From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sun Oct 19 2003 - 17:26:04 BST
Platt,
I'm not concerned with political correctness crap on college campuses or
with Clinton's moral failings. I am concerned that you are grossly
misrepresenting what Rorty has said. Here's the opening of Consequences of
Pragmatism:
"The essays in this book are attempts to draw consequences from a pragmatist
theory about truth. This theory says that truth is not the sort of thing one
should expect to have a philosophically interesting theory about. For
pragmatists, "truth" is just the name of a property which all true
statements share. It is what is common to "Bacon did not write Shakespeare",
"It rained yesterday," "E equals mc[squared]," "Love is better than hate,"
"_The Allegory of Painting_ was Vermeer's best work," "2 plus 2 is 4," and
"There are nondenumerable infinities." Pragmatists doubt that there is much
to be said for this common feature. They doubt this for the same reason they
doubt that there is much to be said about the common feature shared by such
morally praiseworthy actions as Susan leaving her husband, America joining
the war against the Nazis, Roger picking up litter from the trail, and the
suicide of the Jews at Masada. They see certain acts as good ones to
perform, under the circumstances, but doubt that there is anything general
and useful to say about what makes them all good."
So clearly Rorty thinks that some statements are true, and that some actions
are better than others. I asked why you think that he thinks that "truth
doesn't exist", and you reply with:
> A quote from an article by Simon Blackburn entitled "Richard Rorty"
> answers your inquiry: (Simon Blackburn is a professor of philosophy at
> University of Cambridge.)
>
> "Non-philosophers who dip into his (Rorty's) writings may come away
> intoxicated by the scale, but also astonished by the message. How could
> anyone, for example, seriously hold, as Rorty has, that 'truth is what
> your contemporaries let you get away with,' or that 'no area of
> culture, and no period of history, gets Reality more right than any
> other.'? Is it really possible to hold that only 'old-fashioned
> metaphysical prigs' talk unblushingly of truth any more?"
So you have indirectly found a quote that does not say that "truth doesn't
exist" but says "truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with". I
don't know the context from which that quote was taken (do you?), but let's
consider it as given here.
Two of the statements that Rorty considers true are mathematical. They are
true because they are deducible from explicit definitions and axioms, that
is, assumptions. One of them (that there are nondenumerable infinities) uses
axioms that not all philosophers of mathematics accept (they do not assume
that the law of the excluded middle applies to infinite sets). So if
contempory mathematicians _on the whole_ agreed with those philosophers
(currently they do not), then that statement would no longer be something
that is considered true.
My point being that even in mathematics, "what is true" can change (the
famous example being Euclid's fifth postulate). So what do you have in mind
concerning truths that have some justification beyond "what your
contemporaries let you get away with?" And what assumptions do you bring to
bear to provide that justification? That is, what is your "philosophically
interesting theory about truth"?
Now if you have one, the odds are that Rorty will not find it
philosophically interesting. In that case, when you and Rorty argue you are
mutually begging the question that that hypothetical theory of yours *is*
philosophically interesting. That is all that Matt is trying to say.
>
> Incidentally, as a collector of bon mots from the MD I find the
> following from you posted last Jan 15 to be a gem:
>
> "What I find disingenuous is when you (Matt) say you don't want to be
> led back to metaphysics. What you and Rorty are doing is assuming a
> metaphysical stance as given and making points from it, and then
> claiming 'we don't do metaphysics.'"
I disagree with Rorty (and Matt) with respect to their materialism. That's
where arguments between me and Matt end up begging the question (which in
this case turns out to be that we have different definitions of
'metaphysics', and neither of us wants to giive his up). I do not disagree
with their pragmatism. I do criticize Rorty for sometimes confusing the two,
that is, for sometimes saying "pragmatists think that..." when he should be
saying "materialists think that..."
>
> Likewise, what I find so ludicrous in Rorty's and the postmodernists'
> position is their determination to advance their own concepts of truth
> while simultaneously denying there is such a thing. They assert general
> truths while claiming in the same breath that general truths don't
> exist. Example: "We know it to be absolutely true that truth is
> provisional."
See the initial quote. Rorty does not deny that there are true statements.
And "Love is better than hate" sounds pretty general to me. So this claim of
yours that Rorty denies that he has a concept of truth is simply false, and
so your accusation of illogicality is bogus.
Apparently you think that if one does not have a philosophically interesting
theory of truth, then one must think that the word "true" has no meaning.
Since the vast majority of people have no interest in philosophy at all, yet
all use the word 'true', it should be obvious that one does not need such a
theory.
>
> I consider Rorty and his fellow travelers dangerous to a free society
> because without confidence in the concept of truth (and it's companion,
> logic), the public is disarmed against lies. ("I did not have sex with
> that woman . . ." is still being defended by many as a statement of
> fact.)
Are you also one who blames Nietzsche for the Nazis? What -- in Rorty, not
in his "fellow travellers" -- do you find illogical?
>
> Rorty wants to rid society of the idea of objective truth independent
> of our wishes and whims, substituting the idea of communal
> justification for belief, i.e., if everybody (defined as the power
> elite in charge at the moment) says diversity is good, then it must be
> true that diversity is good.
Here you are rhetorically twisting what Rorty says ("Wishes and whims", for
example). Rorty's position is not "think whatever you like to be true", but
that he doubts that one can find some method for deciding in all cases what
is true. So does Pirsig, with respect to finding in all cases what is moral.
If everybody says diversity is good, then Rorty's conclusion from that is
that everybody says diversity is good, not that it is good in some absolute
sense. If everybody finds diversity is bad, then everybody finds diversity
is bad. Many people now find diversity is good. Many people now find
diversity is bad. Do you have access to God's opinion on the matter? If not,
what is your method for determining whether it is good or bad -- and what
assumptions to you bring to bear to make that determination? Can you
distinguish between those (like Rorty) who say diversity is good in that we
can learn from other cultures, and hence increase the dynamic in our lives,
versus those (unlike Rorty) who say that all cultures are equally good?
On the "power elite" business. The same people who speak political
correctness were by and large against the war in Iraq. They were unable to
stop the war. So how powerful are they?
> Naturally the individual voice that's
> raised against such "conventional wisdom" is pilloried.
As it always has been. Used to be the individual who disagreed with
conventional wisdom was burned at the stake, in part because the
"conventional wisdom" was not thought to be such, but thought to be the word
of God. Do you find that preferable?
It's no mystery
> why college campuses today have strict, politically correct speech
> codes. It's the predictable consequence of Rorty's "intersubjective
> agreement" which is a simply a not-so-subtle disguise for raw, power
> politics.
A slippery-slope argument. Having strict, politically correct speech codes
is a form of censorship. Rorty is against censorship. You are blaming Rorty
for something that he is against.
> To put it simply, Rorty's views are abhorrent to anyone who puts a high
> premium on intellectual freedom and integrity.
That is your opinion, it is not mine. In fact, I see Rorty as one who puts a
high premium on intellectual freedom and integrity, while what I see in your
comments is
a) a case of mistaking the ideas of supposed "fellow travellers" for those
of Rorty, and
b) distorting Rorty's views to make spurious claims of illogicality.
Do you know of some absolute standard by which one can determine whose
opinion is closer to the truth?
- Scott
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