[MD] Relativism

[david buchanan]

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

Steve replied:


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."


dmb replies:

The quote just says that the idea of an independent reality has practical value in many situations, in a science lab or in rush-hour traffic for example. That's why he tells us that the MOQ's purpose is not to completely trash SOM, but "unlike SOM the MOQ does not insist on a single exclusive truth. If subjects and objects are held to be the ultimate reality then we're permitted only one construction of things - that which corresponds to the 'objective' world - and all other constructions are unreal." Anyway, I think you're quite mistaken. Pirsig and Rorty can both be seen rejecting correspondence theory of truth and the possibility of objective knowledge but they do so for different reasons. For Pirsig and James, it follows from their rejection of SOM but for Rorty it follows from the inability to get outside of our concepts and compare them with an unconceptualized external reality. He doesn't deny SOM so much as he denies that S can have access to O.

"There is no point in raising questions of truth ...because between ourselves and the thing judged there always intervenes mind, language, a perspective chosen among dozens, on description chosen out thousands." (Rorty, 1976:67) 

"There is no way to hold the world in one hand and our descriptions of it in the other and compare the two." (Rorty, 1981:180)

"The notion of a 'theory of knowledge' will not make sense unless we have confused causation with justification in the manner of Locke." (Rorty, 1979:152)

That last one is the most interesting. As I read it, Rorty think we can only have a casual relationship with the world, a brute physical relationship with the world, but we can never use that world to justify our beliefs because there is no way to get outside our language. And of course this is how he lands on the view that there can be no restraints on justification except conversational constraints.

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


dmb says:

I honestly don't see it, Steve. Please explain how any of the quotes constitute a denial of objective reality or a rejection of SOM. You can pick your favorite and walk me through it if you like, but I'm very skeptical. You seemed so confident about this, saying you could give me ten quotes and yet it would be generous to say this evidence is weak. It wouldn't be too stingy to say this doesn't count as evidence at all. I'm just leaving open the possibility that you can make a case for one or more of these. If you find a quote that seems better, feel free. Again, I think Rorty is rejecting the problematic formulations that follow from SOM but not SOM itself and you're conflating them in such a way that rejecting the correspondence theory also means a rejection SOM, but that's not necessarily the case. In some, Rorty seems to be doing battle with SOMers and yet he does not challenge that dualism per se. Wouldn't that be the time to strike out against it? 

> 
> "...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
> the issue. For if we do, we shall be in serious trouble. If we take
> the distinction 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 merely 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

 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
The New Busy is not the too busy. Combine all your e-mail accounts with Hotmail.
http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?tile=multiaccount&ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_4