You are an excellent lecturer!! You drew me in and held my attention for the entire lecture. The way that you paced yourself and spoke with such clarity and precision has really helped me grasp some very difficult concepts. Bravo!!😊
Could it be possible to include a bibliography in the description/ the video itself? It would be quite helpful to find my way in Rorty's (and in addition all the other treated philosophers/theorists) works.
*great series about stupid self-defeating and self-contradictory concepts. If truth depends on the goals that you want to reach, then in order to choose my "perspective"/truth for a given goal, there must be an objective way to evaluate these goals. In other words: There must be an objective truth. But the outset was that there are no objective truths, only subjective ones -> self-contradictory. Another problem: Let's ignore the issue about goals. Let's say there really are different incompatible truths, then there is no reason why I should care about anyone else's truth, I'm fine with my own. Therefore Rorty's truth is absolutely irrelevant and I can safely ignore everything he says -> the argument is self-defeating. If you object and say: but wait, you can't ignore Rorty if you want to achieve the specific goals that Rorty's truth is suitable for! ... then you admit that there are objective goals that I could choose from ... that's the first point again about being self-contradictory.
@@thulyblu5486 You don't choose a truth to achieve a given set of goals. You already have a set of goals in mind, and the vocabulary that helps you achieve those goals naturally forms by itself during your quest to achieve those goals. The first quantum physicists didn't have a shopping list of vocabularies to choose from when they were first doing experiments and formulating theories. Even if you had to choose from a set of vocabularies to achieve your goals, you would still be evaluating them using the vocabulary that you already use, so there would be no objective way to choose a vocabulary. You would only care about Rorty's ideas, or anyone else's ideas, if they helped you achieve your goals. Nothing about this implies that there's an objective set of goals. It isn't even clear what that would mean in the first place. A vocabulary is just a particular way of speaking about the world based on the goals of the people who use the vocabulary. You would only participate in the use of a certain vocabulary if it helped you achieve your goals.
We see our world simultaneously BOTH 'through our language' AND beside our language. The ABSOLUTE collapsing of our relationship to the world into our [active] relation with language is yet another reduction - one which pretends to correct earlier, for instance, enlightenment/scientistic reductions.
There's an obvious problem here though. Our goals are also constituted by language. In this presentation at least, Rorty does not account for the origins of these goals, of named desires. You need something like psychoanalysis to explain how you can posit a goal, aim for it, miss the target, reconstitute the goal, etc etc I appreciated your video, very clear and gives you something to think about
Milton wrote in Areopagitica that while truth came whole into the world it was subsequently fragmented. The concept of disunity of truth predates post-modernism.
The question of whether the world has a structure 'just like language' - or vice versa, for that matter - is importantly different from the intuitive-if-careful notion that we can meaningfully observe in regards to [real] states of affairs (and may do so more or less truthfully/accurately).
A kind of pure instrumentalizing of language may significantly insulate it from its richly intuitive role/s - those that arguably, meaningfully connect better observations, actively clarified states of affairs, and effective/'effectual' Communication ...'active relation-as-mediation,' say. In critically and instructionally 'enforcing' boldly counter-intuitive theses, one (possibly including Rorty himself) may finally seem hypocritical - TO THE DEGREE that his lectures/writings effectively describe "the way language/observation/truth 'really work'."
K. Scot Sparks glad you mentioned it. Rorty rejected instrumentalism as a perfect descriptor for his philosophy. This is because, as you mentioned, language is intertwined with our cognition, not merely a tool we dispassionately hold at arm's length. He addresses this in either contingency irony and solidarity, or objectivity relativism and Truth.
I like Rorty very much. In this particular case, I find Rorty's view on language to be somewhat impoverished. That is to say, it is a "tool" but, in fact, it's much more than that. Pragmatists like Rorty see language in somewhat utilitartian terms but I think there is a line of attack that is based on phenomenological philosophy, biology, and linguistics that couches language in terms that are both broader and more fundamental than a mere tool used by humans. Language really is part of us, inextricably linked to our own biology and our (phenomenological) reality.
