[MD] Pirsig's theory of truth

[david buchanan]

Steve said to dmb:

You seem to have an unusual notion of what relativism with respect to truth is. ...For a Pirsigian and for a Jamesian as well as for a Rortian, "what actually is true" is not a coherent part of the vocabulary, so the question of reativism with respect to truth just doesn't come up. It is a question that can only be asked in the Platonic vocabulary. As long as someone insists on that vocabulary as I did with you over the last couple of weeks, they will continue to call you a relativist no matter how much you protest because within that vocabulary, you simply ARE a relativist.


dmb says:

Yea, what's up with the Platonism? You're using realism and Platonism and SOM to push back against the pragmatic theory of truth. On this topic, you have the philosophical equivalent of multiple personality disorder. Your position is a complete mess of contradictions. 

And besides that, I totally disagree that we can ask "what actually is true" ONLY from a Platonic perspective. That the whole point of saying that Rorty defines the question in terms of the failed answer. The pragmatist has an answer to what's actually true, but "actually", only means in actual experience, that truth is what we can successfully act upon. This has nothing to do with any Platonic claims about trans-experiential realities or their correspondence to the objective reality. And I have to say that I'm irritated by the fact that you keep repeating this irrelevant nonsense despite the fact that I've objected to it about ten times. I don't want to resort to insulting your intelligence or your honesty, but what am I supposed to conclude from this behavior? Why is it so hard for you to understand that your Platonism and SOMism and realism makes no sense in this debate and has nothing to do with the case I'm making? Seriously. How can you fail to register this point after so many repetitions? After reading Pirsig and thinking about these things for years? Your thickness on this topic has been kind of unbelievable.



Steve said:
See why Rorty just shrugs and tries to change the subject when relativism comes up? Because if a pragmatist allows the conversation about relativism to take place on SOM grounds he will always lose.

dmb says:

My concerns about Rorty's relativism do not take place on SOM grounds and neither do my assertions concerning the pragmatic theory of truth. Again, your argument is irrelevant and only shows that you are oblivious to what I've actually been saying.



Steve said:

What is always wierd for me is that you want to accuse Rorty of relativism while I don't think the issue can even be articulated on pragmatic grounds. As I said at the beginning, you must have an unusual definition of relativism with respect to truth if you think it is something that a pragmatist ought to be concerned about (as something philosophical and distinct from basic moral clarity). I'd love to here you specify what your pragmatic definition of relativism is.

dmb says:

You rejected my description of relativism on the grounds that Platonists don't define it that way. You say I have a very unusual idea of what relativism means. That is nonsense. If you go to the Wiki article, you'll find a section on Richard Rorty. You know perfectly well that his pragmatist critics have accused him of relativism many, many, many, many times. It is thee most common complaint about Rorty. Do all these critics have some weird idea of what relativism is and means? C,mon, Steve. That's not even remotely plausible.


Wiki says, "Philosopher Richard Rorty has a somewhat paradoxical role in the debate over relativism: he is criticized for his relativistic views, but prefers to describe himself not as a relativist, but as a pragmatist.'"Relativism" is the traditional epithet applied to pragmatism by realists'[14]'"Relativism" is the view that every belief on a certain topic, or perhaps about any topic, is as good as every other. No one holds this view. Except for the occasional cooperative freshman, one cannot find anybody who says that two incompatible opinions on an important topic are equally good. The philosophers who get called 'relativists' are those who say that the grounds for choosing between such opinions are less algorithmic than had been thought.'[15]'In short, my strategy for escaping the self-referential difficulties into which "the Relativist" keeps getting himself is to move everything over from epistemology and metaphysics into cultural politics, from claims to knowledge and appeals to self-evidence to suggestions about what we should try.'[16]Rorty takes a deflationary attitude to truth, believing there is nothing of interest to be said about truth in general, including the contention that it is generally subjective. He also argues that the notion of warrant or justification can do most of the work traditionally assigned to the concept of truth, and that justification is relative; justification is justification to an audience, for Rorty. Thus his position, in the view of many commentators, adds up to relativism.In Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity he argues that the debate between so-called relativists and so-called objectivists is beside the point because they don't have enough premises in common for either side to prove anything to the other.


Rorty thinks justification is relative to the different conversations we can have within a given sociological context. That's what his ethnocentrism is all about. Rorty denies that this ethnocentrism makes him a relativist. But like I said, James and Pirisg escape this purely sociological framework by the simple fact that the pragmatic theory of truth has non-verbal standards and constraints. Agreement is not excluded from the notion, but the test of truth is its ability to perform, to operate successfully in empirical reality whether there is an audience to persuade or not. 










 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
The New Busy think 9 to 5 is a cute idea. Combine multiple calendars with Hotmail. 
http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?tile=multicalendar&ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_5