dmb says: How would a radical empiricist test the claim that there is intelligent life elsewhere? He'd say we can only speculate. Alien life, at this point, is beyond human experience and so anything we say about it can only be educated speculation. We can try to find some, and we are doing that. But no truth claims can be made in the absence of experience. ... For the pragmatist, true are ideas are ideas that function in experience.
Steve replied: Yet there is some truth to the matter of whether or not there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, right? We just don't have a way of determing what the truth is. That truth won't be "made" if we find or continue to not find life. There is a truth here that transcends "warranted assertibility." (This is the sort of example that brought Putnam to withdraw his support for the pragmatic theory of truth.) dmb says: First of all, Putnam is a realist. In the realism vs anti-realims debates with Rorty, Rorty was the anti-realist. Dewey is neither. That's the main point of Hildebrand's book, which is aptly titled, "BEYOND Realism and Antirealism". Secondly, I think your question is predicated on a kind of Platonism, wherein truth is something beyond the realm of appearances, something that's true even though nobody actually knows it. "The first empiricists in Western philosophy were the Sophists, who rejected such rationalist speculation about the world as a whole and took humanity and society to be the proper objects of philosophical inquiry. Invoking skeptical arguments to undermine the claims of pure reason, they posed a challenge that invited the reaction that comprised Plato’s philosophy." "The earliest expressions of empiricism in ancient Greek philosophy were those of the Sophists. In reaction to them, Plato presented the rationalistic view that humans have only “opinion” about changing, perceptible, existing things in space and time; that “knowledge” can be had only of timeless, necessary truths; and that the objects of knowledge—the unchanging and imperceptible forms or universals (such as the Beautiful, the Just, and so on)—are the only things that are truly real. The circles and triangles of geometrical “knowledge,” in this view, are quite different in their perfect exactness from the approximately circular and triangular things present to human senses." "“We carve out everything,” James states, “just as we carve out constellations, to serve our human purposes”. Nevertheless, he recognizes “resisting factors in every experience of truth-making”, including not only our present sensations or experiences but the whole body of our prior beliefs. James holds neither that we create our truths out of nothing, nor that truth is entirely independent of humanity. He embraces “the humanistic principle: you can't weed out the human contribution”. He also embraces a metaphysics of process in the claim that “for pragmatism [reality] is still in the making,” whereas for “rationalism reality is ready-made and complete from all eternity”. Pragmatism's final chapter on “Pragmatism and Religion” follows James's line in Varieties in attacking “transcendental absolutism” for its unverifiable account of God, and in defending a “pluralistic and moralistic religion”" Steve said: 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." dmb says: Yes, but James also recognizes “resisting factors in every experience of truth-making”, as James himself puts it. "James holds neither that we create our truths out of nothing, nor that truth is entirely independent of humanity". Steve said: Since you agree that non-human experience and nonhuman reality are incoherent, you shouldn't object to Rorty's criticism of philosophical attempts to appeal to something transcendental in their epistemologies. You agree to a point but then want to say that Rorty went too far. You say that he has left out the fact that the reality of the radical empiricist's sort can still be a constraint on inquiry. You say that empirical reality is neither nonhuman nor conversational. dmb says: Yes, experience serves to restrain our claims. But where did you ever get the idea that experience is non-human or transcendental. Do you mean experience OF a non-human reality, like an objective physical reality? Platonic forms? What could it possibly mean to say experience is non-human? The notion seems so silly it's hardly worth rejecting. I mean, isn't that "experience" as it is understood within SOM? Yea, and this is just one more case of defining any kind of "empiricism", "truth" theory or any kind of "experience" in terms of the failed answers provided by positivism and other forms of SOM empiricism. And that's why you keep asking the wrong questions about radical empiricism and pure experience. You keep reading the claims of Pirsig and James as if they were representing the very thing they oppose. Steve said: I don't read him as ruling out any sorts of appeals whatsoever in conversation--even attempts to appeal to things that are supposed to be non human like Reason or Reality. dmb says: Well, first of all you just said the very opposite of this. But more importantly, what the heck is non-human Reason or Reality with a capital "R" such that it can be conceived as non-human. Didn't you just say you're glad we agree such a thing in incoherent? Seriously, what are you talking about? Or rather, WHY are you talking about ideas no sane person could believe or defend? Steve said: Even those sorts of appeals CAN be attempted, but when they are they are made within the context of a practice of justification which Rorty characterizes as like a conversation between humans rather than like divine decree where Reality and Reason transcend practice and force beliefs upon us. Those appeals to the nonhuman are only ever done in a human conversation, so they can't really have the force that they have in the past been thought to have. dmb says: Why does it have to be either divine decree or conversation? Why can't we have HUMAN reality, reason and experience without the capital letters and the theological baggage? Why this false dilemma? Oh, I know why. But you need to figure it out. Because that's when you'll find out that Rortyism is incoherent, contradictory and useless. Steve said: All I can see that you are getting out of radical empiricism from the point of view of epistemology in pragmatic terms is this: Some beliefs lead us to successful action and some do not. But then we already knew that. dmb says: Well, no. That might be all you get out of it but there is a lot more to it than that. In fact, that's something we already had with traditional empiricism. Even though radical empiricism represents a huge expansion over the traditional forms, and even though it rejects the basic metaphysical assumptions and even though it has an entirely different conception of what experience is and what reality is, you don't see how they differ and take the claims of one as if they were the claims of the other. Aren't you bored yet? I am. This is been pretty futile. Seriously, why don't you go talk to Matt or do some reading or something because I obviously can't help you. Thanks. > > 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 _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox. http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_2 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
