From: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com
Date: Sun Mar 23 2003 - 21:41:13 GMT
Hello Matt,
There is allot here so i hope it gets through uncut, if not it may have to be
cut down a tad...
......One answer is that if we make them objects of inquiry, we
will be able to make more of our beliefs reasonable and truthful (the same
goes for making Morality or the Good an object of inquiry). The pragmatist
rejects this formulation, however, on the grounds that we've spent the last
2500 years in these lines of inquiry and they've had no noticeable effect
on our beliefs becoming more reasonable or truthful (or our actions
becoming more good). We think that what DMB does when he reads is about
all anybody does when they read and that justifying our beliefs by other
beliefs is about all anybody does when they are being reasonable (provided
the beliefs they are referring to are reasonable by our lights).
So, when we make the post-modern turn, we stop thinking that a Tribunal of
Reason is involved in judging us. When somebody tells us, "You are being
unreasonable," we might say, "Oh yeah? How so?" If the person then tells
us, "Because Reason dictates it thus," as before, we might not think that
such a good reason for thinking us unreasonable. We would like to hear
more than that. And in the end, just as before, the notion of Reason
becomes superfluous when deciding if we are being reasonable or not. The
only thing judging us is another person. This is why pragmatists replace
the Tribunal of Reason with a Tribunal of People. Only other people are
involved in judging our beliefs and actions. It is why Rortyan pragmatists
follow Habermas in attacking subject-centered reason in favor of
communicative reason.
The efforts of saying all this changes nothing of our actual
behavior. Switching from a Tribunal of Reason to a Tribunal of People does
nothing to how we read and how we justify ourselves. Everything DMB and I
and everyone else does when reading and justifying our actions goes on like
normal. The only difference is that we will stop trying to get
argumentative mileage out of Reason and Truth. We will abandon inquiry
into these things because, along with women, we will stop treating them
like objects. Reason and truth become compliments we pay to sentences we
like and find useful. They have a function, but it is not the function
Plato and Kant thought they had.
Matt
sq: First off, i see you agree with Lila quite a bit. That's nice. The stuff
about justification and wakes is good - to a point.
But this stuff of yours about reason is dodgy, because reason is real -
reason is an intellectual pattern. If you rewire a main circuit in a house
you need reason as a method of enquiry or you may die. I advise you to try it
without reason and report back?
Now then, as for me carping about DQ and trying to persuade? Guilty as
charged squire. I feel the best tribunal of the people is one that is
persuaded to explore a MoQ, because the MoQ gives All people the best 20-20
hindsight ever developed. DQ is what comes next, and you can't see that until
its too late.
squonk.
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