[Dave Buchanan said:] Of all the points made for the "experience" camp, this one is probably my favorite. Richard Bernstein thinks the diversity of philosophical subject matters is too restricted under Linguistic pragmatism, that it narrows the scope of "what we consider to be a legitimate topic for philosophical investigation.”
Bernstein writes: “A ‘linguistic pragmatism' that doesn’t incorporate serious reflection about the role of experience in human life...not only loses contact with the everyday life world of human beings and fails to do justice to the ways in which experience (Secondness) constrains us... but even more seriously...it severely limits the range of human experience (historical, religious, moral, political, and aesthetic experience) that should be central to philosophical reflection.” Plus, you know, even after the rejection of metaphysical realism, experience still serves as a "reality check" as with any other form of empiricism. Without those empirical restraints, linguistic pragmatism can too easily collapse into relativism. That's what always bothered me about Rorty. As Hildebrand points out, Rorty's rejection of experience is, more generally, a rejection of our "answerability to the world.” That answerability is what keeps us honest, you know? [Ron] If I read Bernstein correctly, he is pretty much saying that linguistic pragmatism risks neglecting the "Good" which is the central subject matter and what we generally mean by the practice of Philosophy. What I know of Rorty is that he rejected "Truth" as a relation to experience and when we begin to discuss that topic it certainly does seem that rejecting "truth" is also a rejection of the primacy of experience in our explanations. It turns the discussion over to the subject matter of relativism in so far as what do we mean as the "Good"? Rorty would seem to contend that the "Good" is by and large a social level phenomena and when it is reflected apon on a more individual level it becomes more of a relativistic enterprise but that seems too bent on reacting to any absolute meaning to "what" exactly is good rather than the more general and I would say as well as the experience camp would say, meaning of the act of prefference of how and why some things are better than others. Certainly social consensus bounds our meaning of truth but it must not be neglected that the reason those meanings are agreed apon and valued in the first place is that they hold and still hold utility and express a successfulness in the flow of experience, we are prepared to act apon them and what makes them even more valuable is their constant re-evaluation, use, utility and reflection. "Truth" to the experience camp is a "living word" for lack of a better metaphor. Experience, colored and distorted as it may be by culture and language is rendered clearer by reflection and reason and that though the data is up to interpretation data remains data and consequences remain consequences. Often it seems to me that people interpret Rorty as championing the de-construction of Truth and justify Linguistic pragmatism as a devaluation of the concept but... I guess the big question for me is "can Rorty be read as calling for the expansion of the term ?" is there anyone who does this? Because the strength of his arguements for Pragmatism really lies in attacking static conceptions of "truth". It seems curiose that Rorty would be called a Pragmatist if his chief arguements were aimed at the debunking of what the term "Pragmatism" means. If you ask me. .. 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
