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Not logged in on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

Not logged in — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 04:22:27 +0000

Much of what I wanted to say has already been said in previous comments, but I would just add that while Scruton openly derides Rorty's style, it's curious (if not absurd) that his own style is pedantic, dry and almost unreadable. If Rorty is guilty of a "cheap way of arguing," by appealing to like-minded thinkers, then Scruton is equally guilty of the same crime, as he appeals to a certain community as well; the only difference, of course, is that Scruton believes his community of analytic philosophers are absolutely right in everything they say. What I love about Rorty is that while we admirers defend him (because his ideas speak to us so much), he merely would have shrugged Scruton off. Still I think it's disgusting that Scruton posted an ad hominem attack like this just days after the man died.
See, if you have not already seen, Ramin Jahanbegloo's eloquent tribute to one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived.

Not logged in on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

Not logged in — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 08:35:51 +0000

"Pragmatism is controversial, but its more recent followers have, on the whole, managed to avoid its more paradoxical implications - such as that the core doctrines of feminism must be true since it is useful (at least in an American university) to assent to them, but that they must certainly be false, given the disaster that would come from espousing them in rural Iran."

That is one of the most insulting interpretations of pragmatism I have heard. wow.

Dr. Puck on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

Dr. Puck — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 23:34:21 +0000

Because a dialog concerned with truth has occurred, and can in the future occur, at different times under BOTH given foundationalistic contingencies and Rorty-ian contingencies, the metaphilosophical regard of what is the "optimal belief in the genuine" with respect to truth cannot be discriminated by the categories Scruton has offered here. I suppose a problem of pragmaticism is simply that truth 'arrives' and it may not be recognized as such, yet, I'm in more sympathy with that shortfall than I am with statements such as this,

Quote:

"I believe that the concept of truth is fundamental to human discourse, that it is the precondition of any genuine dialogue, and that real respect for other people requires an even greater respect for truth."

This seems affect-laden, seems to express only a matter of taste, and, seems to me, to be a kind of religious sentiment about philosophy. A lot rides on legitimizing genuine under one circumstance and deligitimizing it under other circumstances. I note the sweep of philosophy has not yet eliminated the different strokes actuality! Still, I would be surprised to learn it proved that pragmatists are absolutely prevented from dialoguing genuinely about truth claims and other genuine and profound subjects. http://www.squareone-learning.com/blog

jd.johnson on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

jd.johnson — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 05:16:50 +0000

Scruton says this: "Pragmatism is controversial, but its more recent followers have, on the whole, managed to avoid its more paradoxical implications - such as that the core doctrines of feminism must be true since it is useful (at least in an American university) to assent to them, but that they must certainly be false, given the disaster that would come from espousing them in rural Iran." This seems plainly idiotic. Just to say that something is true in the pragmatist (or any other) sense does not mean that it always is safe or sensible to proclaim it. For instance, someone like Havel, walking the streets of Prague in the early 1908s knew the difference between truth and one's ability/willingness to articulate it publically. He wrote understandingly of those who either could or would not 'live in truth.' And Rorty clearly would argue that "the core doctrines of feminism" - namely that women are equal to men and ought to be treated accordingly - applies in "rural Iran" just as they do in rural western NY state where I live. Of course, social norms here are hardly enlightened, and they are reinforced by theological teachings too. It is simply the length to whcih people are wiilling go to snction those norms that differs. So, in other words, there is not paradoxical implication here.

