[MD] Rorty's Relativism

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Ian,

Ian said:
Perhaps I should rephrase my point as a question - why is the debate about Rorty's view of pragmatism relevant to recognizing that the MoQ is neither absolutist, nor relativist (which appeared to have been agreed) ?

Matt:
Ah, see, that might be a good question.

The easy answer is 1) it's not necessarily relevant at all (relevance being determined by conversationalists internal to their conversation) and 2) it is only relevant to the very few people with a horse in the race (DMB, Steve, myself).  But, so it seems to me if we step back from Steve and Dave, 3) relevant, too, for those who _do still_ seem to find (at least) rhetorical relevance in "absolutism" (Platt) and "relativism" (Marsha, Ron).  Rorty, though he's by no means the only one, does talk a bit about the two, so I could see how he might be useful.

For instance, I can say from my viewpoint, after talking with Marsha, that Rorty is completely irrelevant to her concerns, and with why she calls herself a "relativist."  She's after slightly different fish with slightly different fishing poles.  Ron, on the other hand, after becoming a reader of Barry Allen, might find it useful and relevant to trail back to Rorty, because Rorty taught Allen at Princeton (advised his dissertation, if I'm not mistaken) and a lot of Truth and Philosophy is a slightly different version of stuff Rorty's also said.

But then, too I suppose, 4) Rorty's relevant insofar as people think that "language" is something not quite trusted, and that "experience" should be something radically opposed to it.  In _that_ case, Rorty does prove to be a useful staging ground for figuring why people think the things they do about language and experience (as far as philosophical terms of art, at least).

So, in the last case, I take that to be why DMB cares, and Steve or I only care insofar as we don't think DMB should care so much.

Matt

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