[MD] Harris and Steve

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB,

> Steve said:
> 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.
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> dmb says:
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> According to some end notes I just checked, Harris identifies pragmatism with Rorty and so takes its core theses to be the claim that, "All statements about the world are 'true' only by virtue of being justified in a sphere of discourse." He thinks this view is "incredible" and "covertly realistic" and that it "falls into contradiction" in several ways. I think it's safe to say he's not a big fan of Rorty's brand of pragmatism.


Steve:
Do you see some agreement with Jamesian prgamatism somewhere? It is
safe to say that he is not a fan of anybody's brand of pragmatism
since he specifically endorses the correspondence theory of truth.

I don't have the book handy, but as I recall, his argument that
pragmatism is a covert realism comes from supposing a mystic who
claims to have knowledge through an unmediated experience. He says
that the pragmatist's denial of the possibility of such an experience
is an endorsement of realism since it is a claim that such knowledge
really is impossible. Of course the pragmatist says no such thing. She
just says that she can't make any sense of the notion of "unmediated
experience."

DMB:
> Instead, he subscribes to a kind of epistemological realism, which he distinguishes from ontological realism and from naive realism. He also takes the view that we should exhaust common sense solutions to our moral problems before we bring philosophical ethics into it. He is writing for a general audience and so I think this is a fitting strategy.


Steve:
As I wrote to Matt, I agree with the strategy of trying to stick with
common sense ideas whereever possible, which is why I question the
strategy of denying the is-ought gap when his broader argument doesn't
depend on denying it.

I just read on his website that he has a whole chapter in his new book
about how free will is an illusion. Ugh!

Best,
Steve