I doubt that but you haven't exactly explained your case in detail so I have nothing to refute other than your claim. Why would I need language if not to communicate with another human being?
@@_VISION. well, we can write notes to ourselves that are never intended to be read by others and are just meant to help us remember things. most of us also have internal monologues, which by definition are not accessible to others unless we choose to say the things we are thinking out loud. language is a good way of organizing our thoughts in an easy to remember package, even if it is never meant for another's eyes or ears. however, i don't think this necessarily poses an issue for rorty's conception of truths in terms of justification via goals, etc.
The world must have some sort of structure that corresponds to our language about it. However, human beings have this tendency to mistake our language of the world for the world itself. Pragmatism is a means to check against that. Truth is borne out by testing our descriptions of reality against reality. If you can attain your goals, then you can be confident that your knowledge was true enough. But there is no description of the world that matches it perfectly, and thus we cannot really say that our language is the source of truth. The correspondence theory places too much emphasis on our descriptions of the world. Our focus should be on the world itself.
No better than The Sophists. Notice, dispite the fact that Rorty tries to avoid all over the place to say that his account of knowledge is "correct" or true, when Rorty argues we can never get ouside language and compare our ideas with reality, and what is true depends upon the conceptual scheme is embedded in. In asserting that he's making himslelf a "trasendental knower" , ie he's attempting to step ouside his own theory and gives him an special cognitive status, namely, he makes his own theory fully independent of the languague in which is asserted, that is, I'm not allowed to say he wants his theory to be true, but he offers it as a description of how things really are, of an actual description of the way human languague and the world are related and work. However, that is incompatible with what he tries to show, otherwise he had to concede his argument depends on he's believing it, meaning, the argument is not offered as justificatory practice in a given society or tool to get what he wants, but as a real matter of fact! So the whole argument is self refuting ie it's a self contradition. Now, the whole thing depends on a view of concepts called extreme nominalism which says that concepts are merely arbitrary human constructs or arbitrary groupings of things based rough resembles not based on facts, but on convinece (whatever that might be), such view has been throughly refuted by Ayn Rand in her book Introduction to objectivist epistemology. But of course the whole argument depends on Humen-Kantian premises as wel as of those of logical positivism (the implicit or explicit primacy of consciousness view, forgive me RR for talking about consciuossnes lol) which are false. I just want to point out however, that If concepts are merely formed on the basis of human naming human procedures, all arguments are made of concepts and if concepts are arbitrary human constructs all arguments are arbitrary and therefore invalided out of hand, because they would rely on nothing, but human invention, just as the Rorty's argument would be meaningless (which btw it is) whatever even if he thinks that by some miracle a given consensus can save him from such an undesireble state of affairs.
Aristotle - "The earth is standing still because you can't feel it." Galelieo - "The earth is moving and rotating around the sun because it is mathematically elegant."
I can not hear acoustically well about Aristotle or not understand what you said about Aristotle? Who says 1 + 1 is not 2 but 2 +, especially 2 people carry things in common. Is that Aristotle too? Please give me an explanation
I don't understand the point, that if the structure of the world is constituted by the structure of language, truth cannot consist in corrispondence. Why? A specific claim about the structure of the world as it is punctually expressed in a specific sentence is a specific claim. Can't that still be true or false, that is, in correspondence with the world or not ? The idea that langauge constitutes the structure of the world doesn't claim it does so in every single utterance...
I consider myself many things, a pragmatist is one of them.however, I wonder if it's just a matter of how we define the terms. For instance, I can say it's an objective truth that 1 plus 1 equals 2 or that I am some sort of being that exists right now. So in that sense pragmatism and realism are compatible. Even if we don't have an all knowing perception of things, we can still know things that we can call true. We just have to have a certain level of skepticism.
Human Evolution I am a huge Rorty guy. Either I've been reading him wrong the whole time or this is quite a bad take on the guy. The world doesn't speak a language. Truth is a property of language, not the world. There's surely an objective world, but truth is best left unanalyzed and not considered as justified by correspondence.
