[MD] Neopragmatism isn't pragmatic.

[ian glendinning]

Welcome back Matt, even if it has to be for the purpose of "defending"
yourself (and Rorty).

I'll repeat that I haven't got into Rorty enough to understand exactly
what he's saying first hand, but what you say makes sense to me.

I'm glad you came back on the political angle though, because I too
baulked at DMB's "Philosophy is not politically neutral" and for the
same reason, because it depends how it was meant. I wouldn't agree
with your statement that the two "swing free" entirely, but they are
certainly not linked in any deterministic way. If I had to generalise,
I'd say one's politics (policies for life) were based on one's
philosophy, but when I say that I'm a million miles from partisan
political agendas.

I vote for individuals I trust.

Ian.

On 10/30/06, Matt Kundert <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 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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