[MD] Relativism

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB,

> dmb says:
Your repeated insistence that truth and justification be kept
separate, for example, is wildly at odds with Rortyism. There are tons
of examples like that. You can't have it both ways, not unless you're
willing to embrace a self-contradictory position.

Steve:
There are "tons of examples" where Rorty supports the notion that
someone claiming that a belief is true can amount to nothing more than
that person claiming that the belief is sufficiently justified, but
you are misreading Rorty if you think Rorty takes truth and
justification to be the same thing. This person could be wrong though
juestified in believing. If we doubt whether one of our beliefs is
true, all we can do to try to resolve our doubts is to ask how we
could justify our belief. So Rorty concludes that "assessment of truth
and assessment of justification are the same activity." That is a
claim about the specific practice of inquiry rather than a claim that
the words "truth" and "justification" always mean the same thing in
all practices.

>From the pragmatic perspective, inquiry is always the practice of
assuaging doubts rather than of pursuing truth. This is one of
Pierce's important points in the Fixation of Belief that started this
whole pragmatism thing:

"The irritation of doubt is the only immediate motive for the struggle
to attain belief. It is certainly best for us that our beliefs should
be such as may truly guide our actions so as to satisfy our desires;
and this reflection will make us reject every belief which does not
seem to have been so formed as to insure this result. But it will only
do so by creating a doubt in the place of that belief. With the doubt,
therefore, the struggle begins, and with the cessation of doubt it
ends. Hence, the sole object of inquiry is the settlement of opinion.
We may fancy that this is not enough for us, and that we seek, not
merely an opinion, but a true opinion. But put this fancy to the test,
and it proves groundless; for as soon as a firm belief is reached we
are entirely satisfied, whether the belief be true or false."

I expect you'll agree completely with Pierce "That the settlement of
opinion is the sole end of inquiry." Pierce noted that this
proposition "sweeps away...various vague and erroneous conceptions of
proof." What it still doesn't sweep away, in Rorty's, Pierce's,
Putnam's, Davidson's and my view (pace James) is a notion of truth as
distinct from justification if only in so far as it makes sense to say
that some of the things we are justified in believing are probably not
true even though to find out which ones those are we can only recourse
to our justificatory practices based on whatever specific doubts we
may have.

Also, I DON'T insist on others keeping justification and truth
distinct. You are free to maintain a relativistic notion of truth if
you want. I think it would be a good thing for you to make a
distinction, and it would help us comunicate if you did, but I don't
see any reason for me to INSIST. The worst of the trouble is merely
that I think you open yourself up to some embarrassment on issues like
the shape of the earth and the immorality of slavery as I've brought
up before, but I don't see anything dangerous about your relativism.
Where I do insist on you keeping them distinct is when you read Rorty
because you will misread him when you don't see HIM as making this
distinction and then start to see him as dangerously relativistic.

Best,
Steve