Things can obviously and easily be blatantly true. Rorty isn't a relativist, he just recognizes that language is adapted for our purposes and that different vocabularies and descriptions have different uses that they can be better or worse at their purposes. The guy leaves out the fact that our language and truth criterion are bounded by our interpretive communities and whether or not they pay dividends as they clash against the real world. If we're playing catch, I could describe the game and how everything looked. I could also describe it in terms of physics, the arc and speed of the ball etc. etc. Both descriptions are valid. Rorty specifically leaves truth unanalyzed because there are always contingencies we can't foresee and will need to adapt both ourselves and our use of the word true to. He doesn't leave it unanalyzed to promote relativism. That defeats the purpose of pragmatism. A pragmatist is simply one who acknowledges what we as a species are actually doing when we speak and refuses to look with religious reverence at even out most useful vocabularies. Being well adapted and useful isn't transcendent. Sorry. Can't break the language barrier. It's literally impossible.
Hugh Freeman thatnk you for the responses. I have at least two problems with this. #1 is the major problem and #2 is mostly something for perspective. 1) I believe there are ways to be "more right" or worded in another way, "less wrong." Example, a paleoanthropologist explaining our origins with science and a religious person claiming it's all wrong because of their faith. Pragmatically some would say both positions are true. Maybe they are, but in much different ways. One being subjective faith and the other following guidelines of science which if argue has a special epistemic nature. Special in the sense that science allows us to make predictions. 2) What about the limits of language? Example, art, music, and the emotions they evoke.
Human Evolution I think you're mistaken when you think of pragmatism as...relativism with more steps? You can be more or less wrong. Vocabularies can be better adapted to certain areas than other vocabularies. Our descriptions and vocabs also don't exist in isolation. We play a lotta different language games. Some need to be compatible, especially if they attempt to describe related things. Religious conceptions of creation conflict with vocabularies (physics, geology, etc) that are proven so useful that anything that says they're incorrect is either wrong or modifying/adding to discipline. For the purpose of figuring out how the world came to be, what gets us there without using reasons we find unacceptable? Pragmatists would side paleo. 2. I was specifically talking about language. Apologies if that was unclear. That being said, I'm generally gonna say feeling transcendence is probably not anything extra-sensual, beyond the senses, or anything. Same reasons. Can't get outside of your senses. I do have one...tumultuous dmt-esque experience that makes me doubt my precious claim just a bit though. Pansychism is probably just about right, maybe with a more intentional...thing...added to it, depending on how seriously I take that trip. Met something I refuse to call the capital G word and it turned me into an anthropomorphic cartoon duck to irritate me among other less humorous more awe inspiring shit. I uh, like art and shit though.
Hugh Freeman I love your point about adding/modifying. I also enjoyed your DMT story and the final sentence of your post reminded me of one of my friends. I think you may be right about how I see relativism and pragmatism as cousins. I often think of pragmatism as whatever works. If you are depressed and the idea of a god cures that negativity, then that's pragmatically justified. If you are obsessed with a desire to find out how things work and you study scientific methods to quench that hunger, then you are again pragmatically justified. I see pragmatism as a usefulness tool. I often hear people passionately pushing beliefs that I find bizarre. Just the other day an old friend told me that the Earth was flat. I refrained from laughing at him and thought about why he believes that and asked him, "what would change if everyone knew the Earth was flat?" I see pragmatism for a tool for predicting real world results rather than what is logically true. In a sense I do not really see pragmatism as a theory of truth, but something more. An example would be a situation where a lie or falsehood would be more beneficial than the truth. I guess part of my confusion lies in the various versions of pragmatism and how to demarcate them. This is one thing I run into a lot in philosophy, terms often vary and blend together making the lines fuzzy and tangled. This channel is gold for rare stuff like this awesome Rorty video. ua-cam.com/video/kVFER83Lcfc/v-deo.html
But back to the cat on the table, I assume Rorty would agree that is the case. I wish Rorty was alive for the Trump presidency since given Rorty’s political views, he would be against Trump’s words and actions so would like to know how a pragmatist would argue against it. Chomsky mentions how that sort of philosophy has been terrible for countries experiencing dictatorships which seems like would be the case. BTW, I like Rorty and his lectures but wish he and a worthy adversary (Putnam?) had battled it out by essays until both agreed who won.
