From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Tue Apr 08 2003 - 02:44:02 BST
DMB,
DMB said:
Matt seems to think the slogans of
pragmatism can save Rorty from having metaphysical assumptions, as if they
were magic words that granted immunity. Scott seems to be saying he detects
these assumptions whether Rorty wants to acknowledge it or not. This kind of
circularity, exhibiting the assumptions even as you deny them, is just one
example of what Wilber calls a "preformative contradiction".
Matt:
Again: Rorty nor I have ever claimed that he does not have assumptions. We
follow Wittgenstein in thinking that meaning is created in the context of
our assumptions. One of the assumptions in our "inherited background
against which you judge true and false" is the assumption that assumptions
are metaphysical. Pragmatists reverse that assumption, its why we say that
those who call Rorty on having a metaphysics without admitting it are
begging the question when they pursue that line.
And Rorty nor I have ever claimed that our reasoning, or anyone else's, is
anything but circular. We acknowledge it and say that everybody else is
making circular arguments, too. But this is a boring rehash.
DMB:
The mind-brain identity language strikes me as not just
materialism, but pretty hard-core reductionist materialism. And this view is
not unrelated to the amorality and nihilism I've detected in other areas of
Rorty's thinking. Its all this kind of stuff that makes me think Rorty's
take is SO at odds with the MOQ's mysticism. I'm not even surprized to hear
that Rorty thinks nothing is lost when "wonder" becomes merely "G-14
quivers".
Matt:
Again: Rorty is not a reductionist. While Rorty doesn't think anything is
lost explanatory-wise when wonder becomes G-14 quivers, he doesn't see the
need for "merely." He despises reductionism just as much as Pirsig did in
ZMM when he excised the word "just." Rorty's position is more like,
"sometimes it is helpful to talk about G-15 quivers, sometimes it is
helpful to talk about wonder."
Matt
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