[MD] Rorty's Relativism

[Steve Peterson]

Hi DMB,


> 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:
I don't know how to settle a pissing match between the contemporary  
classical pragmatists' radical empiricism, Rorty's panrelationalism,  
and Pirsig's Quality to see who has rejected SOM most flamboyantly,  
and I don't think it matters. None of these are SOMists which means  
to me that none of these should be interested in accusing the others  
of relativism since buying into absolutism-relativism is a just  
another way of clinging to SOM.


> 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.

Steve:
This is a misunderstanding of Rorty. I don't think I've ever read him  
using the term, and if so I would think that it was only done in the  
context of describing justification rather than truth. Since he is  
criticized for not having a theory of truth it wouldn't make sense  
for him to have a "conversational theory of truth." Rorty pretty much  
says "truth is truth, let's leave it at that," because theories of  
truth don't help us distinguish between true and false statements  
anyway which is the only reason that we would want to pursue such a  
theory.

DMB:
> 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:
Note that he is talking about knowledge rather than truth. He is NOT  
saying that truth is only constrained by conversation. He sees truth  
in the usual way. A statement is true or false independently of who  
believes it or who makes a stronger case for their position.   
Knowledge refers to claims to holding a "justified true belief" by  
Plato's formulation. He is saying that the constraints on such claims  
are conversational which is one more way of saying that no theory of  
truth will ever help us settle the matter of whether what someone  
claims to know is true. Such questions are always settled in  
conversation. Knowledge is not merely believing the truth but also  
being justified in believing the truth. Only in conversation can we  
deal with justification.

> 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.

Steve:
No, I'm saying that someone who really has rejected SOM has by  
definition lost interest in asking the question "is it objective or  
subjective?" And no one who has stopped asking "is it objective or  
subjective" would want to ask "is it absolute or relative?" So how  
could a non-SOMer ever accuse someone of relativism?

This makes me wonder what you or the contemporary classical  
pragmatists could mean by a relativist. What does it mean to you?

Let me put the issue another way. What sorts of things do you think  
that Rorty needs to say before you or classical pragmatists in  
general would be convinced that he is NOT a relativist?

Best,
Steve