[MD] Relativism

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB,


> dmb says:
>  I doubt that Rorty denies that there is an objective reality. He just thinks we can't have access to it.
>

Steve:
First of all, the relationship of pragmatism and the MOQ to objective
reality should not be simple denial. . Nowhere does Pirsig say
"objective reality does not exist." On the contrary, Pirsig says in
the LC annotations, "The MOQ does not deny the traditional scientific
view of reality as composed of material substance and independent of
us. It says it is an extremely high quality idea. We should follow it
whenever it is practical to do so."

As metaphysics, the MOQ says that "objective reality" is an answer to
a bad question, and Rorty of course agrees. "Is it ontologically
subjective or objective?" is viewed as a wrong question. The answer is
"mu" rather than denial of objective reality.

Rorty, then, like Pirsig, does NOT deny that there is an objective
reality, but he does not accept the ontological notion of "thing in
itself" (for what is a thing outside of its relations to other
things?). For Rorty, language doesn't fail to accurately represent
reality (this is your charge that Rorty lived in disappointment that
we could not access reality as it really is) because he didn't think
language "represents" at all.

Here is Rorty denying the notion that there is a reality that we
cannot have access to:

"...philosophers are called 'relativists' when they do not accept the
Greek distinction between the way things are in themselves and the
relations which they have to other things, and in particular to human
needs and interests. Philosophers who, like myself, eschew this
distinction must abandon the traditional philosophical project of
finding something stable which will serve as a criterion for judging
the transitory products of our transitory needs and interests.

"...Scientific and moral truths...are described by our opponents as
'objective', meaning that they are in some sense out there waiting to
be recognized by us human beings. So when our Platonist or Kantian
opponents are tired of calling us 'relativists' they call us
'subjectivists' or 'social constructionists'. In their picture of the
situation, we are claiming to have discovered that something which was
supposed to come from outside us really comes from inside us. They
think of us as saying that what was previously thought to be objective
has turned out to be merely subjective.

But we anti-Platonists must not accept this way of formulating
theissue. For if we do, we shall be in serious trouble. If we take
thedistinction between making and finding at face value, our opponents
will be able to ask us an awkward question, viz., Have we discovered
the surprising fact that what was thought to be objective is actually
subjective, or have we invented it? If we claim to have discovered it,
if we say that it is an objective fact that truth is subjective, we
are indanger of contradicting ourselves. If we say that we invented
it, weseem to be being merely whimsical. Why should anybody take our
invention seriously?

If truths are rnerely convenient fictions, what about the truth of the
claim that that is what they are? Is that too aconvenient fiction?
Convenient for what? For whom? I think it is important that we who are
accused of relativism stop using the distinctions between finding and
making, discovery and invention, objective and subjective. We should
not let ourselves bedescribed as subjectivists, and perhaps calling
ourselves 'social con-structionists' is too misleading. For we cannot
formulate our point interms of a distinction between what is outside
us and what is inside us. We must repudiate the vocabulary our
opponents use, and not let them impose it upon us.

...The distinction between the found and the made is a version of that
between the absolute and the relative, between something which is what
it is apart from its relations to other things, and something whose
nature depends upon those relations."

The above comes from the Intro to Pragmatism and Social Hope.

Best,
Steve