[MD] Rorty's Relativism

[X Acto]

Hey Dave,
A thought, since I'm in the Plato way at the moment.

I think Rorty makes a similar contention about truth as 
Plato does in that truth terms are agreed apon meaning
whereas Pirsig, James ect, are of the ilk that  meaning
is grounded in experience.

Where Rorty is content to show that truth is contextual and many,

James and Pirsig anchor that contextuality to experience that the test
of contextual meaning is experience itself. Which totally eviserates the charge
of linguistic relativity in terms of true-ness and falsity in meaning and value.

It's what those terms of meaning and value are based on and refer to.

not merely an agreement. Santa claus is an agreement, superman is an agreement
but are they testable and verifyable in relation to experience? 

Rorty makes no distinction between the abstract and the concrete in his terms
of provisional truths and by that it makes him a relativist for he treats this
distinction as if it does not exist. Which makes truth or trueness any idea 
that is agreed apon. which is kinda dangerous if you ask me.

-Ron



 


----- Original Message ----
From: david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 2:13:25 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Rorty's Relativism


Steve said to dmb:
Do you see Quality as an essence? If so, I think this issue would constitute a departure from the tradition of pragmatism, so I suppose not.

dmb says:
Steve, buddy, dude, you do not have to SUPPOSE that Quality is not an essence. I've already described such notions as completely off the table, as something we do not disagree about, as ridiculous and asinine. And yet you keep coming back with this stuff. WTF? 

Steve said:
It is a way of talking about radical empiricism. It is pure experience. But then, Quality is more descriptive of what pure experience is like than radical empiricists would be comfortable with. You'll have some 'splainin to do among the academics anyway.

dmb says:
That splainin won't be very hard because James describes pure experience as pre-conceptual and Pirsig describes Quality in exactly the same terms. In fact, they both make the static/dynamic distinction in exactly those terms. But thanks for your concern. 

Steve said:
To say that Rorty is "trapped within...analogues" sets up an appearance-reality problem that Rorty would deny.


dmb says:

No, it does not set up the appearance-reality distinction. The appearance-reality distinction is within the analogues. If experience IS reality, as the radical empiricist says, then appearance is reality. Of course, it has to be understood that this claim is not being asserted from within SOM. I mean, this is not a claim that subjective appearance are the objective reality because subjects and objects are both seen as derived concepts. 


Steve said:Talking about reality won't bring us any closer to or further from reality. It won't make anyone's immediate experience any more immediate.

dmb says:
Well, according to Pirsig, talking about reality is exactly what takes us further away from reality because reality is pre-conceptual, pre-verbal experience. The immediacy of experience is known best when we shut the hell up. That's probably THEE major difference between Pirsig and Rorty. If a guy wanted to obscure this difference, he'd do well to ignore that fact that Pirsig is a philosophical mystic and ignore radical empiricism or at least convert it to panrelationalism, as our fiend Matt does. I mean, if we "take undescribed reality and put it under a description" we have already lost the undescribed reality, we have only shown that we have the wrong idea about what pure experience is, the wrong idea about what "pre-intellectual reality" means. I agree that "Rorty wouldn't have seen any use in appealing to undescribed reality" and I think that's exactly what sets him apart from Pirsig. 

Steve said:
I think all we have so far is that you think Rorty was a relativist because he didn't talk about experience. But you haven't explained why talking about experience gives you a better foundation for your ethical or factual assertions than Rorty could claim to have.

dmb says:
Again, did we not already agree that nobody here is looking for a foundation? (about five times) Why do you keep insisting that foundationalism is the only way to avoid relativism. Quality is not a foundation or an essence, an objective reality to which our talk must conform or anything like that. It's not something behind experience or the cause of experience or anything like that. It IS experience and we know it directly as such.


Steve said:
Rorty saw reality as putting causal pressures on our beliefs. I can't see the difference between saying Quality prevents relativism and saying that reality simply won't allow us to have certain beliefs. Neither view is any help in explaining why liberalism is better than fascism when there are nut jobs out there who believe that fascism is better. Rorty could make a strong argument for liberalism and could argue against fascism as well as anyone and far more effectively than most. What he wouldn't do in such arguments is point to some ahistorical foundation for liberalism as was done by the Founding Fathers, but then, neither would you, so I find it strange for you to be calling him a relativist. Somehow you must be claiming more of a foundation for your beliefs than Rorty was willing to claim for his, but unless you are claiming Quality as an essence, I can't see how it could serve as such a foundation.


dmb says:
There you go with the essences and foundations again. Sigh.

As you probably know (but apparently forgot) Pirsig's claims about the superiority of liberalism over fascism is almost exactly the opposite of an ahistorical claim. He makes that claim on the basis of the evolutionary relationship between social and intellectual values. Such claims cannot be supported by reference to pre-intellectual experience. The difference between social and intellectual values is practically defined by the difference between fascism and liberalism. That difference is an historical difference and is asserted from with static reality.

Thanks,
dmb 
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