From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Tue Dec 16 2003 - 21:28:51 GMT
Dear Matt K.,
You asked 14 Dec 2003 19:57:33 -0600 why (according to me) you can't
describe the little cumulative innovations of philosophic history as
(different) answers to the yes/no questions you formulated.
Because any switch from a 'yes' to a 'no' (or vice versa) would be a big
innovation, especially if (your narrative suggests) that the neo-pragmatic
set of answers hangs together, so a positive/negative answer to one of those
questions implies (and must historically have been combined with) specific
answers to some other questions.
Yes, you Americans agree on a lot of abstract principles, like the value of
Freedom, (American style) democracy, trial by jury, America being the
greatest nation on earth (only a few traitors excepted) etc. The agreement
on that strikes me as a social pattern of value: it seems to be simply a
requirement of political correctness (including liberals and conservatives)
to agree on such things as Americans on pain of not being taken seriously in
any discussion.
But weren't we writing about other type of things, 'saying something
particular ... like How are we going to feed so many people in the Third
World? ... How are we going to get people to stop caring about their cell
phones and more about the children in the ghettoes? Stuff like that.'
Seeing the generally venomous tone of political discussions among Americans,
something's left to be improved. Maybe the strength of pragmatism and
post-modernism among Americans, undermining the ability to reach agreement
about things really important, is partly due?
You don't see better methods to reach agreement come from philosophy and
think that we have to make 'regular ole' "methods" of persuasion and
give-and-take' do.
But how can you persuade anyone with whom you don't agree (intellectually,
not socially) about some set of basics? (Politically correct agreement is
just a mask for social level power games: who has enough status to exclude
whom from the discussion.) Why couldn't philosophy come up with sets of
basics to agree on that ARE historical rather than ahistorical/absolute?
How can you give-and-take if you don't agree on mutual legitimate interests?
If give-and-take is not based on such agreement, it is automatically based
on social level patterns of value: who has the power/status to have his/her
interests recognized.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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