[MD] Relativism

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB,


> dmb says:
> Steve, you keep trying to gloss over this difference in various ways as if there was no real difference between Rorty and our radical empiricists (Pirsig, James and Dewey).

Steve:
I'm not saying that at all. I don't get it. You are responding here to
posts where I went on at length about how I think Pirsig took the
wrong tack on the language issue--the notion that language is
something that can be and ought to be transcended. I think that notion
is an SOM holdover.

DMB:
But, as Hildebrand says, Rorty eviscerates Dewey's vision. Haack and
Putnam both think Rorty can't rightly be called a pragmatist.

Steve:
Putnam didn't call himself a pragmatist for the same reason that he
thought Rorty shouldn't call himself a pragmatist--the so-called
pragmatic theory of truth. Putnam is not on your radical empiricist
team. In fact, since you seem so interested in building an anti-Rorty
team, you should note that the "heavy weights" are on Rorty's side on
the language issue and truth issues. Davidson, Putnam, Stout,
Margolis, Fish--I don't think any of these support radical empiricism
or the pragmatic theory of truth. But why do you even care who can
lend their authority to these ideas? They could all be wrong, couldn't
they?

Best,
Steve