Jeremy Bowman on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

Jeremy Bowman — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 19:24:44 +0000

I wonder: Was Rorty a fallibilist in the following sense? I utter the words 'the highest mountain on the planet Venus is higher than Mount Everest'. The words I use clearly refer to real objects, but I have no idea whether the sentence is true or false. Would Rorty have said that if I happened to be lucky, the sentence I just uttered happened to be true?

willow28 on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

willow28 — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 08:59:25 +0000

For inclusion in the next edition of the OED? scrutony {n} Specious right-wing philosophical analysis; esp. re foxhunting scrutonize {v.t.} To subject to scrutony

mwilliams_1 on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

mwilliams_1 — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:08:45 +0000

Jeremy Bowman asks, did Rorty deny objectivity? Yes and No. If you associate objectivity with a substantive correspondence theory of truth, or with an overly rule-governed conception of scientific method, then Yes. This is the sense of "objectivity" in which he opposed objectivity to solidarity. But if you think of objectivity in terms of certain intellectual virtues--disinterestedness, respect for evidence (especially counter-evidence), a willingness to listen to criticism, and so on--then he was all for objectivity. As he says in Science as Solidarity, the secret of modern science is that it is built on institutions that encourage and reinforce just such virtues. In this way, scientific institutions give "concreteness and detail" to the idea of unforced agreement. Rorty saw no value in mere consensus: it's how we get there. Not that he thought of consensus, even unforced consensus, as an end in itself. Too much consensus indicates that inquiry has stagnated. Rorty had more than a little in common with Popper, though I don't think that he ever read much of him. Tony is quite right to say that Roger's differences with Rorty are more political than metaphysical, which is not to imply that they are less than serious. But something that he shared with Roger is the sense that the intellectual virtues embodied in such things as the institutions of modern scientific are a historical achievement, hence as fragile as those institutions themselves. My only caveat is that I wouldn't attribute an istrumentalist view of truth to Rorty. As I suggested in my first comment, Rorty's sympathies were with semantic minimalism, though admittedly this is a point for specialists.

Jeremy Bowman on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

Jeremy Bowman — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:19:55 +0000

John McCumber writes of "Rorty's supposed denial of objectivity". The word 'supposed' suggests that Rorty did not in fact deny objectivity. So did he or didn't he? The "objectivity" of mere consensus doesn't count as objectivity in my book. The best words so far uttered about Rorty were those of Michael Williams (in the Washington Post): "he reveled in contingency". JB

http://taghioff.info/dant/ on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

http://taghioff.info/dant/ — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 22:56:34 +0000

I wonder if Open Democracy is still a meritocracy. It seems to me that Scruton got published here because he is a regular, and a name, rather than because he had something interesting to say. There have been better articles on Rorty out in the public domain for a long time. Take this one published in the prospect magazine in 2003. http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=5545 It actually contains some philosophical arguments, argued on their own terms, rather than "I am Scruton and I believe in truth, therefore it must be true..."

pjk280 on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

pjk280 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:09:54 +0000

I'm not terribly surprised by Roger Scruton's evaluation of Rorty here, but I am a little disappointed. I'm also not one to idealize people because they died and have no problem with people critiquing them, but the piece here feels a little closer to spray of insults at points than a critique. For example, why begin in such demeaning terms--he wasn't really valued by philosophers (untrue, as others have made clear) but only by literary critics (nice and loaded with assumptions) who "took comfort" in his writings. Really? And we could hardly call this a worthy effort to come to terms with Rorty's legacy. Indeed, this effort begins only in the last paragraph where we get the kernal of Rorty's legacy according to Scruton: a real insight into a peculiar postmodern way of thinking. One line. This is his contribution? Such comments would be demeaning if we were to take them seriously, but we shouldn't because this isn't about Rorty's legacy. If not that then, what is it about? When we consider what follows this assessment, "However, I believe..." we see that this serves merely as a platform to present Scruton's tired defense of truth stemming from an obviously politically oriented caricature of those who apparently don't believe in it (and therefore have no "real respect for other people.") In other words, this piece is not really about Rorty, but about Roger Scruton. One useful activity would be to make Scruton's plan explicit by substituting his name for Rorty's and rewrite accordingly. Although there would be many significant changes, one line might remain more or less the same: I therefore cannot go along with what seems to me, whenever I encounter it, to be a wholly specious and even cheap way of arguing, which ROGER SCRUTON typified and indeed perfected. Legacy, indeed. .