Just in the mind of intellectuals. That's exactly what I would say If I wanted to be a Pharaoh and fool people to obey me... In other words... "People, listen to me, obey me because the reality is not what you can perceive with your eyes. It is what I am telling you. Now get quiet, you are too stupid to understand what I am saying. Obey me. You are inferior"... For God sake. That's How polititians are having good lifes while people are suffering... Pharaohs are back...
Can someone help me in my project Cuz my major is western and contemporary philosophy I will work on Rorty if somone want help with even little I will be appreciated for him/her.
I'm not sure what to make of Rorty's argument. On one hand, what he is claiming seems obvious. On the other, I'm not what he is talking about I would call "truth", but rather something like modeling with vocabularies with a purpose in mind.
If there were some language completely capable of describing every material fact and law of the universe, and some book in which every material fact and law were written, would that be or contain a unity of truth? An infinitely powerful mind could "understand" all the schools of thought by reading the arrangements of all the atoms in everyone's minds. But does this leave something out?
Truth may finally yet be both real and 'one' despite the deep disunity of observations, goals, and communications. Varieties of the latter do not 'of necessity' have to be seen as equidistant to reality or validity. Similarly, the one-ness of truth constantly demands nuanced qualification and negotiation - meaningful if ongoing 'Socratic [re-]searches.' Now the absolute unity or wholeness of grasps - or, even, of a given grasp - of the True or Real indeed seems more complex ...so much so that the systematic false humility that one might associate with certain pragmatisms may seem little less suspect than 'moments' from the realm of ?? 'explicitly absolute/ist senses of knowledge.'
The speaking of a particular language cannot be shown to be the sole generator of naggingly intuitive senses regarding 'correspondence.' We should maintain some respect for the latter, furthermore; but - of course - 'progressivist' modern dogma won't have it.
K. Scot Sparks easily enough solved. We model the world. We use descriptions to help ourselves model the world, but language isn't doing that. Modeling and description are different.
I guess - additionally - I never quite registered how 'justification' can finally be split from some kind of [classical] 'correspondence,' concerning truth/Truth - nor how the convention-making community's convention does not finally entail criteria necessitating kinds of realist and, even, proto-Platonic senses of 'good.' (see Conant)
You are an excellent lecturer!! You drew me in and held my attention for the entire lecture. The way that you paced yourself and spoke with such clarity and precision has really helped me grasp some very difficult concepts. Bravo!!😊
The final sentence is a riot! Still laughing. Thanks Mr. Gijsbers.
His name is Victor Gijsbers
@@FilipPandrc Thank you Mr. Pandrc for catching the error! I have corrected it now.
This is brilliantly put.
Could it be possible to include a bibliography in the description/ the video itself? It would be quite helpful to find my way in Rorty's (and in addition all the other treated philosophers/theorists) works.
Yes, you are a good lecturer. I am enjoying your series, very much. I will recommend people to Watch them in order.
Best teacher that I have ever seen💪💪❤
You are really BRILLIANT .
They way you ended it was so emphatic that I will never forget Rowrty theory of Truth.
Correction I forget, had to revisit
Great series of lectures about great concepts.
Thank you
*great series about stupid self-defeating and self-contradictory concepts.
If truth depends on the goals that you want to reach, then in order to choose my "perspective"/truth for a given goal, there must be an objective way to evaluate these goals. In other words: There must be an objective truth. But the outset was that there are no objective truths, only subjective ones -> self-contradictory.
Another problem: Let's ignore the issue about goals. Let's say there really are different incompatible truths, then there is no reason why I should care about anyone else's truth, I'm fine with my own. Therefore Rorty's truth is absolutely irrelevant and I can safely ignore everything he says -> the argument is self-defeating.
