[MD] Are There Bad Questions?: Rorty

[Matt Kundert]

DMB said:
I read this all the way through this bad boy but I don't get 
it. It's not at all clear WHAT the bad questions are or WHY 
they're so bad. (I've learned that elsewhere.) Isn't it all 
just a little too meta and not enough meat? Or was it your 
point to not have point, a performance of Rortyism at it's 
finest?

Matt:
I was thinking about this response again, and it occurs to 
me how silly it is.  For one, the title clearly indicated what 
I was going to talk about: "are there bad questions?" not 
"what are the bad questions?"  And secondly, why is asking 
the former question once in a while bad?  In fact, since 
what you disagree about most in Rorty seems not to be 
any of his negative conclusions, which you by and large 
agree with, but the _way_ he goes about them (and this 
way, on your view, somehow precludes him from having any 
positive conclusions), wouldn't all of your disagreements 
with him be "meta" with no "meat," too?  And since this is 
the level at which you disagree with Rorty, isn't it a good 
idea to actually discuss it (rather than just metaly shouting 
"I strenuously disagree!" all the time).  

The what and why are usually what I talk about (usually

with Rorty as my proxy), so I thought I'd do something 
different.  Steve has been handlying the what and why very 
well in contradistinction to your (mysterious) position, so I 
thought I'd ask a different question, a question about the 
position the Steve and I by and large seem to share, a 
question about the vocabulary we use to engage in 
philosophy just in case people were wondering about it.  
Isn't it healthy for somebody like me to ask a question, not 
_with_ the critical vocabulary he typically employs, but 
_about_ the vocabulary he typically employs?  Isn't it a 
good idea for every philosopher to do that once in a while?

I don't care if you shout.  I mainly just shout these days.  
It's just what you were shouting that seems pretty silly.  
It's like you were disagreeing with doing philosophy, the 
activity of asking as many questions from as many angles 
as you can think of, canvassing the chess moves available.

Matt
 		 	   		  
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