Steve said to dmb:
...we ought to be able to agree that Rorty is no more of a relativist than you
or I for denying that philosophy can do that.
SEP says otherwise:
"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 said:
In The Mirror of Nature, Rorty was showing how the two main branches of the
Western philosophical tradition were doing similar things and making similar
moves in moving away from foundationalism and converging on a sort of
pragmatism.
dmb says:
The Mirror of Nature is the work quoted above, the one where "epistemic
authority" is explained in terms of "what society lets us say". This is what
what it looks like to reject empiricism or any kind of epistemology in favor of
"intersubjective agreement".
Apparently, I have to provide all the evidence on both sides of this debate. I
mean, there is scholarly evidence on my side. When it come to what Rorty does
and does not think, you (and Matt) have a lot more attitude than reasons or
evidence. If there are good reasons, you're doing a fine job keeping them
secret. I can show you what Pirsig says about relativism and I can quote Rorty
on the topic too. Have you brought anything comparable to the table? And isn't
it ironic that Rortyists are so unpersuasive. Rortyism says conversational
constraints are the only kind and agreement is the main goal but I only ever
see naked assertions and denials that are not only based on nothing, they're
contradicted by basic, solid evidence (from SEP). It's so very unconvincing,
Steve, and this is not just me being picky or setting some impossibly high
standard.
A post or two ago, for example, you said it was just ignorant and insulting to
suggest that Rorty is a relativist. According to those ignorant hacks over at
Stanford University, Putnam, Dennett and McDowell must be just as rude and
ignorant as me. I guess I can live with that.
Steve said:
Again, I am still amazed that an MOQer like yourself would still think that
absolute/relative which is just one more version of subjective/objective is
salient.
dmb says:
There is more than one way to be a relativist. Rorty's position shows quite
clearly that the issue does not simply evaporate when we reject SOM. His
epistemological behaviorism is criticized for being a form of relativism and
that doesn't necessarily entail any such metaphysical dualism. Again, your
claim is not only unsupported by evidence, it is contradicted by the evidence.
Steve said:
...You are saying that Rorty's denial of the power of philosophical foundations
amounts to saying we are left with nothing. Rorty also didin't think that the
alternative to relative was anything fixed, eternal, or absolute. ...The
alternative is to make good arguments about what is good and to occasionally
hold our assumptions for such arguments in question. The only bad news that
Rorty had was that there is no way to hold all of your assumptions in question
at once. That doesn't leave us with nothing. Though we can't step outside of
history and culture, but we can still think critically about our own tradition.
dmb says:
Right, since we can't have any objective or absolute truths the alternative is
to make good arguments about what is good. That's what I mean by
"all-or-nothingism" and that's what the author of the SEP article is pointing
to when it mentions the friendly critics who "balk at the idea that there are
no constraints on knowledge save conversational ones". The article says, "THIS
IS A CENTRAL PART OF RORTY'S POSITION".
Hasn't it ever occurred to you that Rorty's emphasis on conversation and
language is very much at odds with the MOQ, which is centered around the
pre-verbal primary empirical reality? This is one of the reasons I keep saying
that the difference between Pirsig and Rorty is like the difference between
radical empiricism and no empiricism. Don't you think THAT difference would
have some impact on the issue of relativism? Of course it would. How is that
even debatable?
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