Hi dmb,
Steve said: > I am saying that empiricism does none of the work you think it does in > giving you a leg up over anyone else in any conversation where there is > disagreement about what is true or ethical. When I say it makes no > difference, I mean it makes no difference in the only sort of relevant > practice which is trying to convince someone else where there is > disagreement or uncertainty on truth of fact or ethics. > ..I get it, empiricism is the "something" in your "I have something that > you don't have claims." But again, this "something" does none of the work > you think it does in giving you a leg up over anyone else in any > conversation where there is disagreement about what is true or ethical. > There are no sorts of arguments that you can make that others who do not > claim it can't make. That is what I mean when I say it doesn't make a > difference in practice. The difference is merely philosophical. > > > > dmb says: > Your "argument", such as it is, amounts to very little. Since I can't > reason with an unreasonable person any better than Rorty can, empiricism > doesn't matter. Huh? Steve: I'm not talking about unreasonable people. I am saying that there is no context in which empiricism has pragmatic value. When exactly do you think empiricism makes a difference when it comes to relativism? What sorts of disagreements about facts or ethical truths will appealing to empiricism settle? What sorts of arguments can you as an empiricist make that the people you are accusing of relativism are constrained from making? dmb: > Who ever said that philosophy was about forcing Nazis to become liberals > through the sheer force of persuasion anyway? That's one of the dumbest > things I've ever heard, not that I haven't heard it before. No philosophy > can do that and it's a completely unreasonable way to measure the value or > veracity of any idea. Steve: Dude, you are the one who brought up the Nazis (as Pirsig did in Lila). dmb: > I suspect it must be some kind of over-simplified and distorted version of > Rorty's "intersubjective agreement". And this is exactly where Rorty would > admit that he can't get anything over on the Nazi. He's not going to share > enough intersubjectivity to count as a member of the tribe such that he > could be persuaded by the tribe of liberals or democrats. This is the kind > of philosophical ethno-centrism I mentioned last time. On this same > principle, Rorty says he can't get anything over on his > fundamentalist students either. All he can do is try to get them to switch > tribes, so to speak. This is what I mean when I say he is a relativist. He > thinks there is no way to adjudicate between tribes because saying which is > right and which is wrong, he thinks, would entail stepping outside of both > or otherwise getting some god's eye, objective view. He has lots of fancy > reasons for this, of course, but the point is that he does land on a > relativist's position, one that is not very different than the relativism > of Boas and his contemporaries. Like Rorty, the "twentieth century > relativists .. held that it is unscientific to interpret values" because > "cultures are unique historical patterns which .. cannot be judged in terms > of the values of other cultures." Obviously, Rorty's relativism is NOT, > "backed by Boas's doctrines of scientific empiricism" but it just as > thoroughly denies the ability to interpret or judge. > Steve: Rorty could have supplied plenty of reasons why Nazis suck. His point was only that Philosophy can't provide a Foundation which can be used to prove that Nazism is unnatural and democracy is what is demanded by the universe. Someone prepared to provide reasons why Nazis suck is just not at all what Pirsig is lamenting as cultural relativism in Lila. You are making huge unsubstantiated leaps here from Rorty's inability (and yours) to "get anything over on the Nazi" to relativism as the doctrine that we shouldn't make judgments or that cultures can't be judged. Of course they can. Rorty says they can and are judged ethnocentrically. Do you have a non ethnocentric way of judging them. If you do, please provide it. If not, then please shut up about Rorty being a relativist. It's not only ignorant, it's kind of insulting, you know? 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
