[MD] The Relativist's journey

[Steven Peterson]

Hi dmb,


> Steve said to dmb:
> My understanding was that empiricism prevents James from being a relativist while the fact that Rorty does not claim to be an empiricist makes him a relativist. You insisted in the past that empiricism makes a big difference when it comes to the issue of relativism. Now you seem to be saying that it makes no difference since you agree with me that "pure experience can't settle any ethical or factual truth claims." What gives?
>
> dmb says:
> I'm still saying that empiricism makes a big difference.

Steve:
For what purposes or for what practices does it make a difference? I
agree tat it is good for addressing sense data empiricism, but what
else is it good for?

dmb:
...Pure experience can't settle claims because it has nothing to do
with the pragmatic theory of truth. James never said it was supposed
to play that kind of role. I don't even see how it's possible but,
like I said, you're confusing pragmatism with mysticism.


Steve:
I don't think pragmatism has anything to do with mysticism or radical
empiricism other than that James invented radical empricism and was
also a pragmatist. Pirsig said that James saw his pragmatism as
separate from his radical empiricism. I never thought one had to do
with the other. As I said, my understanding was that you were saying
that Rorty is a relativist because he does not embrace radical
empiricism and that James avoids relativism because of subscribing to
radical empiricism.



> Steve said:
> ...You can say truth is "what works," but that does not in itself give us any standards for what counts as adequate justification. As I quoted Rorty previously, "The way in which the properly-programmed speaker cannot help believing that the patch before him is red has no analogy for the more interesting and controversial  beliefs which which provoke epistemological reflection." The distinction between "works" and "doesn't work" is not a given for any non-trivial questions. It is something worked out among a community of inquirers who seek to justify their beliefs to one another.

> By offering "what works" as not just a description of what beliefs will be held as true but as a "theory of truth," you haven't given us anything we didn't already have before adopting any theory of truth.
>
>
>
> dmb says:
>
> By offering a theory of truth I haven't given you anything you didn't already have? So what you're saying, after all these explanations, is that the pragmatic theory of truth just isn't anything.

Steve:
Isn't anything I am saying that it doesn't do anything to aid in any
of the purposes for which anyone would pursue a theory of truth. The
same goes for all theories of truth.

dmb:
Wow. You've shown nothing but confusion about that theory and yet
you're willing to declare dismiss it as nothing. Seigfried calls
James's work "a radical reconstruction of philosophy", Whitehead said
James effected a copernican revolution, Richardson said pragmatism and
radical empiricism were fused in "an explosion of creativity" and
Pirsig says that James had not only nailed "truth" as a species of the
good and rightly identified subjects and objects as secondary, he also
hit upon exactly the same terms of the MOQ, namely static and dynamic.

Steve:
I never said that James wasn't a good philosopher. I just said that
the pragmatic theory of truth is better thought as advice to not
bother with theories about truth.

dmb:
> Seriously, dude. To use Rorty's arguments against James or Pirsig is to confuse entire schools of philosophy, separate camps in philosophy.


Steve:
I am not using anything to argue against James or Pirsig. I am arguing
against your claim that Rorty is a relativist. I am still waiting to
hear what you ever mean by the term. Can you please define it for me?
Again, I think you will have a difficult time giving a definition that
condemns Rorty but does not apply equally to James.

Best,
Steve