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.
dmb replied with a quote from SEP which says otherwise:
"..., 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,.."
Steve said:
SEP says otherwise? What it says is that Rorty was accused of relativism (as
James also gets accused of relativism). That is granted, but that is a separate
question from whether he actually is a relativist.
dmb says:
Who is in a better position to say whether Rorty is a relativist or not? Since
his friendly accusers are not seeking any philosophical foundations, they are
among the best of contemporary philosophers and they balk at Rorty's stance, I
think it would be foolish and downright dishonest to dismiss these charges of
relativism. I understand that very few philosophers would want to wear the
label but in this case the accusation is no mere insult.
Steve said:
The MOQ obviously also drops the sense of "rational" that Rorty wants to drop.
So the position from which it would make any sense to accuse Rorty of being a
relativist is not that of the MOQer. ...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:
The criticism I'm offering is much more subtle than you're willing to
acknowledge, apparently. Please notice that I'm criticizing Rorty's
neo-pragmatism from the position of classical pragmatist, namely Pirsig, James
and sometimes Dewey. But you keep making your counter-arguments as if this
criticism could only ever be leveled by some kind of Platonist or Objectivists.
I'm sure Rorty has those kinds of critics but I'm not one of them. Religious
people go nuts over anything that even remotely smells like relativism. But I'm
not one of those either. The conversation should NOT be about Kantian critics
or about the kind of relativism that we find only among co-operative freshman,
the kind where "anything goes". It's more subtle than that, Steve. It's about
the consequences of thinking that conversation is the only constraint on truth.
That's what his critics balk at and I think every serious person should think
about why they're balking, especially those who follow Rorty or who call
themselves a pragmatist of any kind.
Steve says:
And if Rorty is criticized for being a relativist that means he actually is a
relativist?
dmb says:
With friendly critics like Putnam and Dennett, who needs enemies? There is no
shortage of Rorty critics among today's classical pragmatists either. There is
Haack, Hickman, Hildebrand, Rockwell, Rosenthal and Weed, just to name a few
off the top of my head. So yes, since Rorty has that many accusers then he very
well might be a relativist. It would be insulting and ignorant to dismiss all
that as mere insult or ignorance.
I think it's pretty clear that SEP is a good scholarly source and in describing
the accusation of relativism it is citing some of the biggest names in
philosophy. Don't you suppose that an honest scholar should take that
seriously? Again, I want to stress the idea that this criticism is a lot more
subtle than you appear to recognize. Unless and until you get hip to this
subtlety, you're not really even addressing the accusation. I mean, nobody is
talking about skyhooks here. Nobody is defending Modernism or advocating a
return to foundationalism. Instead, the debate centers around the difference
between James' and Pirsig's pragmatism as empirical theory of truth and Rorty's
heavily linguisticized neo-pragmatism, wherein conversation is the only
constraint. It's going to be about the difference between experience and words,
which just so happens to be the MOQ's central distinction.
Steve said:
The MOQ has some transcultural, ahistorical skyhook for getting us in a
position to do more than make good arguments for what is good?
dmb says:
No. That is a fake dilemma. Good arguments and skyhooks are not the only
options. That is what I'm calling "all-or-nothingism" and it is just plain
silly.
Steve said:
I understand that Rorty and Pirsig are different people with different ideas. I
also understand that I don't need to choose one or the other exclusively to
read and understand. Do you understand that the MOQ is the philosophy or RMP
rather than dmb?
dmb says:
Huh?
Let me remind you that you began by saying, "we ought to be able to agree that
Rorty is no more of a relativist than you or I". (It's at the top of this
page.) I agree that Pirsig and Rorty both reject Platonism and foundationalism
but the question of relativism comes up AFTER that. The differences between
them simply aren't about being a Platonist or not. That rejection only tells
you that they have a common enemy, but not that they are share every view. You
seem to think this shared anti-Platonism is the only thing that matters with
respect to relativism. It just ain't so, as I've tried to explain.
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