If you object and say: but wait, you can't ignore Rorty if you want to achieve the specific goals that Rorty's truth is suitable for! ... then you admit that there are objective goals that I could choose from ... that's the first point again about being self-contradictory.
@@thulyblu5486 You don't choose a truth to achieve a given set of goals. You already have a set of goals in mind, and the vocabulary that helps you achieve those goals naturally forms by itself during your quest to achieve those goals. The first quantum physicists didn't have a shopping list of vocabularies to choose from when they were first doing experiments and formulating theories. Even if you had to choose from a set of vocabularies to achieve your goals, you would still be evaluating them using the vocabulary that you already use, so there would be no objective way to choose a vocabulary.
You would only care about Rorty's ideas, or anyone else's ideas, if they helped you achieve your goals. Nothing about this implies that there's an objective set of goals. It isn't even clear what that would mean in the first place. A vocabulary is just a particular way of speaking about the world based on the goals of the people who use the vocabulary. You would only participate in the use of a certain vocabulary if it helped you achieve your goals.
In 2022, the idea of multiple and incompatible "truths" seems pretty accurate.
Brilliantly explained. Thanks
We see our world simultaneously BOTH 'through our language' AND beside our language. The ABSOLUTE collapsing of our relationship to the world into our [active] relation with language is yet another reduction - one which pretends to correct earlier, for instance, enlightenment/scientistic reductions.
It’s a sumptuous video, really helpful.
There's an obvious problem here though. Our goals are also constituted by language. In this presentation at least, Rorty does not account for the origins of these goals, of named desires.
You need something like psychoanalysis to explain how you can posit a goal, aim for it, miss the target, reconstitute the goal, etc etc
I appreciated your video, very clear and gives you something to think about
Milton wrote in Areopagitica that while truth came whole into the world it was subsequently fragmented. The concept of disunity of truth predates post-modernism.
These are excellent, thank you young man
Thank you so much Victor. I love your lectures.
Well, the cat is still on the table. Take that, Rorty! ;)
the cat is an illusion, so it really isnt (this is true for some)
The question of whether the world has a structure 'just like language' - or vice versa, for that matter - is importantly different from the intuitive-if-careful notion that we can meaningfully observe in regards to [real] states of affairs (and may do so more or less truthfully/accurately).
That depends on whether you are a Platonist or not.
A kind of pure instrumentalizing of language may significantly insulate it from its richly intuitive role/s - those that arguably, meaningfully connect better observations, actively clarified states of affairs, and effective/'effectual' Communication ...'active relation-as-mediation,' say. In critically and instructionally 'enforcing' boldly counter-intuitive theses, one (possibly including Rorty himself) may finally seem hypocritical - TO THE DEGREE that his lectures/writings effectively describe "the way language/observation/truth 'really work'."
K. Scot Sparks glad you mentioned it. Rorty rejected instrumentalism as a perfect descriptor for his philosophy. This is because, as you mentioned, language is intertwined with our cognition, not merely a tool we dispassionately hold at arm's length. He addresses this in either contingency irony and solidarity, or objectivity relativism and Truth.
Excellent!
"The world cannot contradict itself." Sure it can, just add time.
how he kept a straight face after that joke at the end is beyond me 🤣
Is there a Philosopher opposing or challenging Rorty's ideas? Thanks.
I like Rorty very much. In this particular case, I find Rorty's view on language to be somewhat impoverished. That is to say, it is a "tool" but, in fact, it's much more than that. Pragmatists like Rorty see language in somewhat utilitartian terms but I think there is a line of attack that is based on phenomenological philosophy, biology, and linguistics that couches language in terms that are both broader and more fundamental than a mere tool used by humans. Language really is part of us, inextricably linked to our own biology and our (phenomenological) reality.
An excellent counterpoint (that no doubt suits your own goals).
