From: abahn@comcast.net
Date: Mon Aug 18 2003 - 01:15:57 BST
Whomever,
David asks some questions and I am going to take his advice and pretend they are
good ones for the fun of it.
dmb asks: How does a Darwinian picture of the world kill this truth tribunal?
There is much baggage associated with any term with Darwin in it. But Rorty
uses it for humans coping in an everchanging environment. And since coping is
what we are doing with other animals we don't need to uncover truths, we just
need to cope. I am only interpretting Rorty and I think his ideas can be very
useful (as a good pragmatist should) but personally I think there might be more
to being human than coping (although, whatever 'more' is it is not uncovering Truth.
dmb asks: How is aimless evolution and aimless inquiry even related to it?
In evolution there is no perfection which the world is trying to attain. There
is no overall goal. In Inquiry, there is no Truth to aim for.
dmb wonders: It would also be helpful to know something about Putman's "god's
eye view".
I would think the term is ddiscriptive enough to explain itself. "A god's eye
view" would be the ultimate view. It would reveal Truth. It is an assumption
that most inquirers hold who are searching for Truth, rather being "darwinian"
and trying to "cope" instead.
dmb comments: And don't forget that the point here is to understand what Rorty
is refering to with the phrase, "truth tribuanl". At this point it doesn't help
to say its a metaphor for a thing that is seen everywhere. That is WAY too vague.
It is a metaphor for something that most people don't have a problem seeing.
Rorty's adversaries don't doubt the existence of this tribunal. They know what
Rorty is refering to when he says such things. They believe we can know Truths.
That there is a True morality written in the stars somewhere which dictates how
humans are suppose to live and treat each other. These are the critics Rorty is
trying to address. Many in this forum believe the MOQ is one such tribunal.
That it will lead to Truths. That following and understanding it will allow us
to live in closer harmony with the universe. Using Rorty, we can say at best,
that Pirsigs MOQ helps cope with the environment and is more useful than...
dmb sums up: Andy pointed to Descartes' deductions as an example of it, but
that seems lightyears away from any kind all-knowing judge of truth. Its only a
kind of logic, not some imaginary divine entity. Like all philosophers, he may
have used it to reach some particular conclusions, but is that really the same
as claiming to know the absolute or final "Truth" of anything? I don't think so.
The whole thing seems like a wild-eyed exaggeration at best.
Now I think you are starting to get it. From my understanding, this was exactly
what Descartes was claiming. And he did have an "aim of inquiry" while
conducting his proofs. This seems obvious and shouldn't be controversial. I
haven't totally fallen under Rorty spell. I think there are good questions
concerning his philosophy. I just don't think yours are included in that
category. I agree with Rorty that Truth is not "out there" waiting to be
discovered. That it is a property of language. However, I can think of many
reasons why it might be useful to hold such beliefs. I refered to one reason in
an earlier post. But another example is modern physics. Would the same strides
be made without a belief in subatomic particles and laws describing the
relations between them. Having a goal or an aim to inquiry other than wanting
to cope in the environmnet could very well be useful. These are the good
questions and no pretending is required.
RPG's
Andy
> Andy, Matt Steve and all MOQers:
>
> Let me try it this way. I'm still not sure what this "truth tribunal" is all
> about. Maybe an answer to a more basic question will help me get oriented,
> because its still not clear what the problem is. Andy's most recent attempt
> didn't help at all, just as he suspected. For example Rorty says, "Only
> descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own
> -unaided by the describing activities of human beings - cannot." I don't
> mean to be rude, but isn't that extremely obvious? Of course the world on
> its own can't be true or false. Again I would ask who ever said otherwise. I
> don't see how such a claim could have ever made sense. "The world is true.
> The world is false." These are meaningless statements, no? I can only assume
> that there is much, much more to it than is being said here. But let us
> return to that more basic question, the answer to which might be helpful in
> getting at my question about the truth tribunal.
>
> Rorty says:
> "But, given a Darwinian picture of the world, there can be no such tribunal.
> For such a tribunal would have to envisage all the alternatives to a given
> belief, and know everything that was relevant to criticism of every such
> alternative. Such a tribunal would have to have what Putnam calls a 'God's
> eye view'...If Darwin is right, we can no more make sense of the idea of
> such a tribunal than we can make sense of the idea that biological evolution
> has an aim. Biological evolution produces ever new species, and cultural
> evolution produces ever new audiences, but there is no such thing as the
> species which evolution has in view, nor any such thing as the 'aim of
> inquiry.'"
>
> dmb asks:
> How does a Darwinian picture of the world kill this truth tribunal? How is
> aimless evolution and aimless inquiry even related to it? I don't see the
> connection. It would also be helpful to know something about Putman's "god's
> eye view". And don't forget that the point here is to understand what Rorty
> is refering to with the phrase, "truth tribuanl". At this point it doesn't
> help to say its a metaphor for a thing that is seen everywhere. That is WAY
> too vague. Andy pointed to Descartes' deductions as an example of it, but
> that seems lightyears away from any kind all-knowing judge of truth. Its
> only a kind of logic, not some imaginary divine entity. Like all
> philosophers, he may have used it to reach some particular conclusions, but
> is that really the same as claiming to know the absolute or final "Truth" of
> anything? I don't think so. The whole thing seems like a wild-eyed
> exaggeration at best.
>
> And please, just for a moment, pretend these are good questions. It might
> take some time and energy to provide a clear explanation, but think how fun
> it'll be when I am finally forced to admit that I'm all wrong about this.
> Think of it as your big chance to cut Mr. Know-it-all down to size. Oh,
> happy day! :-)
>
>
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