[MD] [Bulk] Re: Rorty's Relativism

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Marsha

18 Aug. you wrote (to DMB):

> I have read the chapter many, many times, and it doesn't reject
> relativism. It rejects a extreme ethical relativism only.  It's like
> you stating that John Smith rejects ice cream when John Smith has said
> he really likes ice cream but not lima bean ice cream.  

You are right. I don't know if you will go all the way, but the Sophists 
were the budding "subjectivists" of the budding SOM who stood 
against the budding o bjectivists. The Social Aretê as expressed by the 
Homeric heroes Achilles, Hector were long before the "thinkers".   

> The rest of the chapter has to do with Aristotle who ridiculed and
> discredited the Sophists calling their relativism irrational. And that
> only he, Phædrus, a madman, saw the horrors of what Aristotle had done
> to sophistic relativism and rhetoric.  

Even more right. SOM's internal "Objectivity versus Subjectivity" began 
here and this controversy that has run down through the ages to our 
time.  

> The evidence that I presented, that 'Man is the measure of all
> things.', is a statement of relativism, and that Phædrus goes on to
> state "Yes, that's what he is saying about Quality." is equating
> Quality with the sophists thinking about relativism.  Even ethical
> relativism of a less extreme form does not preclude making ethical
> judgments relative to their value.  

Of course "man the measure".is a statement of relativism. However, 
the subjective-relativist/objective-nonrelativist distinction is immensely 
valuable - it's INTELLECT - but is not reality's deepest split.. 

> For the record and from wiki relativism also mean: 'The term often
> refers to truth relativism, which is the doctrine that there are no
> absolute truths, i.e., that truth is always relative to some
> particular frame of reference, such as a language or a culture.' 

And hence Socrates' and Plato's hatred of the Sophists. SOM began 
as objectivity - as TRUTH -  but no sooner had it emerged than its 
inevitable subjective shadow popped up. Ergo, the S/O is an 
aggregate, you can't have one without the other.

Bodvar