@@TheDionysianFields
cheeky
I doubt that but you haven't exactly explained your case in detail so I have nothing to refute other than your claim. Why would I need language if not to communicate with another human being?
@@_VISION. well, we can write notes to ourselves that are never intended to be read by others and are just meant to help us remember things. most of us also have internal monologues, which by definition are not accessible to others unless we choose to say the things we are thinking out loud. language is a good way of organizing our thoughts in an easy to remember package, even if it is never meant for another's eyes or ears. however, i don't think this necessarily poses an issue for rorty's conception of truths in terms of justification via goals, etc.
The world must have some sort of structure that corresponds to our language about it. However, human beings have this tendency to mistake our language of the world for the world itself. Pragmatism is a means to check against that. Truth is borne out by testing our descriptions of reality against reality. If you can attain your goals, then you can be confident that your knowledge was true enough. But there is no description of the world that matches it perfectly, and thus we cannot really say that our language is the source of truth. The correspondence theory places too much emphasis on our descriptions of the world. Our focus should be on the world itself.
In the final analysis, we all go out into the world, go about our business and act as if the cat is on the table. :)
I don't mind Rorty's view too much, but I'm not sure it's not vulnerable to accusations of being circular.
No better than The Sophists. Notice, dispite the fact that Rorty tries to avoid all over the place to say that his account of knowledge is "correct" or true, when Rorty argues we can never get ouside language and compare our ideas with reality, and what is true depends upon the conceptual scheme is embedded in. In asserting that he's making himslelf a "trasendental knower" , ie he's attempting to step ouside his own theory and gives him an special cognitive status, namely, he makes his own theory fully independent of the languague in which is asserted, that is, I'm not allowed to say he wants his theory to be true, but he offers it as a description of how things really are, of an actual description of the way human languague and the world are related and work. However, that is incompatible with what he tries to show, otherwise he had to concede his argument depends on he's believing it, meaning, the argument is not offered as justificatory practice in a given society or tool to get what he wants, but as a real matter of fact! So the whole argument is self refuting ie it's a self contradition. Now, the whole thing depends on a view of concepts called extreme nominalism which says that concepts are merely arbitrary human constructs or arbitrary groupings of things based rough resembles not based on facts, but on convinece (whatever that might be), such view has been throughly refuted by Ayn Rand in her book Introduction to objectivist epistemology. But of course the whole argument depends on Humen-Kantian premises as wel as of those of logical positivism (the implicit or explicit primacy of consciousness view, forgive me RR for talking about consciuossnes lol) which are false. I just want to point out however, that If concepts are merely formed on the basis of human naming human procedures, all arguments are made of concepts and if concepts are arbitrary human constructs all arguments are arbitrary and therefore invalided out of hand, because they would rely on nothing, but human invention, just as the Rorty's argument would be meaningless (which btw it is) whatever even if he thinks that by some miracle a given consensus can save him from such an undesireble state of affairs.
Your meta-narrative claim of a sophistic intention in Rortys argumentative structure is way to funny
His view is similar to Wittgenstein's later philosophy. Thanks.
Meet Schrödinger's elephants. 😉
Aristotle - "The earth is standing still because you can't feel it."
Galelieo - "The earth is moving and rotating around the sun because it is mathematically elegant."
But isn’t the reason Galileo said the earth is moving and rotating around the sun because that explanation best fit the facts observed?
@@lonelycubicle Never read Galileo. I couldn't say how exactly he justified his position. Today people have a habit of romanisizing observation.
@@chriscockrell9495
I haven’t read Galileo either, it just seems like when facing torture, would give the strongest argument.
I can not hear acoustically well about Aristotle or not understand what you said about Aristotle? Who says 1 + 1 is not 2 but 2 +, especially 2 people carry things in common. Is that Aristotle too? Please give me an explanation
My comment are quotes that emphasize perspective, psychology, and individual understanding. No sure what you are wanting to discuss.
