Rorty Study: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

Philosophy Forums The Sandbox
1

Note: in the following, which will go on for several weeks, I will be focused on Rorty and his book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. It will start with James Tartaglia’s Routledge Guide to the book and finish with the book itself. The main thing to note here is that this study, like every study before it, and every study that follows, is merely an experiment that others can choose or not choose to participate in. I merely lay out a reading list that I I am going to follow, pursue it at about 20 pages a day, go to the bar and pick some random point earlier in the text which I can take a more focused approach to and take notes and decide what my 500 words will be on it, and finish by posting them here as I drink a 40 ounce and a shooter of jager. And I realize it seems kind of weird and anal. But this approach has worked for me so far –regardless of what my detractors may say about me.

Anyway:

Going back to Rorty, especially after my studies of Deleuze, I can’t help but feel like a poetry reader going back to Alan Ginsberg’s Howl, or an intellectual going back to Joseph Campbell. They were both important to my process in that they were easily accessible while increasing my appetite for their respective disciplines. The problem is that once you’ve gotten to something a little deeper and more subtle, it feels, in foresight and anticipation, a little uncomfortable going back to where you were in the hope that it will take you further in your process. It feels like repeating what you already know, word by word, as compared to stretching yourself. As Deleuze points out in the intro to Difference and Repetition: we write at the edge of what we know.

And it is in reference to Deleuze that I have my main reservations in that Rorty strikes me as having gotten to the same point Deleuze did a far more accessible way: such as their common desire to undermine representation. The main difference is that while Rorty sought more practical justifications, Deleuze worked towards the very core of human experience.

Still, there are overlaps. As Tartaglia writes:

“This could have far-reaching consequences. For example, it would remove any reason for thinking that ‘quarks and human rights differ in “ontological status”’ (Rorty 1998:8), that the former are more real than the latter.” -Tartaglia, James (2007-08-14). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Rorty and the Mirror of Nature (Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks) Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

Now how far is this from the univocity of Being? And given Rorty’s emphasis on discourse over any claims to the Truth, doesn’t it get some support from Deleuze and Guattarri’s claim, in A Thousand Plateaus, that a book does not reflect the world, but forms a rhizome with it? Couldn’t we say the same thing about language in general?

Hopefully, this study will give me more to write about than I am anticipating.

Added note for the Deleuze board: clearly I’m wandering from a focus on Deleuze. And I don’t want to post things that are off topic. So there will be gaps in my posts here. Still, if I come across points that are relevant to Deleuze, they will show up from time to time. Just explaining ahead of time.

2

“Any perception of Rorty as a regular analytic philosopher during this first period of his career, however, one who was later to ‘lose his faith’ or become ‘disappointed’, would require the support of some very selective quotation from what he was actually writing. The first sentence of his first published paper is: Pragmatism is getting respectable again. (Rorty 1961a: 197)” -Tartaglia, James (2007-08-14). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Rorty and the Mirror of Nature (Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks) (p. 12). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

“This rift became public in 1979, when Rorty was the President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association at a time when the organisation was in a state of crisis. The crisis had built up because various types of non-analytic philosophers – pragmatists, idealists, continental philosophers, etc. – felt their careers had been sidelined by the dominance of analytic philosophy, thus depriving them of research funding and keeping them out of top jobs and journals. Organising themselves as the ‘Pluralists’, they flooded the APA elections, and voted in their own candidates to top positions, despite none of these candidates having been nominated by the official committee. The ‘Analysts’ looked to Rorty to overthrow the result, on the grounds that many of the votes had been illegally cast. Rorty refused.” -Tartaglia, James (2007-08-14). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Rorty and the Mirror of Nature (Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks) (p. 14). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

It tends to be a persistent misconception (or form of manipulation (to perceive and describe any resistance to the status quo in purely negative terms. It happens all the time with republicans and libertarians in that in their almost religious commitment to Capitalism (even as it presents ever exploitive abuses of power over most people (they tend to present any argument against it as a desire to completely overthrow Capitalism when all that is really at stake, that is for progressives like me, is to put Capitalism in its proper place: that as one tool among many –including socialism. In other words, they resort to the truest sense of the fallacy of the straw man because (well, let’s face it (in light of Capitalism’s perpetual failings, it is all they really have. They have to make it more an issue of how we say things than what we’re saying actually refers to.

So it should seem no wonder that Rorty ended up in the jam he did and responded to: the dominance of analytic philosophy in the universities due to the increasing influence of corporate funding and a long standing inferiority complex philosophy felt at not being able to create a Smart Phone.

