[MD] Neopragmatism isn't pragmatic.

[Matt Kundert]

David,

I have three things to say:

1) The last week or so has certainly solidified my suspicion that our 
current differences are a product of different backgrounds and different 
jargon.  Under such circumstances, I'm not sure how much good arguing and 
mud-slinging will do because the mud just seems to sail past the person 
thrown at when viewed from their own point of view.  One of the long time 
cues for such an occurence is when the defendant looks at the weapons being 
used against them in bewilderment and goes, "Yeah, but I agree with all 
that.  Why would they try and use that against me?"

You said, "Its just that Rorty's odd way of talking complicates and 
frustrates the task of comparing his pragmatism to Pirsig's."  I already 
apologized for whatever hand I had in that, but my only suggestion has been 
to, if you want to get a handle on Rorty, to use him or criticize him, go to 
the source and read him without someone else's voice in your ear.  I'm not 
sure Rorty is so odd.  Paul Turner left, read him, and came back with an 
appreciation for him.  I'd keep that in mind when you balk at me and laud 
Paul.

2) On justification and "objective reality" or "experience" or whatever else 
one would like to call it:  You said,

"What reason do you offer in explaining WHY should we avoid any claims of 
correspondence? Because it leads to problems of realism, you say. You say 
this leads us to makes the claim that 'my description of X thusly 
corresponds to the true nature of X'. See, the unstated assumption here is 
that correspondence with an objective reality is the only kind that can give 
us warrant for our beliefs."

I was explaining why--_philosophically speaking_--we should stay away from 
correspondence-talk, which I would say is analogous to why you suggest we 
should stay away from God-talk--bad implications.  What your elipsis hid 
when you quoted me in the letter to the discussion group was this:

"But there are other things you can say in place of claiming a closer 
correspondence.  You can say it just works better.  And when they say, 'What 
kind of justification is that?' you can reply, 'Well, look: no 
correspondence problems'.  Just stick to commonsensical justification like 
pointing at the rock when they ask if your picture of the rock corresponds 
to the rock.

See, the deal with this kind of thing is that representationalists want you 
to both justify commonsensically and then add, 'And my description of X 
thusly corresponds to the true nature of X.'  They think that without that 
addenda, we're hopelessly mired in relativism.  The history [of] metaphysics 
since Plato has shown the justification for that addenda to be mired in a 
hopeless, winning-criterialess battle.  Pragmatists like Dewey, and more 
explicitly Rorty, want to say that we don't need that addenda to fight of[f] 
relativism.  We can just skip the addenda because relativism is a devil 
created by Plato to make the Sophists look bad.  Just stick to common 
sense."

To expand, representationalists (on different variations) want to say that 
there are at least two critieria for truth: justification and 
correspondence.  Justification is great and will lead you in the direction 
of truth, but in the end, if you don't have correspondence, you've got 
nothing.  Imploded into what "justification" stands for are Pirsig's 
criteria for truth, commonsensical things like cohering, agreement with 
experience, stuff like that.  Pirsig never does (I don't think) tag on a 
realist addenda.  And Rorty can get behind commonsensical justification.  He 
has said that justification is the only criteria we know of for truth.

So Rorty agrees with Pirsig on this point, as far as I can see.  I construed 
your statement that way, about representationalists and realists, because 
you said "_philosophically_ incorrect".  The first thing I did in that 
letter was cut a distinction between philosophical discourse and 
commonsensical discourse.  That way, when you asked me about what we should 
or shouldn't say philosophically, I could say, and be understood as saying, 
that pragmatism wants to make the negative point that certain philosophical 
ways of speaking (i.e., representationalism) need to be shut down because 
all we need to do is rely on common sense (i.e. justification, not pointless 
addenda).  I had hoped that by shifting the ground thusly, from "experience 
v. language" to "philosophical discourse v. common sense," I could expose 
some of the bridges between Pirsig/Dewey and Rorty.

3)  On politics:  I apologize again to everyone for not talking about 
politics enough.  Maybe its because I get enough political conversation 
during my daily life (just last night I was talking about George Allen, 
"macaca," and the vices and virtues of gerrymandering), but I don't ever 
feel satisfied when I talk about politics here.  I can do abstract political 
philosophy, but no politics.  From my point of view its just a preference, 
but many apparently feel its a philosophical failing that I don't air out 
who I'm going to vote for in up-coming elections (and just to show that I'm 
not afraid of airing who I'm going to vote for, as if fear meant lack of 
honesty or care: Jim Doyle for Gov, Tammy Baldwin for Rep, Russ Feingold for 
Pres--I mean, I would vote for him for _Senator_ if he had to run this term, 
and any other Democrats who aren't total douchebags).  Many feel that a 
person's politics count against his philosophy.  Some even feel the reverse 
(a show of hands on how many of you would change your opinion about Pirsig's 
philosophy if you found out for sure about Pirsig's politics).  A few, like 
myself, don't see much connection between representationalists and 
antirepresentationalists and liberals and conservatives.  When David says, 
"Its important to realize that philosophy is NOT politically neutral," I 
would agree if he meant it in that fashionable, pomo kinda' Foucaultian way 
in which we say "its politics all the way down," but I'm pretty sure David 
doesn't mean it that way, given his fair enough view towards most of the 
standard pomo types one might meet at a university as "half-baked".  David 
means it more concretely.  I just don't see it.  In my experience, whatever 
possible philosophical views one might hold (meaning views on philosophical 
problems like "free will and determinism") swing free from whatever 
political views one might hold.  Maybe others have a different experience.  
But following Pirsig, I base things in my experience.  And when David gets 
upset when I suggest we get rid of certain ways of speaking (for 
philosophical purposes, of course) because of the baggage they carry, I hope 
he remembers how he and Anthony constantly accuse Rorty and I of pulling 
along a secret neoconservative agenda with whatever philosophical views we 
happen to espouse.  One or the other has to go to stay consistent, I think.

Matt

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