[MD] Rorty's Relativism

[david buchanan]

Steve said to dmb:
The sorts of things that such philosophers who want to engage Rorty often say is that Rorty "leaves himself open" to the charge of relativism rather than arguing that Rorty is actually endorsing relativism. I would think that any pragmatist shouldn't be interested in making such a charge personally though they may want to note that philosophers of the SOMish persuasion will call him that. The thing is, those sorts of philosophers will say the same thing about Putnam and Hildebrand and Rosenthal and Pirsig because from the SOM perspective that is exactly what they are.

dmb says:

Well, I'm talking about the way Rorty (and Putnam) is criticized within the world of pragmatism. Like I said, most pragmatists will belong to one of the two schools of thought; classical pragmatism and neopragmatism. The classical pragmatists like Rosenthal, Stuhr and Hildebrand tend to think that radical empiricism is an essential ingredient and so they are actually a lot more explicit about their rejection of SOM than is Rorty. I mean, these people do NOT take subject and objects for granted precisely because of the way radical empiricism attacks it.   


Steve said:
I really don't see how there could be a debate among pragmatists about relativism unless it is about Rorty "leaving himself open" to such criticism by others. How can relativism be described in pragmatic terms as something to be concerned about? Can you give a definition of relativism as you see pragmatists applying to Rorty?

dmb says:

Like the article in the Stanford encyclopedia of Philosophy says, "it is not surprising that Rorty's commitment to epistemological behaviorism should lead to charges of relativism or subjectivism" because his critics "balk at the idea that there are no constraints on knowledge save conversational ones. Yet this is a central part of Rorty's position, repeated and elaborated as recently as in TP and PCP" and "Rorty's conversationalist view of truth and knowledge leaves us entirely unable to account for the notion that a reasonable view of how things are is a view suitably constrained by how the world actually is". This "conversationalists view of truth" is what I referred to earlier. That is to say, he construes truth as intersubjective agreement. I think you're quite right to say that "pragmatists want to drop the notion of 'how the world actually  is' but that's because the phrase refers to a single objective reality. And I think you're quite right to think "that SOM philosphers would criticize what he's doing" in order to maintain their belief in such an objective reality. But I'm not talking about those critics and in fact I'm not even aware of any such critics. The radical empiricist would not oppose Rorty on those grounds but they still think that his "conversationalist view of truth" or his linguisticized pragmatism still makes them balk at the idea that there are no constraints on knowledge except conversation. Instead of saying that our claims are constrained by objective reality, they insist that our claims are constrained by experience. Conversation would count as experience but that's hardly the only kind that counts. More specifically, in Pirsig's case, "conversation" is always going to be a secondary thing that relies on concepts derived from a more primary kind of experience. You know, for Pirsig dialectic is the great usurper whereas Rorty has pretty much put it on the throne.  


Steve:
It's not that Rorty isn't open to criticism by smart people. It's just that I can't see how a pragmatist or anyone not taking the subject-object picture for granted could make the particular criticism of relativism with respect to Rorty. I'm sure that professional philosophers mean something more than what people generally seem to be doing with the word relativism, but I also can't tell what that is.


dmb says:

Let me put it this way. As I understand it, the "middle way" rejects both sides. It rejects the notion of absolute values and just as vigorously it rejects the notion that there are no values at all. It is neither nihilistic nor absolutist. You seem to be saying that pragmatist reject absolutism and therefore should have no problem with relativism. I'm saying they're both equally objectionable and that rejecting one doesn't have to mean an endorsement of the other. 


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