I first read Richard Rorty in late 1998. I immediately felt a bond with him: American, reasonable, moderate, modest, witty, wise, fair, generous-spirited, "good," a marvelous, unpretentious writer, he was a little of what I was and a lot of what I wished I was. He became one of my "heroes." I read Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and Truth and Progress and felt all of those things toward him. But Pragmatism's money shot disturbed me and disturbs me still. For the Lincoln thing I re-read parts of Mirror and Truth, and this morning, needing further break from Song Binbin, "Dewey between Hegel and Darwin," a chapter in Truth.
"the true...is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as the right is only the expedient in our way of behaving," quoting James, approvingly.
"beliefs useful for some purposes and beliefs useful for others," Rorty's words, summarizing Dewey, approvingly.
"truth is what works," Dewey.
"For all descriptions of experience, nature, and their relation to one another will be evaluated simply (Rorty's emphasis) in terms of expediency--of suitability for accomplishing the purpose at hand," Rorty's words.
"to get Hegel to stop talking about human communities as expressions of something greater than themselves..."
I knew those words, I read them previously, I used some of those words of James and Dewey in the Lincoln posts. Of course, of course, my hero recognizes where this leads: Pragmatism "doesn't tell you what purposes to have; its ethics is situational at best." But didn't I read in Wikipedia or somewhere that Rorty was a "neo-pragmatist?" Maybe when he reflected upon the situational ethics that this was leading to he went in a slightly different, neo, direction. No, he doesn't, or no he didn't:
"I said earlier that the most Dewey can claim is that truth as what works is the theory of truth it now pays ("Pays:" Rorty's word.) us to have. It pays us to believe this because we have seen the unfortunate results of believing otherwise--...Similarly, the theory that, as Dewey said, 'growth itself is the only moral end' is the moral theory it now pays us to have, for we have seen the unfortunate results of trying to divinize and eternalize a given social practice or form of individual life. [Here, Rorty footnotes to the following: "The doctrine that evil is just out-of-date good is as central to Dewey as it was to Hegel."] In both epistemology and moral philosophy, in short, we have seen the unfortunate results of trying to think of normative terms like 'true' or 'good' or 'right'..."
"[T]he particular charge of philosophy is to make sure that...continued use of the normative language employed in the social and moral strifes of an earlier day does not make it harder to cope with contemporary problems."
"...pragmatism,...a doctrine of the relativity of normative judgments to purposes served..."
I remember one of the things I admired about Rorty was that he had heroes, he was modest enough and generous-spirited enough to admit he had people he admired and put on a pedestal. And I remember reading these books thinking "How can Rorty have heroes?" Pragmatism is anti-hero, anti-pedestal. He did have heroes. I have heroes. My big brother and Richard Rorty are two of them. I need heroes, I know that there is something better than me out there, that there are people who instantiate those somethings better than I do, and I need to believe in them, to have faith, which is belief beyond evidence.
"the true...is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as the right is only the expedient in our way of behaving," quoting James, approvingly.
"beliefs useful for some purposes and beliefs useful for others," Rorty's words, summarizing Dewey, approvingly.
"truth is what works," Dewey.
"For all descriptions of experience, nature, and their relation to one another will be evaluated simply (Rorty's emphasis) in terms of expediency--of suitability for accomplishing the purpose at hand," Rorty's words.
"to get Hegel to stop talking about human communities as expressions of something greater than themselves..."
I knew those words, I read them previously, I used some of those words of James and Dewey in the Lincoln posts. Of course, of course, my hero recognizes where this leads: Pragmatism "doesn't tell you what purposes to have; its ethics is situational at best." But didn't I read in Wikipedia or somewhere that Rorty was a "neo-pragmatist?" Maybe when he reflected upon the situational ethics that this was leading to he went in a slightly different, neo, direction. No, he doesn't, or no he didn't:
"I said earlier that the most Dewey can claim is that truth as what works is the theory of truth it now pays ("Pays:" Rorty's word.) us to have. It pays us to believe this because we have seen the unfortunate results of believing otherwise--...Similarly, the theory that, as Dewey said, 'growth itself is the only moral end' is the moral theory it now pays us to have, for we have seen the unfortunate results of trying to divinize and eternalize a given social practice or form of individual life. [Here, Rorty footnotes to the following: "The doctrine that evil is just out-of-date good is as central to Dewey as it was to Hegel."] In both epistemology and moral philosophy, in short, we have seen the unfortunate results of trying to think of normative terms like 'true' or 'good' or 'right'..."
"[T]he particular charge of philosophy is to make sure that...continued use of the normative language employed in the social and moral strifes of an earlier day does not make it harder to cope with contemporary problems."
"...pragmatism,...a doctrine of the relativity of normative judgments to purposes served..."
I remember one of the things I admired about Rorty was that he had heroes, he was modest enough and generous-spirited enough to admit he had people he admired and put on a pedestal. And I remember reading these books thinking "How can Rorty have heroes?" Pragmatism is anti-hero, anti-pedestal. He did have heroes. I have heroes. My big brother and Richard Rorty are two of them. I need heroes, I know that there is something better than me out there, that there are people who instantiate those somethings better than I do, and I need to believe in them, to have faith, which is belief beyond evidence.