I don't understand the point, that if the structure of the world is constituted by the structure of language, truth cannot consist in corrispondence. Why? A specific claim about the structure of the world as it is punctually expressed in a specific sentence is a specific claim. Can't that still be true or false, that is, in correspondence with the world or not ? The idea that langauge constitutes the structure of the world doesn't claim it does so in every single utterance...
Lol, it is totally true that there is an elephant behind me, as well as in front of me....
We live on a spherical planet.
Big brain
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Can't stop looking for that elephant
there is a probability of truth for everything short of infinity, absolute truth has to be infinite and only god is infinite
Thank you!
I consider myself many things, a pragmatist is one of them.however, I wonder if it's just a matter of how we define the terms. For instance, I can say it's an objective truth that 1 plus 1 equals 2 or that I am some sort of being that exists right now. So in that sense pragmatism and realism are compatible. Even if we don't have an all knowing perception of things, we can still know things that we can call true. We just have to have a certain level of skepticism.
Human Evolution I am a huge Rorty guy. Either I've been reading him wrong the whole time or this is quite a bad take on the guy.
The world doesn't speak a language. Truth is a property of language, not the world. There's surely an objective world, but truth is best left unanalyzed and not considered as justified by correspondence.
Things can obviously and easily be blatantly true. Rorty isn't a relativist, he just recognizes that language is adapted for our purposes and that different vocabularies and descriptions have different uses that they can be better or worse at their purposes. The guy leaves out the fact that our language and truth criterion are bounded by our interpretive communities and whether or not they pay dividends as they clash against the real world.
If we're playing catch, I could describe the game and how everything looked. I could also describe it in terms of physics, the arc and speed of the ball etc. etc. Both descriptions are valid. Rorty specifically leaves truth unanalyzed because there are always contingencies we can't foresee and will need to adapt both ourselves and our use of the word true to. He doesn't leave it unanalyzed to promote relativism. That defeats the purpose of pragmatism. A pragmatist is simply one who acknowledges what we as a species are actually doing when we speak and refuses to look with religious reverence at even out most useful vocabularies. Being well adapted and useful isn't transcendent. Sorry. Can't break the language barrier. It's literally impossible.
Hugh Freeman thatnk you for the responses. I have at least two problems with this. #1 is the major problem and #2 is mostly something for perspective.
1) I believe there are ways to be "more right" or worded in another way, "less wrong." Example, a paleoanthropologist explaining our origins with science and a religious person claiming it's all wrong because of their faith. Pragmatically some would say both positions are true. Maybe they are, but in much different ways. One being subjective faith and the other following guidelines of science which if argue has a special epistemic nature. Special in the sense that science allows us to make predictions.
2) What about the limits of language? Example, art, music, and the emotions they evoke.
Human Evolution I think you're mistaken when you think of pragmatism as...relativism with more steps? You can be more or less wrong. Vocabularies can be better adapted to certain areas than other vocabularies. Our descriptions and vocabs also don't exist in isolation. We play a lotta different language games. Some need to be compatible, especially if they attempt to describe related things. Religious conceptions of creation conflict with vocabularies (physics, geology, etc) that are proven so useful that anything that says they're incorrect is either wrong or modifying/adding to discipline. For the purpose of figuring out how the world came to be, what gets us there without using reasons we find unacceptable? Pragmatists would side paleo.
2. I was specifically talking about language. Apologies if that was unclear. That being said, I'm generally gonna say feeling transcendence is probably not anything extra-sensual, beyond the senses, or anything. Same reasons. Can't get outside of your senses. I do have one...tumultuous dmt-esque experience that makes me doubt my precious claim just a bit though. Pansychism is probably just about right, maybe with a more intentional...thing...added to it, depending on how seriously I take that trip. Met something I refuse to call the capital G word and it turned me into an anthropomorphic cartoon duck to irritate me among other less humorous more awe inspiring shit. I uh, like art and shit though.
Hugh Freeman I love your point about adding/modifying. I also enjoyed your DMT story and the final sentence of your post reminded me of one of my friends.
