[MD] Relativism

[X Acto]

> Steve said to dmb:
> ... you will face some uncomfortable questions like, is this truth that objective reality does not exist found or made? If it is found, you affirm objectivity. If it is "MADE true in experience," as you like to say, how is that done? How do we VERIFY (in James's sense of making true) that objective reality does not exist?
>
>
> dmb says:
> The same way we verify that santa doesn't exist. Just kidding. Everybody knows it's impossible to prove a negative.

Steve:
Well this is a big problem for anyone who doesn't keep justification
and truth as separate notions, isn't it. If what is true is MADE true
in experience, how is any negative MADE true? How is it MADE true that
objective reality does not exist?


DMB:
But yes, of course, the radical empiricist is saying that objective
reality was made, not discovered. In his essays, James says that the
idea of things-in-themselves is one of the transexperiential entities,
one of those metaphysical fictions, invented to deal with SOM. He sets
the parameters of his empiricism so that such fictions are only ever
taken as such. They can be acceptable on pragmatic grounds, if they're
useful. But as a general rule, if it can't be known in experience, we
should just keep it out of our philosophies and call it what it is;
pure speculation about something that, by definition, we can never
know. If it's outside of experience, it is outside of reality. There
is a nice symmetry here too. If it is known in experience, you better
have a place for it in your philosophy. That side of the doctrine
opens up a whole range of experiences that had been marginalized,
ignored and actively avoided by the traditional empiricists.

Steve:
If your pragmatism is merely MADE, why should anyone take it
seriously? If the idea that objective reality exists is made, then so
is the idea that objective reality does not exist. You said, "if it
can't be known in experience, we should just keep it out of our
philosophies and call it what it is; pure speculation about something
that." Doesn't that apply just as well to the idea that objective
reality does NOT exist as well as it does to the notion that objective
reality DOES exist? What I'm saying is that you should keep the notion
that objective reality does not exist out of your philosophy. the
whole question of "objective reality" ought not be part of the
pragmatist's vocabulary. That is why you won't find Rorty denying it
and why we found Pirsig denying that the MOQ denies it.

Ron:
I believe this would leave philosophers with nothing to really say, I believe
because the question of "objective reality" really colours western philosophy
leaving from the Pragmatists vocabulary would really cripple what it means
to call yourself a Pragmatist.
To be aware of "objective" truth as one of many intellectual values is not
taking the stance of denying it's existence, simply reducing it's dominion
on thought.
By your arguement above however, it seems to me to illustrate the 
problems that relativism brings. 
I think we can agree that truth is relative. That "objective" truth
really is a myth.

However, this does not mean that the idea of truth is rendered meaningless.
Being a species of the good, the intellectual species, it would seem to be
of the utmost importance to theorize about. If it is "that on which we are prepared
to act apon", then it's concern is one of survival. Pragmatic truth may best be
described as a theory of explaination.



Steve:


Language is a part of reality, and so are you. How could you ever talk
about which bits of reality are infused with language and which ones
are "pure" without using language to do it and spoiling the whole
endeavor? This isn't a *failure* of language to be adequate to reality
unless your view of language is one of correspondence. Dewey offered
an alternative view of language as a tool where this question about
comparing language to the fundamental nature of reality simply never
comes up. In the Deweyan view, language doesn't fail to adequately
represent (this is your misread of Rorty as a dissapointed positivist)
when it is not seen as representation of something else at all.

Language for Dewey is a tool like a hammer about which we would never
think to ask "does it adequately correspond?" For Rorty it is even
more like an extention of yourself than a tool that can be separated
from yourself.  A person is not something distinct from her thoughts.
"One can use language," says Rorty, "to criticise and enlarge itself,
as one can exercise one’s body to develop and strengthen and enlarge
it." Trying to compare language to something else that is outside of
language is in this analogy an attempt to step out of your own skin.
Why would anyone who has already dropped the correspondence notion
even think of trying to do that?


Ron:
I think this is a good point of departure, To understand and reclarify our thoughts
and disagreement. Rorty and James both acknowldge experience is strung together
seamelessly, but while Rorty seems to see no use in pursing the matter further,
James forwards the idea that meaning is the most important aspect of experience.
The most usefull theory concerning the distinction of language, for it does bring
with it certain problems and logic traps. Because it seems we spend alot of time
concerning ourselves with thoughts that have no bearing on what is happing in the
now of experience.
To be able to make this distinction and focus on the now, we may elimenate
many problems be more successful and establish an improved peace of mind.

Is'nt this our aim?