[MD] The Relativist's journey

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Steve:
You're asking the question in response to my answer to the question. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to ask about the answer rather than ask the same question again? Is there something unclear about the answer I already gave or do you love it so much that you want another serving? Anyway, to repeat the answer already given, the criticism is "about the consequences of thinking that conversation is the only constraint on truth. That's what his critics balk at...".


Steve replied:
You've told me that you and others balk at a particular statement, but that doesn't answer my question. You haven't defined what relativism is. If you define relativism to mean saying the words "there are no non-conversational constraints on inquiry" then no doubt Rorty is a relativist by your lights. But I suspect you must have something more general in mind for what a relativist is. Please make that definition explicit so we can see how Rorty fits the bill of a dangerous relativist while James doesn't.

dmb says:
Oh, dude. You're doing it again. I answered this already. I supplied the answer directly to you, in detail, in this same thread, connecting my use of "relativism" with Pirsig's use of the term. This was all asked and answered about a week ago. It seems pretty clear to me and I was trying to be careful. If you want any FURTHER clarification on the answer already given, go ahead and ask. That might represent something like progress, might result in something other than going around in circles. 



Steve:
Is it  _Rorty_ or you who is exhibiting the all or nothingism? It seems to me that it is Rorty who is saying what we can't have (a metaphysical foundation) and it is you who is insisting that we are therefore left with nothing.


dmb says:
Oh, dude. You are so frustrating. If I'm saying pragmatism is a theory of truth that rejects prevents one from being a relativist, then how in the world can you conclude that I'm insisting on nothing? I'm complaining about relativism and in the same breath comparing the pragmatic theory of truth with the fact that Rorty has given up on truth theories. It should also be obvious that the all-or-nothingism complaints are about exactly that. It is this view that foundational, Platonic truth (all) is the only possible kind and since we can't have that, Rorty thinks, we can't have any (nothing) theory of truth. And every time I say we can have something, namely the pragmatic theory, you assume it must be Platonism and you start equating pure experience with objective reality. And then we're right back at the beginning again. And here you've shown me that you thought I was advocating the very thing I was complaining about. How could possibly be any more mistaken? It makes me want to pull my hair out.
To top it off, you persist with this direct inversion even though you just acknowledged it's backwardness, saying "to you [dmb] and your all-or-nothing-ism that means we have nothing. To him [Rorty] that just means we'll keep on muddling through as we always have." But this muddling through is exactly what I mean by Rorty's nothingism. I'm saying there is an option between those extremes. I'm saying pragmatism offers NEITHER foundational certainty NOR ad hoc muddling through. I'm saying pragmatism is NOT all-or-nothingism. As I tried to explain, this is a fake dilemma. LIKE I ALREADY EXPLAINED, Rorty thinks "conversation is the only constraint because we just can't have  "the voice of God", "the indubitable",  "the apriori structure of any possible inquiry", "permanent non-human constraints" or any other such "metaphysical comfort". That is what I mean by "all-or-nothingism".


Steve said:
The conversational sort is the only sort of constraint ON INQUIRY. And what is inquiry?  ...inquiry is concerned with assuaging doubts and doubts are things that are held and raised by human beings who need to justify beliefs to themselves and others in their communities. ..What is absent from this picture that concerns the sort of people who like to accuse others of relativism is "the world" as a term that are beliefs are to be true _of_. But that is presumably not your concern. Instead, what you find missing is "experience." Beliefs are not thought of as true _of_ experience where a proper correspondence would be in question, but tested in the course of our daily activities nevertheless. But still, unless you can make something of how testing functions, you haven't specified anything of the "I have something that you don't have" nature that Rorty is missing.


dmb says:
I don't know how to make it any clearer, Steve. Pragmatism IS the method of testing. It is a method for settling disputes between rival metaphysical visions. It is a method for separating real debates from mere verbal disputes.
Rorty came to the picnic from a walk in the woods to find his friends in a heated dispute about a squirrel. Go for it, he said. Conversation is the only constraint on inquiry, he told them. And you know what? They are still down at the park arguing about whether or not the squirrel ever got around that man. They've been arguing for well over a century now.