From: ant.mcwatt@ntlworld.com
Date: Tue Jan 13 2004 - 17:24:16 GMT
Re: MD Rorty I, II and III
Dear Matt,
Glad to see you got round to reading the interview with Rorty in “Philosophy Now”.
Firstly, my comment about defining “Rortyan” was a concern with Rorty’s strong emphasis in CON for artistic self-creation rather than an ad hominem attack, silly or otherwise. To ignore Rorty’s call for originality is to overlook an important point of his work; possibly the most important one.
Anyway, to return to the more substantial issues (the e-mail titled “Rorty II” never arrived in my inbox so I’m afraid your Rorty e-mails have not been dealt with in any particular order):
Ant said:
I really think it’s a dangerous idea to rely on the present _mass_ media of the West to defend freedom and equality. Mandatory classes in philosophy (ironist and otherwise) and sociology for school children would be more effective.
Matt said:
First, Rorty's assertion is referring to mudraking journalists like Michael Moore.
Ant:
Unfortunately, even with being generous to Rorty, if he is referring primarily to mud raking journalists like Michael Moore, such journalists are few and far between.
Matt said:
Third, I disagree that philosophy would be more effective than better journalists, though I think sociology would be better than philosophy. When asked if its important to continue to read Plato and Aristotle, Rorty said, "Important for somebody. I mean, it would be a great pity if people ever stopped reading them, but I don't think it's necessary that everybody read them. ...[I] think it would probably be a good idea if everybody had to read Plato in their senior year of High School or their first year of
college; they'd be better informed about where their ideas were coming from."
(“Philosophy Now” Interview)
Matt said:
It would be a great pity, but when it comes to political efficacy, my money's on Michael Moore.
Ant:
The importance of philosophy and sociology is that they develop your critical faculties and put you in a better position to question and assess the output of the mass media and even the work of journalists such as Michael Moore. Even he recognises that critical questioning is a pre-requisite in looking at his work as he noted in his October 2002 interview with Christopher Cobb for U-wire.com.
When asked by Cobb if he had any advice for journalists today, Moore replied:
“George Seldes was a muckraking journalist from the 1930s and 40s, and his slogan that he lived by was 'All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.' And you could pretty much say that about corporations or anyone in power. You are being lied to all the time, and it is your job to find out and make them prove that they are telling the truth. And that includes this guy sitting at the table right now talking to you.” (see http://www.uwire.com/content/topae101102002.html)
Exactly. Though mud raking journalists are important when it comes to defending democratic politics, most of my money’s on Plato and Habermas because they give you that questioning mind in the first place.
Ant said:
Moreover, there are problems with Rorty’s definition of a liberal as avoiding being cruel as the worst thing that one can do. He just asserts this in CON as a given truth without argument. Sorry, that’s just not acceptable. For instance, I actually think it’s a good thing if politicians and religious fundamentalists suffer at the hands of comedians like Bill Hicks and Rory Bremner. Not only does it make me feel better, such cruelty might actually assist in changing public consciousness for the better.
Matt said:
That's always the problem with definitions isn't it? They are given.
However, in the preface to CON Rorty says "For liberal ironists, there is no answer to the question "Why not be cruel?" -- no noncircular theoretical backup for the belief that cruelty is horrible." (CON, xv) If you aren't asking for theoretical backup for his definition, if you aren't asking him to argue for it, then I think you are simply being uncharitable in your reading. If you don't care about the humiliation of strangers and you still would like to consider yourself a liberal, then by all means, dispute
Rorty's characterization of liberalness, though that simply means we are talking past each other, having two different conversations. If, however, you do care about the humiliation of strangers, than that's all the agreement Rorty needs.
Ant:
Well, as Rorty states in CON, the definition of liberal he uses is from Judith Shklar’s “Ordinary Vices” pp.43-44. Presumably, this definition is argued for in her text. Even still, as Rorty bases so much of his argument on this definition, I think it’s remiss of him not to state his reasons for using this definition rather than the usual (more positive) one of a liberal as “someone who advocates individual freedom”. This is important as the latter definition certainly ties in more with the MOQ.
