[MD] Harris and Steve

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Matt, DMB, Ian,

On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 2:28 PM, Matt Kundert
<pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ian said:
> When DMB says he thinks Harris is wanting to get us beyond
> the cultural relativism, clearly he is ... but it is by
> recognizing the cultural basis of the acceptance of "facts"
> that we do so.
>
> Matt:
> This what I don't know about Harris because I don't know
> enough about him...I'm not sure he's Wittgensteinian or
> Kuhnian in that sense.

Steve:
If you recall that bit in The End of Faith that you pointed out to me
(you can find it by looking for Rorty in the index), Harris does not
subscribe to such a view. He holds to realism and the correspondence
theory of truth, so facts are not viewed as cuturally contingent at
all. Facts are whatever it is about reality that our ideas are
supposed to correspond to.

DMB, I wonder if you recall the part where Harris attacks pragmatism
and have any thoughts on it.


Matt:
> I think it's the stance he ought to take, but from the little
> I've read it's unclear to me whether that is the stance he
> wants.

Steve:
Though we both wish Harris were a pragmatist, I still wonder whether
pragmatism would well serve his rhetorical purposes. To make the case
he wants to make against religious faith and in favor of moral truth,
he may be more effective posing as a realist even if he had pragmatist
leanings. He can only be taken seriously in pop culture if he does not
take too many radical stances at once. What do you think of that idea?

Best,
Steve