[MD] in defence of the "relative"

[Matt Kundert]

Hey Steve,

Matt said:
Personally, I don't think "conceptual relativism" of the kind I 
outlined above (which takes seriously the idea of radically 
different alternative conceptual schemes) is in the end 
viable for transcendental reasons similar to Kant's (Donald 
Davidson's kind of transcendental deduction of the possiblity 
of communication).  But it might be important to mull over.

Steve said:
I don't know what transcentental reasons are, but Stout 
pointed out that any disagreement must take place against 
a background of agreement for two people to recognize 
that they are in fact disagreeing. So there is a limit to 
disagreement dispite this "conceptual relativism."

Matt:
Right, that's the basic outline of Davidson's argument (Stout 
credits him, too).  The radical conceptual relativist thinks 
there is an open possibility of having so different conceptual 
schemes that two people live in entirely different worlds 
(Kuhn infamously made noises about "different worlds" in the 
Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which he later regretted).  
Davidson and Stout are pointing out that to even recognize 
each other as _communicating_ would require a lot of 
background agreement on the way the world is (Stout's 
argument in his first chapter is a very innovative, more 
specialized deployment of this argument).

The relationship between Kant and Davidson is that Kant 
created a new kind of philosophical argument in the Critique 
of Pure Reason.  People were all (roughly) foundationalists 
at the time, and instead of the push and pull of 
rationalist/empiricist assertions over what the foundation 
_is_, Kant argued that for reality to be the way it is it 
_must_ take a certain form for us to even recognize it as 
reality.  For instance, it must have causality.  A 
"transcendental argument," then, takes on the form of 
"the very possibility of X requires Y."  E.g., "the very 
possibility of disagreement requires a large background of 
agreement, thus proving that radical disagreement about 
_everything_ is impossible."

Rorty, when he was first figuring out the radical 
consequences of Davidson's "On the Very Idea of a 
Conceptual Scheme," called Davidson's argument "the 
transcendental argument to end all transcendental 
arguments" because it pulled down the very fabric of a 
need for a foundation at all (while taking on the basic 
form of a transcendental argument).

Matt
 		 	   		  
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