[Wittrs] Rorty's Sins
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:04:07 -0800 (PST)
(Kirby)
... I'm fine with Rorty when he is pushing Wittgensteinian ideas. He does that
a lot. I'm also keen on his approach to moral philosophy (first person
perspectives). Really, when Rorty is rather nicely cut and shaved, one might
consider him only to be an expositor of Wittgenstein's ideas -- a diciple of
sorts. It's just when he's not rather nicely cut and shaved that he is, well,
"odious."
The thing that set me off with Rorty is when he started claiming Wittgenstein
as the father to certain kinds of ill-formed tangents that emerge in Rortarian
thought. One is his desire to abolish words talking about inner/outer (as being
a false form of expression). Another is his related confusion that "truth" was
a mistaken language construct (or something like that). The difference between
Wittgenstein and Rorty on these issues is that Wittgenstein would never be
prescribing how people should talk; he would merely want the grammar and
conditions of assertability understood. For Wittgenstein, the idea of "truth"
(as in, verified as being outside the mind) wasn't a dogma -- at worst, it
was just a knot in certain kinds of games. For Wittgenstein, the model of
logic, truth and proof was a confusion ONLY IN PHILOSOPHY. And this is because
it was inferior to therapy and peace once the proper method of philosophy was
understood. More to
the point, when "truth" meant something informational, it was usually up to
some other field to obtain it, which should have had the effect of quieting the
philosophers (hence the peace). But the point is that telling an INFORMATION
FIELD that "truth" is a contrived way of speaking is really transforming this
idea into a dogma.
And if Rorty wants to be excessively post-modern here, that's his business. I
just don't like Wittgenstein ever being associated with a certain kind of
nonsense or dogma. I see so many people who half understand fragments of
Wittgensteinian thought and then proceed to make such mischief out of their
passions -- finally deciding to put Wittgenstein's name on them.
But if you just ignore these "weeds" in, or pluck them from, the Rortarian
garden, I suppose one would find it a pleasant sort of space.
Regards
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html
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