From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Thu Mar 11 2004 - 20:28:23 GMT
Matt
Another good post.
...we even drop the distinction between making and finding
this I like too. If we can really mean this, does it not get us beyond
some of the post-modern falling into anti-realist fantasy? As I said
before, what we find depends on the question (making) but there
is still an answer (finding) but never any isolated finding or making.
I would like to propose a Morey-Matt uncertainty principle that
you can never isolate making from finding or finding from making.
As for seriousness, in the end there is something serious and that is
politics and perhaps also the meaning of our lives. I want my philosophy
to have something to say about these things but I just have more of
a hang-things-together urge then you never-mind-its-private kind
of folk, but I can put up with your shyness in a pluralistic spirit.
But I do wish we could do a bit less killing and stomach a good
chunk more equality, and make room for a lot more playful, experimental DQ.
I am sure there is a road to a better place, taking the right turns is the
difficult
thing.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT" <mpkundert@students.wisc.edu>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2004 10:11 PM
Subject: Re: MD When is a society a good society?
> David,
>
> David said:
> By what certainty do you say our metaphors are made rather than found? I
agree with you due to my particular metaphysics. But what are your
post-metaphysical reasons for holding this view? And what strange things
these metaphors are. Can we find them in the sand. Are you sure that we do
not need some rather mysterious capacities to produce them? That is to say
that metaphysical category: DQ.
>
> Matt:
> Your posed question is exactly why Rorty suggests that, along with other
troublesome distinctions, we even drop the distinction between making and
finding. Typically what ironists (a.k.a. antimetaphysicians) over the
course of history do is make increasing fun of the distinctions that
metaphysicians use. However, the next generation's ironists call last
year's ironists metaphysicians because the tools those ironists use become
themselves reified. Look at what happened to Hegel. The thematic is in
particularly sharp relief when you look at the Nietzsche-Heidegger-Derrida
sequence, each one calling the one before a Platonist. Rorty basically
accuses Derrida of the same thing, in the end. And I think each one is
basically right. What I think comes out of this sequence is the sense that
what makes you susceptible to metaphysizing is a spirit of seriousness.
Nietzsche was too serious in making fun of the religionists, Heidegger too
serious in making fun of the metaphysici
> ans, and Derrida ends up being too serious in making fun of the
philosophers, which is the end very ironic because Derrida is the one that
pointed us to the air of seriousness around philosophy.
>
> So what happens when you take something too seriously? You start to think
"it" is more important than everything else, which tends to lead to
systemization, reification, and metaphysics. If you don't take "it"
seriously, then you let "it" do "its" job in the context in which "it" was
born and drop "it" when "it" ceases to be useful. For instance, the
contrast between making and finding. Its only useful, under certain
circumstances, against metaphysicians. If you start making fun of a
metaphysician with it and another ironist starts making fun of you, the
proper ironic response is to throw up your hands, say, "Yeah, you caught
me!" and laugh right along with her. This, however, is not what most
ironists in the past have done. They end up taking their tools too
seriously and risk turning their ironizing into metaphysizing. When not
making direct fun of them, however, you can safely ignore their lapses in
behavior and call them ironist playmates, fun pals who enjoy a go
>
> od joke as much as anybody.
>
> So, a good question at this point would be, "Is Rorty serious? Does he
fall into the same trap as pretty much every other ironist in history has,
up to and including this generation's archironist, Derrida?" I don't think
he does because Rorty doesn't take _philosophy_ seriously, he takes politics
seriously. The ironists before him all became trapped because they kept
moving the seriousness a further step back, outironizing all those previous,
but leaving themselves open to the next generation's ironists. Rorty takes
the next radical step and says that this process will never stop. His great
move is to take seriousness out of the realm of philosophy entirely. Remain
playful in philosophy. Discard philosophical tools when they outlive
themselves. Rorty's tools are just as discardable as anybody else's. (This
has some interesting effects on intellectual life, but I won't pursue that
here.) Rorty, however, says that the one thing we should take seriously is
other peopl
> e's pain. And the place in which we can help relieve some of the pain
that our environment causes and we cause each other is politics. This move
and a fuller explanation of how Rorty sees it as working (the relationship,
for instance, between irony, which is painful to those you are making fun
of, and politics) is what Rorty sketches in Contingency, Irony, and
Solidarity.
>
> Matt
>
>
>
>
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