From: abahn@comcast.net
Date: Mon Sep 22 2003 - 21:05:25 BST
Platt,
You said Matt made this assertion: "that the state shouldn't interfere in a
person's "self-creation" and in the next breath says that philosophy
should stay out of politics. Apparently these kinds of contradictions
are accepted without a blink of an eye by Rorty fans."
Andy: OK, I am a Rorty fan. So maybe I just don't see it, but where is the
contradiction?
> Matt, Sam
>
> > Sam said:
> > You make it sound as if there was no understanding of 'truth' involved
> > in the evolution of my beliefs. I hold my beliefs because I think
> > they're true, aka they have the highest Quality that I have yet found in
> > my intellectual explorations. That may change - whether you call it DQ
> > or the Holy Spirit, if you have a set of beliefs which rule out those
> > things, and therefore the possibility of change, then you're eventually
> > going to be marooned a long way from the current of truth. I see no
> > philosophical distinction here between my beliefs and anyone else's on
> > this forum, including yours.
> >
> > Matt:
> > I agree very much with Sam here and particularly when he says later,
> > "And on many of those things we'd be on the same side - but maybe for
> > quite distinct reasons!" One of Rorty's main projects has been to clear
> > space for people's own ideas of self-perfection. This is at the heart
> > of the Enlightenment political project, it is what prompted Jefferson to
> > enunciate the separation of church and state, it is what prompted
> > Eisenhower to say that religion is at the heart of America--whatever
> > religion it happens to be. The heart of secularism isn't that people
> > should be atheists, it is that people should leave religion for at home.
> > What this century's most important political theorist (with the
> > possible exception of Habermas), John Rawls, does is show that this
> > separation should be expanded to cover philosophy, too. This means that
> > all private projects of self-creation, be they called religious or
> > philosophical or spiritual or literary or whatever name they are given,
> > should be privatized so that people can determine the meaning of life on
> > their own without the interference of the state. Rorty argues that
> > religion and philosophy should stay out of politics because it would
> > stop the conversation. It doesn't matter how we got to our position of
> > "cruelty is the worst thing we can do", be it from a Christian
> > standpoint or a secular standpoint, from reading the Bible or reading
> > Orwell. It just doesn't matter. What matters is that we got there and
> > that we can then argue how we move from there to action, it is then that
> > we can debate good policy.
>
> I agree with both Sam and Matt except Matt in one breath says, based on
> philosophical principle, that the state shouldn't interfere in a
> person's "self-creation" and in the next breath says that philosophy
> should stay out of politics. Apparently these kinds of contradictions
> are accepted without a blink of an eye by Rorty fans.
>
> More importantly, however, Matt's claim of a universal moral principle
> that "cruelty is the worst thing we can do" is hardly shared by all,
> including such disparate characters as Bin Laden and Shakespeare ("I
> must be cruel, only to be kind.")
>
> Cruelty is obviously not the worse thing we can do when societies are
> threatened by biological forces. As Pirsig asserts, "The instrument of
> conversation between society and biology has always been a policeman or
> a soldier and his gun." (Lila, chp. 24.)
>
> Platt
>
>
>
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