tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post5092880157950482271..comments2024-03-29T05:05:01.273+11:00Comments on Thinking Out Aloud: Rorty on truthLorenzohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-33178130805927547432011-08-29T11:54:12.693+10:002011-08-29T11:54:12.693+10:00FredR: That a sentence is true and another is fals...FredR: That a sentence is true and another is false is an important distinction: ask any lawyer. That our sentences can be true is a very important feature of language. That, in being true, they connect to how the world is, is not a philosophically uncontroversial claim. (Not a positive feature of philosophy.) <br /><br />So, "but that won't add any content to any of the truth claims you make" is true, but that one can successfully make truth claims, not as some "social convention" but as actual connection to reality, matters. <br /><br />Moreover, as is so often the case, there is what the original philosopher/thinker actually wrote and there is what people take from him: Rorty's work seems to encourage the sort of mush I am criticising above. <br /><br />There is also a common feature of a certain type of sceptical philosopher, that some statements can be taken one way, others another, so when critics point to one set, the other set is then invoked in defense. I find Rorty annoying to read, since he seems to play that sort of game.Lorenzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00305933404442191098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-56312977737912438642011-08-29T10:05:10.141+10:002011-08-29T10:05:10.141+10:00After a few minutes thought, I think I have to ret...After a few minutes thought, I think I have to retract my comment as to there being "no disagreement," but the reason I put it that way was because I don't see any "difference that makes a difference" between your position and Rorty's. The thing people often miss about Rorty is that he spent a lot of time talking about truth without actually having a theory of truth. "Sure," he would say, "you can call truth a matter of connecting to the world, but that won't add any content to any of the truth claims you make, and furthermore will enlist you in some fairly pointless abstruse epistemological debates." To Rorty, saying that some sentence is true because it represents the world as it really is is the same activity as Moliere's doctor saying that opium puts you to sleep because of its dormitive power. Maybe you know all this, but if so, I request you expand on why you think that Rortian sceptical pragmatism is so bad. I haven't read the Hicks book, but I don't recognize Rorty in the summary you provide.FredRnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2197051945822486684.post-45976076587763246512011-08-29T09:08:12.469+10:002011-08-29T09:08:12.469+10:00I don't see where Richard Rorty would disagree...I don't see where Richard Rorty would disagree with you at all. As far as I can tell, all Rorty wanted to do in this area was deflate "overblown concepts" of truth, because he, following Wittgenstein, thought they were intellectual blind alleys that distracted from real work.FredRnoreply@blogger.com