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Reading "Pragmatism"

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Reading "Pragmatism"
IAreDumb
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Posted 09/19/04 - 06:15 PM:
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Hello, I'm in the process of reading "Pragmatism" by James and I'm wondering if any of you could give me any insight on his beliefs and his philosophical points? His language is rather clear... but his points don't seem to be.

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Posted 09/19/04 - 07:22 PM:
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Off-topic: The words under your nickname should be together and debator is spelt "debater". Moreover, the humorous implication of the word "masterdebater" was that the word was awfully close in spelling to... you know the word.

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Gassendi1
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Posted 09/20/04 - 12:08 AM:
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IAreDumb wrote:
Hello, I'm in the process of reading "Pragmatism" by James and I'm wondering if any of you could give me any insight on his beliefs and his philosophical points? His language is rather clear... but his points don't seem to be.



Could you say what points those are? It is hard to address your question unless you do.

Look at: http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/pragmatism.html
Nonblack Raven
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Posted 09/20/04 - 06:22 PM:
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Without further clarification from you, let me distinguish various possible interpretations of James' concept of the use value of a statement. let me consider three very different concepts:

1) Consider metaphysical statements. Long before the logical positivists, James asked how are we to evaluate metaphysical statements that are not to be proved. His answer was that they should be evaluated according to their use-value. Such possibilitlies as monism versus dualism and skepticism versus dogmatism are to be evaluated not, according to their demonstable truth--which is impossible--but according to what we gain by partially of wholly adopting such views.

2) More broadly, consider any statement. If the statement allows a better decision among available alternatives than another statement--then it has a high use value, even if it is not, in a conventional sense, true.

3) Consider, ala Rorty, that such statements as Jews are out to destroy gentiles--a statement of high use values to Nazis-- or statements with a high use value to Stalinists--like many Communist members are "objectively" anti-party. One can see a view such that these statement have a high use value for certain porposes. They are also utterly repulsive and wrong. It is a tricky question what the very kindly James would have made of such statements, in spite of their "use value" for certain purposes. the fact that Rorty accepts them seems to me to show something horribly wrong with Rorty's version of pragmatism.

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Posted 09/21/04 - 08:54 AM:
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Nonblack Raven wrote:
the fact that Rorty accepts them seems to me to show something horribly wrong with Rorty's version of pragmatism.


I don’t think you understand Rorty. But I’m here to help.

Once, most folks believed that all moral good came from a non-human transcendental source, that big, cosmic super-being known as God. But the existence of the deity has fallen on hard times in academic circles, so during the Enlightenment, the hope was to replace our source of the good with something new and exciting.

In various guises, this new foundation for morality (Reason with a capital R) was still non-human and still transcendental, and thus not exactly amenable to a worldview based rigorously on naturalism, specifically when naturalism tells us that we are animals that evolved. But lots of folks are just fine with a-historical and a-scientific metaphysical underpinnings for their beliefs, so for them this isn’t a problem.

Enter the neo-Pragmatist. He will have none of this. He doesn’t justify The Good by appealing to mysterious transcendental forces, and sees the attempt to jump outside of our skins, our historical time, our culture, and our language as hopelessly misguided. What’s left is us, our culture, and our ability to imaginatively reinvent new ways of being, new ways of getting what we want, new things to think of what’s worth wanting.

This doesn’t leave us empty handed when we confront the Nazi or Islamic fascists of the world, for we can use conversation and our own example to persuade our foe that there are better ways to live. But if we are honest, that persuasion will not consist of some sort of faux-scientific moral proof from mysterious neutral principles shared by all beings.

There is no guarantee of success here, which is why, sadly, warfare may be necessary.

Compare to a case that is exactly parallel in my view (and Rorty’s): if some new predator invades another animal’s niche and threatens it with extinction, what timeless moral principle could the one use to “prove” to the other that this was transcendentally Good or Bad thing?
Nonblack Raven
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Posted 09/21/04 - 09:20 AM:
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Faustus wrote:
I don’t think you understand Rorty. But I’m here to help.

Once, most folks believed that all moral good came from a non-human transcendental source, that big, cosmic super-being known as God. But the existence of the deity has fallen on hard times in academic circles, so during the Enlightenment, the hope was to replace our source of the good with something new and exciting.

In various guises, this new foundation for morality (Reason with a capital R) was still non-human and still transcendental, and thus not exactly amenable to a worldview based rigorously on naturalism, specifically when naturalism tells us that we are animals that evolved. But lots of folks are just fine with a-historical and a-scientific metaphysical underpinnings for their beliefs, so for them this isn’t a problem.

Enter the neo-Pragmatist. He will have none of this. He doesn’t justify The Good by appealing to mysterious transcendental forces, and sees the attempt to jump outside of our skins, our historical time, our culture, and our language as hopelessly misguided. What’s left is us, our culture, and our ability to imaginatively reinvent new ways of being, new ways of getting what we want, new things to think of what’s worth wanting.

This doesn’t leave us empty handed when we confront the Nazi or Islamic fascists of the world, for we can use conversation and our own example to persuade our foe that there are better ways to live. But if we are honest, that persuasion will not consist of some sort of faux-scientific moral proof from mysterious neutral principles shared by all beings.

There is no guarantee of success here, which is why, sadly, warfare may be necessary.

Compare to a case that is exactly parallel in my view (and Rorty’s): if some new predator invades another animal’s niche and threatens it with extinction, what timeless moral principle could the one use to “prove” to the other that this was transcendentally Good or Bad thing?


The problem I have with Rorty has nothing to do with his moral views. My problem is his argument that all we can say of something that a Nazi regards as a fact is that it is a fact for Nazis, but not for you. The fact that the statement is a lie or obviously empirically false do not seem to apply.

Now it seems to me that James pragmatism may leave room for lies and statements that are false. I do not think that James was headed for the kind of complete conceptual relativism that Rorty seems to endorse.

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Faustus
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Posted 09/21/04 - 10:55 AM:
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Rorty explicitly does not endorse cultural relativism, and in fact is a critic of relativism generally. The relativist thinks there is no way to decide between forms of life, or sets of values, or scientific critiques, etc.. The pragmatist says there are methods, but doesn’t think appeals to timeless non-human forces is the way to go.
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