[MD] The Relativist's journey

[david buchanan]

Steve said to dmb:
 ...we ought to be able to agree that Rorty is no more of a relativist than you or I for denying that philosophy can do that.



dmb replied with a quote from SEP which says otherwise:
"..., it is not surprising that Rorty's commitment to epistemological behaviorism should lead to charges of RELATIVISM or subjectivism. Indeed, many who share Rorty's historicist scepticism toward the transcending ambitions of epistemology—friendly critics like Hilary Putnam, John McDowell and Daniel Dennett—balk at the idea that there are NO CONSTRAINTS ON KNOWLEDGE SAVE CONVERSATIONAL ONES. Yet this is a central part of Rorty's position,.." 


Steve said:
SEP says otherwise? What it says is that Rorty was accused of relativism (as James also gets accused of relativism). That is granted, but that is a separate question from whether he actually is a relativist.


dmb says:
Who is in a better position to say whether Rorty is a relativist or not? Since his friendly accusers are not seeking any philosophical foundations, they are among the best of contemporary philosophers and they balk at Rorty's stance, I think it would be foolish and downright dishonest to dismiss these charges of relativism. I understand that very few philosophers would want to wear the label but in this case the accusation is no mere insult.  


Steve said:
The MOQ obviously also drops the sense of "rational" that Rorty wants to drop. So the position from which it would make any sense to accuse Rorty of being a relativist is not that of the MOQer. ...Again, I am still amazed that an MOQer like yourself would still think that absolute/relative which is just one more version of subjective/objective is salient.


dmb says:
The criticism I'm offering is much more subtle than you're willing to acknowledge, apparently. Please notice that I'm criticizing Rorty's neo-pragmatism from the position of classical pragmatist, namely Pirsig, James and sometimes Dewey. But you keep making your counter-arguments as if this criticism could only ever be leveled by some kind of Platonist or Objectivists. I'm sure Rorty has those kinds of critics but I'm not one of them. Religious people go nuts over anything that even remotely smells like relativism. But I'm not one of those either. The conversation should NOT be about Kantian critics or about the kind of relativism that we find only among co-operative freshman, the kind where "anything goes". It's more subtle than that, Steve. It's about the consequences of thinking that conversation is the only constraint on truth. That's what his critics balk at and I think every serious person should think about why they're balking, especially those who follow Rorty or who call themselves a pragmatist of any kind.  


Steve says:
And if Rorty is criticized for being a relativist that means he actually is a relativist?


dmb says:

With friendly critics like Putnam and Dennett, who needs enemies? There is no shortage of Rorty critics among today's classical pragmatists either. There is Haack, Hickman, Hildebrand, Rockwell, Rosenthal and Weed, just to name a few off the top of my head. So yes, since Rorty has that many accusers then he very well might be a relativist. It would be insulting and ignorant to dismiss all that as mere insult or ignorance.

I think it's pretty clear that SEP is a good scholarly source and in describing the accusation of relativism it is citing some of the biggest names in philosophy. Don't you suppose that an honest scholar should take that seriously? Again, I want to stress the idea that this criticism is a lot more subtle than you appear to recognize. Unless and until you get hip to this subtlety, you're not really even addressing the accusation. I mean, nobody is talking about skyhooks here. Nobody is defending Modernism or advocating a return to foundationalism. Instead, the debate centers around the difference between James' and Pirsig's pragmatism as empirical theory of truth and Rorty's heavily linguisticized neo-pragmatism, wherein conversation is the only constraint. It's going to be about the difference between experience and words, which just so happens to be the MOQ's central distinction.  


Steve said:
The MOQ has some transcultural, ahistorical skyhook for getting us in a position to do more than make good arguments for what is good?


dmb says:
No. That is a fake dilemma. Good arguments and skyhooks are not the only options. That is what I'm calling "all-or-nothingism" and it is just plain silly.


Steve said:
I understand that Rorty and Pirsig are different people with different ideas. I also understand that I don't need to choose one or the other exclusively to read and understand. Do you understand that the MOQ is the philosophy or RMP rather than dmb?




dmb says:

Huh? 

Let me remind you that you began by saying, "we ought to be able to agree that Rorty is no more of a relativist than you or I". (It's at the top of this page.) I agree that Pirsig and Rorty both reject Platonism and foundationalism but the question of relativism comes up AFTER that. The differences between them simply aren't about being a Platonist or not. That rejection only tells you that they have a common enemy, but not that they are share every view. You seem to think this shared anti-Platonism is the only thing that matters with respect to relativism. It just ain't so, as I've tried to explain.