tcp_1 on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

tcp_1 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:32:19 +0000

I really appreciate having Roger's assessment of Rorty here - I have always thought of them both as having made excellent and in some ways similar use of their analytic backgrounds in their philosophically informed commentary on politics, literature and the general gamut of topics that public intellectuals ought to cover. Roger writes, as what one feels is his real difficulty with Rorty, that: "I believe that the concept of truth is fundamental to human discourse, that it is the precondition of any genuine dialogue, and that real respect for other people requires an even greater respect for truth" The interesting thing here is that it suggests a remarkably instrumentalist conception of truth: Roger is not claiming the existence, or privileged access to truth; just that it is required (or that its reverence is required) --- almost sociologically required --- for a good society. As Roger acknowledges, he finds a certain Hegelian idealism attractive, just of the sort that flows naturally from Rorty's pragmatism. My sense - and I think a careful reading of this piece bears this out - that Roger does not have irreconcilable philosophical difficulties with Rorty, but only political ones. In this context, mwilliams' comments (above) about Rorty's attitude to Oakeshott are very interesting. What I really look forward to witnessing is the conversation - sadly, not now with Rorty - but the political conversation between the neo-Hegelians of the left and right. Tony

http://taghioff.info/dant/ on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

http://taghioff.info/dant/ — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:10:32 +0000

If Scruton believes that the CONCEPT of truth is fundamental to human discourse, he is not referring to truth in itself but our ideas of it. Thus he is seeing it as something discussed, and thus something plural in its interpretations. Niether I nor he mean what is referred to in a particular instance, but the general concept of truth. Since Scruton is stating, by implication, that the very concept of truth is a part and parcel of the plurality of discourse, he is necessarily supporting Rorty's ideas about truth being consensus oriented. Since how we conceive truth is so strongly linked to how we conceive of references to that which is external to discourse, the plurality that Roger admits extends to a plurality about how we concieve of such external references. Thus any stabilisation of such external reference is dependent on a consensus about 'truth as a concept' being held discursively. As such there is no way to place truth as more fundamental than consensus without turning to the issue of specific practical consequences and situated preferences. QED Rorty. Scruton argues against himself very effectively, which suggests he is a bit of a closet post-modern lefty. Or maybe it is just a phase he is going through...

john mccumber on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

john mccumber — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 04:30:40 +0000

John McCumber Roger Scruton writes: "the philosophical arguments given for [Rorty's supposed denial of objectivity] were, in my view, no better than those given by Hegel for the coherence theory of truth - indeed they were the same arguments." Indeed they were not the same, cannot have been--for Hegel never even mentions the coherence theory of truth, much less argues for it. Not once. To be Scrutonized, apparently, is neither to be seen nor understood.

Barry Stocker on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

Barry Stocker — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 23:18:21 +0000