Matt said:
I agree that Michael Moore and Al Franken's comedy is both funny and instructive, good pushes in the right direction.
Ant:
I’ve just looked at Al Franken’s website and read the excerpts from his book “Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” at www.ohthethingsiknow.com. I definitely agree with the Minneapolis “Star Tribune” that it’s "a laugh-out-loud funny book."
Matt said:
However, I question anybody's dedication to a more cruelty free society who didn't cringe a little and feel the tiniest bit sorry for Charlton Heston at the end of Bowling for Columbine. He deserved it, but shouldn't we also at the same time desire a world in which we don't have to do that to people?
Ant:
I also cringed watching this interview which led me to question Moore’s behaviour at this point in his film. As such, I have my doubts that this type of behaviour was the _quality_ thing to do especially as it weakened an otherwise convincing argument (against the scaremongering of TV news). This seems especially pertinent after it is realised that Heston’s fragile state was partly due to Alzheimer’s disease (though, at the time, Moore was only told of Heston’s recent hip operation).
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Matt said:
I have no idea how most of what you said about Rorty and Orwell is at all relevant to what Rorty said about Orwell.
Ant:
OK, I’ve had another look at Rorty’s CON again and, at least, now see that Rorty and Pirsig share the historicist’s starting point in which Freedom has replaced Truth “as the goal of thinking and of social progress” in the late twentieth century. (CON, p.xiii)
However, as already noted, Rorty then identifies two types of historicists: those who emphasize self-creation & private autonomy (such as Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault) and those who emphasize social justice (such as Marx, Dewey and Habermas).
Rorty does this because he (CON, p.xiv) thinks that it’s impossible that a philosophy “would let us hold self-creation and justice, private perfection and human solidarity, in a single vision.”
Well, having studied such a “single vision” in the form of the MOQ over the last decade, I just don’t accept this and, as such, this prevents me accepting most of Rorty’s further assertions. I’m not suggesting that the MOQ is perfect but I think it is a pragmatic system that achieves a single vision that is less problematic than the route that Rorty chooses. To some degree, this is an issue of foundationalism. As the MOQ is a “contradiction in terms” (Pirsig’s words) in being a metaphysics of the nameless
Tao, I think Pirsig has the balance (and it’s a delicate one) just about right between SOM objectivity and post-modernist relativism. Rorty is too extreme towards the latter.
Ironically, a single vision (such as the MOQ) is argued for by Orwell (1944) who is quoted by Rorty (CON, p.176):
“A very dangerous fallacy… is to believe that under a dictatorial government you can be free inside… The secret freedom which you supposedly enjoy under a despotic government is nonsense, because your thoughts are never entirely your own. Philosophers, writers, artists, even scientists, not only need encouragement and an audience, they need constant stimulation from other people… Take away freedom of speech, and the creative faculties dry up.”
Despite his usual enthusiasm for Rorty, even Matt has his doubts that private self-creation (& autonomy) can be separated coherently from social justice:
“If you want to make your whole life revolve around public things, you can. If you want to make your whole life revolve around private things, you can. The idea of a liberal society is that there would be such a proliferation of desires that everything that needed to get done would get done. As yet, this remains to be seen. In all honesty I have my doubts. I happen to think that totally ignoring politics in a democracy is a bad thing.”
Matt then states:
“But this doesn't contradict the idea of a liberal society or the public/private distinction. It simply moves where I think the lowest common denominator of society needs to be further away from the total private pole and closer to the middle.”
Ant:
This movement of “the lowest common denominator of society” away from the private sphere sounds like backtracking to me.
Anyway, Matt continues:
“This is an empirical and political claim. It is not a claim about the validity of the creation of a private sphere.”
Ant:
I don’t think anyone round here is stating that the creation of a private sphere is invalid. The crucial point is that the public/private distinction must be reconciled, at least to some extent, to prevent Orwell’s “very dangerous” fallacy coming into being. I’m beginning to realise why some commentators on this Discuss forum (and elsewhere) think Rorty’s philosophy is dangerous and, as such, should be rejected.
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For the third time, the above issue points to the difference between Pirsig and Rorty concerning the arts and sciences. To use Rorty’s terminology, he clearly thinks that the distinction between art and science is “that of two different kinds of purposes and techniques implicit in two different vocabularies”.
