[MD] Harris and Steve

[david buchanan]

Steve said to dmb:
Do you see any possibility of persuading Harris with talk of radical empiricism? Or do you think that Harris would read it as wooly nonsense?


dmb says:

I'd guess he might like radical empiricism. It provides just enough realism to satisfy the demands of his project. His complaints about Rorty are nearly identical to mine.



Steve:
As unlikely as it may seem, his argument can be found on page 181 (I'm using the paperback.) You seem to only be reading the footnotes rather than the text that they expound on.


dmb says:

Yes, in this case the body of the text is a section called "The Demon of Relativism" and again Harris expresses concerns about Rorty that are very much like mine. "There is a more sophisticated version of this line of thinking that is not so easily dispatched. It generally goes by the name of 'pragmatism' and its most articulate spokesman is undoubtedly Richard Rorty. While Rorty is not a household name, his work has had a great influence on our discourse, and it offers considerable shelter to the shades of relativism. If we ever hope to reach a global consensus on matters of ethics - if we would say, for instance, that stoning women for adultery is REALL wrong, in some absolute sense - we must find deep reasons to reject pragmatism." (p179) "I believe that relativism and pragmatism have already done much to muddle our thinking on a variety of subjects, many of which have more than a passing relevance to the survival of civilization." (p180)

This is where he makes a case concerning pragmatism and mysticism, BUT his view is opposed to Rorty here too. "The problem for the pragmatist is not that such a mystic stands a good chance of being right. The problem is that, whether the mystic is right or wrong, he must be right or wrong realistically. In OPPOSING THE IDEA that we can know reality directly, the pragmatist has made a covert, realistic claim about the limits of human knowledge. Pragmatism amounts to a realistic denial of the possibility of realism. And so, like the relativist, the pragmatist appears to reach a contradiction before he has even laced his shoes." (p.181)

Steve:
His disagreement is not with Richard Rorty but with pragmatism's basic premise--the denial of correspondece theory.



dmb says:

Well, he sets up a basic opposition between realism and Rorty's truth as consensus. Since James does not maintain that position, these particular arguments against pragmatism could not rightly be leveled against the radical empiricist. Like I said, it seems that radical empiricism and James's pragmatic theory of truth offers the element of realism that Harris thinks we need to make moral progress. As you probably figured, this is just one more reason for me to love the guy. 

On the back cover, by the way, it says "Harris draws on insights from neuroscience, philosophy, and Eastern mysticism to deliver a call for a truly modern foundation for ethics and spirituality that is both secular and humanistic".










 		 	   		  
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