The problem, however, for the resistance is that it has to act in terms of the negative. How else does it put the status quo in its place without ripping through its assumptions? This results in a kind of operationalism that the status quo utilizes to protect its interests: if you describe the failures of Capitalism, you clearly want to overthrow it. And no matter how many times you describe the positive aspects of it, all that will come back at you is the negative aspect of what you have said.

That said, I do not believe that Rorty’s agenda was to overthrow the analytic approach to philosophy. It was to undermine the analytic arrogance that fancied itself as having found an all purpose epistemological system that could underwrite any claim to The Truth. As compared to the status quo (and its so-called philosophers –kiss asses in my estimation (the only real agenda of pragmatists like Rorty and Social Democrats like me is a sustainable balance.

Rorty, as far as I can tell, simply wanted to open up the discourse to everyone –not just the esoteric elite. That is his positive aspect for which the negative was merely a means.

3

Does Rorty’s concept of the mirror have any conceivable relation to Deleuze’s? (Lacan)
Jameson suggests Capitalism of hastening the relation with schizophrenia , by replicating many ‘commercial’ identities, which at the infant stage, creates difficulty in self identification/ or is this more of a continental pre-occupation?

4

d63-the tie in in the mirror stage and Rorty’s , "to put it crudely, ideas, words, and language are not mirrors which copy the world, but rather, tools with which we cope with the world. -what is true can only be circular.

Deleuse’s use of image formation qua knowledge (self) is primordial and ontological. For Rorty, the positivists have changed all that and shifted knowledge toward , or rather, away from that. Hermenautics have demonstrated that truth is a myth, which has been debunked, and it is this sense of mirroring, that has been shown to be irrelevant and cut off. The mirror has been shown to be inadequate, and optically other ways of seeing have replaced it, changing images with more in depth views. Reflection has been unsubstantiated, but not totally invalidated.

ref: Lacan in Ireland.com

5

“So long as philosophers fail to understand that the inner world of the mind, consciousness, is just as real, living, vital, and “material” as is the outer world of tangible objects and forces, nothing will change.”

First of all, thanks for inspiring today’s project (if not also a day or 2 after. Secondly, you may be saying more than you might realize –that is: not knowing the depth of your understanding of or the influences behind it. And finally, your point is especially relevant in that it connects my present study of Rorty with my previous studies of Deleuze.

What we are mainly talking about here is the univocity of being –a Deleuzian concept rooted in Duns Scotus and Spinoza. The point is that since a thing either is or is not, to say that a thought or a dream image has lesser being than the rock that stubs our toe makes no sense whatsoever. Rorty refers to the opposed position as overly committed to the notion of ontological status. It is this sense of Being that underlies their highly conditional embrace of materialism in that neither Deleuze nor Rorty are making fanatical assertions about the non-existence of the self or free will. In other words, it is a materialism that even a philosophically Marxist property dualist like me can embrace. Take, for instance, Deleuze’s Transcendental Empiricism. Now this would seem, at first glance, like some kind of analytic mandate that we should simply accept that scientific statements must always be given privilege –as if the only thing that should matter is what we can directly observe. But Deleuze’s Plane of Immanence must be approached in terms of the univocity of Being. It must be thought of in terms of the individual as a system composed of a lot of sub-systems interacting with the various systems of reality and the universe which include our systems of thought and what the mind produces. And put in mind here that just because Deleuze (along with Guattarri in the Anti-Oedipus (speaks in terms of machines, there is a difference between using an analogy of machines and speaking in terms of the mechanistic.

Rorty does as much in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature when he attempts to undermine the mind-body distinction. The reason he does so is because by making the distinction, we create a hierarchy in which the mind is given privilege, but only by being able to perfectly reflect the world of objects as a mirror of nature. And it is because of this criterion that we tend to think of the objects of the mind as having less ontological status than the rock that stubs our toe. Consequently, we end up with a situation where you have a lot of wannabes on these boards (TlBs: troll-like behaviors (who go around acting like they can dominate the discourse by using such words as “objectivity”, “rationality”, and “the scientific method” which they flash like a badge of authority, then proceed to make assertions that completely fly beyond the perimeters of the criteria they themselves have established.

Hardcore materialists who make assertions about the nature (or lack (of mind based on the discoveries of neuroscience comes to mind. Ayn Rand’s Objectivism is another one in that it talks a lot about facts, then proceeds to assert speculations such as “Capitalism is the only means by which man can achieve his true greatness” as if it had the same fact status as 1+1=2.

Anyway, down to my last beer and Jager: tinker, tweak, and tighten time. More on this tomorrow.

