemology, it doesn't pass the pragmatic test for a good epistemology. DMB: ...Rorty dismisses epistemology because he defines the question in terms of the failed answer. Matt finally saw what I meant. Ask him. Steve: I never read Matt agreeing with you that Rorty dismisses epistemology. In fact, everything I have read him to say on this topic has been to disagree with you. Did this agreement supposedly happen off-list? Are you just trying to bait him back into conversation by claiming some sort of victory? Best, Steve 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