The comment already posted on Scruton does a good job of showing how things are a lot more complicated than Scruton claims. There is a lot more to be said on the topic. Scruton's approach is so polemical, sweeping and cliche ridden it can hardly be called an honest representation of Rorty or debates around 'post-modernism'. I'm more concerned with Derrida (in various publications) than Rorty myself, but I some points need to be made about Rorty, conrtra Scruton. Rorty's later work is much more influential in Analytic philosophy than Scruton acknowledges. For example, Donald Davidson (an extremely influential Analytic Philosopher) responded positively to Rorty's criticisms of his position on truth. John McDowell, who may be the more most important living Analytic philosopher, identifies Rorty's *Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature* as an inspiration for his own major work, *Mind and World*. The previous post mentions Robert Brandom, McDowell's colleague at Pittsburgh and the contributions Brandom and Rorty made to anew edition of Sellars' great book. Brandom is an Analytic philosopher who like Rorty got into Continental Philosophy, while remaining closer to an Analytic mode of argument. It is important to note that Jurgen Habermas made the same criticisms of Brandom, in a more polite and considered way, that Scruton makes of Rorty. By excluding Rorty's connection with the Pittsburgh Analytic tradition going back to Sellars, which combines Hegel, Wittgenstein and Pragmatism, Scruton achieves a polemical purpose of making Rorty seem completely isolated from mainstream philosophy. Discussion of Wittgenstein is very important in Rorty, and by overlooking this Scruton is following a polemical strategy. The whole strategy of making Rorty seem more isolated than he was is obviously an appeal to consensus as a supporting argument. However, it is precisely Rorty's reference to consensus that Scruton denounces as 'post modern' indifference to truth and reality. This indicates the essentially polemical and unreflective nature of Scruton's presentation. Derrida is a different case from Rorty, but since Scruton throws them together, it's necessary to respond. Firstly, Derrida never used the term 'post-modern', and Scruton's use of that label is again a polemical device. It is simply false to claim that Derrida had no identifiable positions, or claims, about what is true. Here are a few things Derrida claims, and argues for, the first one of which Scruton would have some sympathy with: Absolutist socialism is impossible because it rests on a intrinsically impossible communication and sympathy between individuals to a degree which would obliterate individuality; there is no experience of consciousness which can be isolated from the temporal flow of consciousness; there is no language which is absolutely private and secret, which could not be communicated (similar to Wittgenstein's arguments against Private Language); language should be studied from the point of view of written texts as much as spoken discourse; democracy is a worthy ideal which can never be achieved in a pure form; there is no limit on hospitality to strangers; consciousness cannot be isolated from neurology; all abstraction is metaphysical; the metaphysical should be opposed by radical empiricism. Those who have made genuine attempts to reconstruct Derrida's thought, rather than polemics and rhetoric of the type Scruton engages in, have noticed that his claims are no more Relativistic than many claims made by notable figures in Analytic Philosophy/Philosophy of Science, e.g. Quine and Putnam's emphasis on indecidability of reference; Kuhn's emphasis on the changing meaning of scientific concepts according to structural changes in science; Davidson and Putnam on the impossibility of defining mental contents with reference to inner states of mind; Graham Priest on the 'aletheism', that is contradiction as necessary to logic. Priest has discussed Derrida with sympathy as has Thomas Baldwin, the current editor of *Mind* one the great journals in Analytic philosophy over many years. On Derrida's style, yes it's challenging and his philosophy can't be easily separated from his argumentative strategies and the exact context of each argument, but exactly the same could be said of Hegel who Scruton recognises is a an important philosopher, and Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger who have a rising influence in Analytic philosophy. I appreciate that *Open Democracy* felt the need to react quickly to Rorty's death, but Scruton's piece is a reheating of well worn polemics he has been churning out over many years and adds nothing. It would have been better to wait a bit longer and look for someone with a more rounded and objective appreciation.

mwilliams_1 on "Richard Rorty’s legacy"

mwilliams_1 — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 21:42:45 +0000

Roger's claims about Rorty's repudiation of truth ignore an important distinction: between the generally epistemic theories of truth advanced by the original pragmatists and the deflationary or "minimalist" accounts of the semantics of the truth-predicate preferred by contemporary neo-Pragmatists like Brandom. (Without getting technical, such views are sophisticated descendants of Ramsey's Redundancy Theory, according to which saying that it is true that snow is white is equivalent to saying that snow is white.) Though briefly attracted to a Piercean view of truth as "what would be believed at the end of inquiry", Rorty later came to see that deflationism about truth suitedhis purposes much better. Rorty's opposition to "truth" is better seen as opposition to two things that often go under that name: certainty (putative truths that can't be revised) and Truth (the idea that the various vocabularies we develop in coping with the world ought to fit together in a neat package). In other words, Rorty was a fallibilist and a conceptual pluralist, or anti-reductionist. Incidentally, though Rorty placed himself firmly on the poltical left, it woudn't be that hard to give his epistemological ideas a conservative spin. He himself took the word "conversation", his preferred metaphor for inquiry, from Oakeshott. The affinities between Rorty and Oakeshott are by no means superficial, as Rorty recognized. (See his allusion to Oakeshott in his Foreward to Brandom's edition of Sellars's "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind".)