However, the MOQ uses a single vocabulary (of values) with the one aim of improving human life. As such, I read the MOQ as implying that both the arts and sciences are ways of making human lives into works of art rather than just the social sciences (as Rorty states in CONS, p. 87). So, I can’t accept Matt’s contention that the two philosophers provide similar solutions to C.P. Snow’s dichotomy.
Finally, to answer Matt’s questions related to this issue:
Matt said: How do you paint scientifically?
Ant answers: By using technology, as per Jan Vermeer’s use of the camera obscura.
Matt said: How do you test for electrons artistically?
Ant answers: By using your intuition as per the mathematician Henri Poincare or a half decent motorcycle engineer.
I also highly doubt that Leonardo Da Vinci would give much serious thrift to these two questions of Matt’s.
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Ant continues:
Other problems with Rorty, that Matt failed to address properly in his last e-mail, include the “vox populi” fallacy in Rorty’s definition of a liberal society, the elitist sentiment of his philosophy and his overlooking of Eastern philosophy.
The latter issue is of the most concern as this indicates that not only is Rorty’s work pretty much useless in explaining values or the everyday problems of the modern human (as to how to deal with alienation, being a parent, teacher or motor mechanic), Rorty’s philosophy is also pretty useless for achieving enlightenment or understanding Dynamic Quality. Post-modernists (such as Rorty) might broadcast the limits of SOM or the falsehood of a static self but these understandings were realised by Buddhist
philosophers (such as Nagarjuna) around two thousand years ago. No-one (of any sense) is going to get too excited about the wheel being invented twice. Moreover, (as seen in his comments about Plato in CON, p.96), such a lack in Rorty’s philosophical education has also instilled in him the attitude of the “western barbarian” towards the real concern of philosophy (metaphysical or otherwise) of achieving wisdom.
Where do I derive the term “western barbarian” from?
Well, it’s from a book called “The Secret & Sublime: Taoist Mysteries & Magic” that has gems of wisdom scattered throughout its pages. It was written by an English translator, John Blofeld, who lived in China during the 1930s.
In March 1997, Pirsig made the following comment to me about Blofeld’s book:
“The extracts from the book about the Taoists have a good authentic sound to them. I would take them as seriously as the MOQ, as fingers pointing to something which cannot be known except by the subtraction of ignorance, including the ignorance created by the fingers themselves.”
This is illustrated by an old Taoist master that visited Blofeld:
“The Tao is to be found in inner stillness. It reveals itself as One – timeless, formless, all pervading. In it all creatures and objects have their being. The same may be said of your goldfish and the water in which they swim, but the likeness is only superficial. One could take a fish out of the water and put it back; but the separateness of creatures and objects either from one another or from the Tao is illusory. Apart from the totality, which is the Tao, they have no being. The Tao and the myriad
objects are not two! Unlike water which rises from the lake as vapour and flows back to it in streams, the Tao’s creations do not rise from it, nor do they return to it, they and the Tao having never at any time been apart. They are the Tao. This faculty of being one and many simultaneously is a mystery that can be apprehended but not explained.”
(Quoted from John Blofeld, “The Secret & Sublime: Taoist Mysteries & Magic”, p.183, George Allen & Unwin, 1973)
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Finally, Matt and I do agree on at least one point:
Matt said:
As it happens, I also agree with David Hall who says that despite Rorty's claim to only be a "weak thinker," there is a strong case to be made for him being a strong poet.
Ant:
I can’t argue with that. Though I’ve never read any of Rorty’s poetry, at least such an occupation would keep him out of philosophical mischief. However, having said that, I doubt that I’d ever be interested in buying a book of his verse though I will certainly be purchasing a copy of Al Franken’s “Liar” book in the near future.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
“Wisdom is almost as satisfying as good millet-gruel, whereas knowledge has less body to it than tepid water poured over old tea leaves.”
The Taoist sage, Tseng Lao-weng (quoted from the “The Secret & Sublime: Taoist Mysteries & Magic”, p.208)
Neo-pragmatist citations:
CON -- Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity
CONS -- Consequences of Pragmatism
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