[MD] brief tangent with Steve

[david buchanan]

Matt said to dmb:
What I mean then by not wanting "to use" radical empiricism is just that I don't feel the need to use the philosophical vocabulary supplied by radical empiricism to do philosophical work that I take another vocabulary also able to do. This is what the "parallel claim" is for: to establish that the two vocabularies "mean the same thing" over a particular ground. [And later added]  But, you _do_ agree that the two vocabularies "mean the same thing" over a _particular ground_: their anti-Platonism.  Right?  What am I missing in how to make this limited point precise?  Our debate is exactly _not_ over this particular ground I've staked out.

dmb says:
Oh, I see. Yes, I think both "vocabularies" mean the same thing with respect to anti-Platonism. I agree that they are "parallel in their negative attitude toward Platonism", as you put it. 


Matt said:...This perhaps was my mistake in trying to articulate PN as only anti-Platonism, thinking that would be a good place to start for us, on the things we agree on.  But you have your eye over that horizon comparing the "positive programs."  That's perhaps where you jump the gun, because it appears that you understand PN-philosophers as incapable of having one, maybe?  I was roughly trying to picture the situation as a venn diagram, with the anti-Platonism of PN and RE as the overlapping bit in the middle.  My mistake was, as I said, trying to make it appear as if there was nothing else on my side, while you have the other half of RE. ... I can't see how you can know this already.  To know this, you'd have to compare RE to the positive program at my disposal.  This was my mistake: you appear to think that I can't deploy a positive program at all...


dmb says:
That's very fair clearly stated too. Thank you.

You're exactly right too. I do not think Rortyism has any positive program. That's the area where the two circles do not overlap in our venn diagram. I don't think it's your mistake. Lots of things have led me to this conclusion. This doesn't mean that Rorty has absolutely no answers or suggestions about what to do next. I'm drawing this conclusion based on his most famous assertions, ones that you've articulated over the years and that I also find in books and articles. Specifically, I mean the slogan, his view that truth is not something we should have theories about, that we ought not be doing epistemology. And the answers he does provide to take their place - conversation, ethnocentrism, intersubjective agreement - are answers that I take to be a form of relativism. That's really my case in a nutshell. As you can see, this case is more or less predicated on the idea that Rortyism is overwhelmingly negative and the positive side, such as it is, amounts to relativism. 

So I don't mean to jump the gun but the idea that Rorty has no real answer is the main point. 

Is this not true? Is it not true that he's given up on truth theories and epistemology altogether? Isn't that why his answers take the shape they do. Is this not the center of his vision?

And have we not found the crux of the matter?

I think so.






 that attempts, in a different vocabulary, to account for the same > phenomena (like mystical experience) that you can with RE.  If PN is 
> only anti-Platonism (as I've painted it), then I cannot see why the 
> psychological nominalist is only allowed to be a psychological 
> nominalist.  I thought we'd gotten beyond the idea that 
> neopragmatists eschew positive philosophical theses?  Perhaps I 
> have more cleaning up of the neopragmatist image than I had 
> thought.
> 
> This is why I wanted to move slowly: I cannot deploy everything at 
> once.  I cannot guess every fire that needs to be put out.  These 
> posts are big enough as they are trying to say precisely the small 
> things I take myself to be saying (which apparently aren't precise 
> enough anyways).  I don't want to endlessly compare our big 
> judgments, as it were (Dave: "neopragmatism is anti-Pirsigian" vs. 
> Matt: "no it isn't"), I want to see the smaller judgments that build up 
> and justify the big one.  I still don't understand enough of the smaller 
> ones on your side that could hold up your big one, nor do I understand 
> enough of the smaller judgments you have that knock down my 
> smaller judgments that try and hold up my big one.  Does that make 
> clearer what kind of conversation I'm looking to participate in?  I feel 
> like trot out your big conclusion over and over again.
> 
> Dave said:
> But I'm trying to say that radical empiricism centers around something 
> that looks and sounds like everything negated by that thesis. Radical 
> empiricism centers around the terms prohibited by the slogan but it 
> uses them to stand for very different concepts.
> 
> Matt:
> I don't understand how I am denying to you that I understand this.  
> Are you suggesting, here, that RE is both untouched by PN's 
> anti-Platonism _and_ that PN denies RE's positive program (deployed 
> by its non-Platonic experience-vocabulary)?  That would be _not_ 
> how I've understood what you've been claiming.
> 
> Matt said:
> So: the issue has been, and still is, what radical empiricism does for 
> you that a psychological nominalist vocabulary is unable to do (i.e. 
> the specification of that ground of preference to the side of the area 
> of agreement) and whether everyone needs to do it.
> 
> Dave said:
> Well, I'm not exactly sure what it would mean to say "everyone" 
> needs to read and assimilate Pirsig's texts. As you obviously already 
> know, reading Pirsig is the only requirement to be here and 
> discussing those books is the purpose of this forum. I guess that 
> would be one of the main reasons that I feel justified in insisting 
> upon the use of Pirsig's central terms and in putting stress upon 
> their meanings. I think it would be a bit absurd to be so insistent in 
> some other context but also think it's a bit absurd not to in this 
> particular context. That's why I find "Rorty's overbearing negativity 
> towards Platonism to be at a certain point bad conversationally", as 
> you said And it's not just that Rortyists "are not much fun to talk to 
> if you want to do anything other than beat up Platonists", although 
> that's probably true too. The problem is that it seems to preclude 
> discussion of positive programs like the pragmatic theory of truth 
> and radical empiricism
> 
> Matt:
> This reply doesn't seem to acknowledge the extent to which I tried in 
> that post to map the kinds of available responses and what I think 
> about them (i.e. which ones will move the conversation forward). 
> For example, you say you feel justified because we are in the MD.  
> But in the face of my acknowledgment that this fact was never being 
> contested, you are just re-registering the fact that you don't think I 
> properly account for the fact that I'm conversing in the MD.  Since 
> I've asserted that I think I do, this is a non-starter: we are just going 
> to disagree about this, and there doesn't seem any point anymore in 
> just pissing down each others legs.  I tried to outline where I think 
> the _substantive_ philosophical disagreement will be found.  At this 
> point, all I can do is ask that you re-read when you have time 
> (and/or the inclination if this is still worth the time) the outline of the 
> issue and try to acknowledge how the outline fits together in a 
> holistic way (for example, what I mean by "everyone" should hopefully 
> be clear by the time you finish the whole passage, as I cannot say 15 
> sentences at once, and precision sometimes takes time).
> 
> Rather than taking pot-shots by using my self-deprecating sense of 
> humor against me (like agreeing that it it's probably true that I'm 
> boring to talk to), why don't you try finishing a post before responding 
> to it?  Try and do me the favor I give you in spending time in crafting 
> a cohesive response to the web of the thoughts you articulated in 
> your posts.  I don't often respond to every segmented portion, but the 
> common mode of segmentation in conversations in the MD is often 
> the biggest reason conversations get dragged down by red herrings 
> and sidetrackings.  Sometimes we have to ignore certain things in 
> order to select the bit that moves the conversation the direction you 
> think it should be moved.
> 
> Matt
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