[MD] Rorty's Relativism (radical empiricism)

[Steve Peterson]

Hi DMB,

DMB:
> Like I've been trying to explain, the radical empiricist thinks there 
> is another way to support or purposes and intuitions, namely 
> experience. Experience is the test of truth, not conversation. This 
> doesn't give us any kind of absolute truth and here truth is just an 
> intellectual pattern that works in terms of guiding our experience. 
> You know, it's a species of the good. It is subordinate to Quality, 
> subordinate to experience but that doesn't mean it's not real or that 
> it's not important. It can't give us any ultimate foundations 
> (absolutism) but it can give us provisional "platforms" from which we 
> can push back against the nonsense, lies and bullshit. ...I mean, Iraq 
> had weapons of mass destruction or they did not. This is not going to 
> be settled by conversation. It's gonna be settled by finding the 
> weapons or by not finding the weapons. (They didn't.)

Steve:
What sorts of arguments do you think you can make as a radical 
empiricist that Rorty could not make? (Rorty could say as well as you 
could that no WMDs were found.)

When you say "Experience is the test of truth, not conversation" it 
sounds like you are using correspondence to undescribed reality as a 
criteria or a description of truth. But don't you need to describe 
reality to use it as an explanation or criteria? It seems to me that 
the radical empiricist is in no better epistemological position than 
the neo-pragmatist.

It sounds like it may be a work in progress, but can you explain more 
about your "provisional platforms" idea?

Best,
Steve