I think you may be right about how I see relativism and pragmatism as cousins. I often think of pragmatism as whatever works. If you are depressed and the idea of a god cures that negativity, then that's pragmatically justified. If you are obsessed with a desire to find out how things work and you study scientific methods to quench that hunger, then you are again pragmatically justified.
I see pragmatism as a usefulness tool. I often hear people passionately pushing beliefs that I find bizarre. Just the other day an old friend told me that the Earth was flat. I refrained from laughing at him and thought about why he believes that and asked him, "what would change if everyone knew the Earth was flat?" I see pragmatism for a tool for predicting real world results rather than what is logically true.
In a sense I do not really see pragmatism as a theory of truth, but something more. An example would be a situation where a lie or falsehood would be more beneficial than the truth.
I guess part of my confusion lies in the various versions of pragmatism and how to demarcate them. This is one thing I run into a lot in philosophy, terms often vary and blend together making the lines fuzzy and tangled.
This channel is gold for rare stuff like this awesome Rorty video.
ua-cam.com/video/kVFER83Lcfc/v-deo.html
But back to the cat on the table, I assume Rorty would agree that is the case. I wish Rorty was alive for the Trump presidency since given Rorty’s political views, he would be against Trump’s words and actions so would like to know how a pragmatist would argue against it. Chomsky mentions how that sort of philosophy has been terrible for countries experiencing dictatorships which seems like would be the case. BTW, I like Rorty and his lectures but wish he and a worthy adversary (Putnam?) had battled it out by essays until both agreed who won.
Reminds me a lot of Protagoras
Jesus is that u ?
Jesus was no white bro
a lot of explanation. thanks
Just in the mind of intellectuals.
That's exactly what I would say If I wanted to be a Pharaoh and fool people to obey me...
In other words...
"People, listen to me, obey me because the reality is not what you can perceive with your eyes. It is what I am telling you. Now get quiet, you are too stupid to understand what I am saying. Obey me. You are inferior"...
For God sake.
That's How polititians are having good lifes while people are suffering...
Pharaohs are back...
Like a composite eye.
Can someone help me in my project Cuz my major is western and contemporary philosophy I will work on Rorty if somone want help with even little I will be appreciated for him/her.
I'm not sure what to make of Rorty's argument. On one hand, what he is claiming seems obvious. On the other, I'm not what he is talking about I would call "truth", but rather something like modeling with vocabularies with a purpose in mind.
If there were some language completely capable of describing every material fact and law of the universe, and some book in which every material fact and law were written, would that be or contain a unity of truth? An infinitely powerful mind could "understand" all the schools of thought by reading the arrangements of all the atoms in everyone's minds. But does this leave something out?
Truth may finally yet be both real and 'one' despite the deep disunity of observations, goals, and communications. Varieties of the latter do not 'of necessity' have to be seen as equidistant to reality or validity. Similarly, the one-ness of truth constantly demands nuanced qualification and negotiation - meaningful if ongoing 'Socratic [re-]searches.' Now the absolute unity or wholeness of grasps - or, even, of a given grasp - of the True or Real indeed seems more complex ...so much so that the systematic false humility that one might associate with certain pragmatisms may seem little less suspect than 'moments' from the realm of ?? 'explicitly absolute/ist senses of knowledge.'
Bery good batman
theory of jargon
a lion talks about words and animals and the universe
And then, you want me to BELIEVE what you've talked about in this video is TRUE?
The speaking of a particular language cannot be shown to be the sole generator of naggingly intuitive senses regarding 'correspondence.' We should maintain some respect for the latter, furthermore; but - of course - 'progressivist' modern dogma won't have it.
K. Scot Sparks easily enough solved. We model the world. We use descriptions to help ourselves model the world, but language isn't doing that. Modeling and description are different.
Thanks; I've tried to adapt my observation to make it more clear.
I guess - additionally - I never quite registered how 'justification' can finally be split from some kind of [classical] 'correspondence,' concerning truth/Truth - nor how the convention-making community's convention does not finally entail criteria necessitating kinds of realist and, even, proto-Platonic senses of 'good.' (see Conant)
Nah