6

Hi, it’s too early for a drink for me, one thing my dad thought me is never drink before noon and not before eating something. Any rate, it’s great to be able to commune on this really fascinating interrelation of political psychology. The depth that i may be missing is sure also to be an optical illusion, hence, excusable on grounds that i am going along on a misused ride, not totally convinced, although agreeing with the optics, but the ground, and the structure of which it consists, have not really been successfully replaced. It has been pointed to, in the post impressionistic use of the word. The anomaly between the subject and the object has not disallowed the aforementioned tool as either useful in that sense, since that tool it’s self, the signal and the sign has not been sufficiently differentiated from it.

It is not a literal reflection per optics, nor one of reflecting per reasoning has language not been sufficiently been clear of, hence the willful de-mystification of the differance? (A way of looking, interpreting, visualizing, appreciating, concluding, etc.) Rorty seems to disallow this mirror. But sufficiently, though? I think he is anti reactive, and only a perspectivist. His claims are optical , as they are reactive, propositional politico-negations of Continental Philosophy, no more validated, only negated assertions of equally politically motivated pronouncements.

7

Obe my schizophrenic friend: I read everything you say with the hope that I will one day be able to respond to your stream of consciousness way of expressing yourself. I bring this up not to knock what you are doing. I consider you an ally (a friend as compared to a foe to put it in board terms (after all. I only bring it up to explain why I don’t always respond like I would like to.

8 
 that schizophrenia and capitalism is not merely a philoso-political statement, but a psycho-analysis, is beyond doubt.  This includes the so called stream of consciousness of late, and, the more current 'cut up method'  Since the above mentioned text has broad implications of category, understanding and perception, and as psychology has progressed from classification as such to process in continuum, the burden of interpretation may focus on either end of the spectrum. Therefore, the same can go for interpretations along the line of holding those responsible in society, for the  failure of Capitalism, who have no capacity to really go beyond the subjective.  This would be the objectivist reply, including Ayn Rand's. That I also consider You an ally, goes without mention, we are looking at the central work from different sides, is all, for a very worthy project.

As i mentioned from the beginning, i consider this a unique opportunity.

9

The main thing, Obe, is that you keep on jamming, regardless of whether I get to jam with you or not. And I’ll look forward to adding a riff when I legitimately can.

10

“I’ve not read Rorty so you will need to educate me a bit about what he is saying. As to the mirror of nature, if this is a statement about the fact that consciousness is a microcosm of nature, reason being a sort of “condensation and concentration” of reality itself, then yes certainly.”

I would never claim to have expertise on anything outside of my own experience with a given philosopher. This why I prefer to think of what I’m doing as more a travelogue (a postcard if you will: more a description of my process than any type of real philosophical exposition. A bit of a cop-out in all honesty, but the only description my situation (being self taught (affords me.

But my understanding of The Mirror of Nature is the historical notion of philosophy (along with the mind and language (being a mirror that can reflect reality perfectly if we tweak it just right. And I’m quite sure the notion you present would play into it if we explored it a little more.

This is why I would argue that both Rorty and Deleuze represent an abandonment of our initial over-enthusiasm as concerns the classicist and neo-classicist notion that mind is capable of perfect control over nature and reality. This is a notion I would suggest is rooted in the days of Plato when civilization was relatively young (when it was just crawling out of the muck( and it would make sense to assume: civilization (as well as mind) good, while nature (along with our baser impulses) bad. Note here, for instance, Plato’s model of mind, heart, and body: the vertical hierarchy upon which he based his republic.

It took years of despotism justified by Plato’s hierarchal model before our culture made an important break (a digression from (with Romanticism which gave nature privilege over civilization. This eventually led to Nietzsche (the bridge between Romanticism and Existentialism (and eventually to Rorty and Deleuze –that is with a last gasp of air reached for by the analytic movement.

To me, this is the result of the nihilistic perspective that has been with us since Socrates’ claim that he knew nothing, has haunted the process ever since, and has culminated in Rorty and Deleuze along with the multiple influences on them. And I would argue that the nihilistic perspective has always been there because we have always been haunted by the very real possibility that we could not be. In other words, our potential non-being has haunted philosophy from the beginning.

Hence: Rorty’s and Deleuze’s rejection of that which would give us the certainty of being: the ability of the mind and the language it utilizes to perfectly reflect the reality it is presented with. This, in turn, is the driving force behind the fanaticism of the classicists and neo-classicists you tend to encounter on the boards. They, for instance, have to believe that things are just “out there” and that they can see them as they are because it gives them a sense of order to do so –a will to power as you suggest. This is because to admit that what is out there is conditional on what their mind is doing at the time would be to submit to complete chaos: the nihilistic perspective.

And I would note here that neo-classicist positions can be easily associated with (to put it in Deleuze and Guatarrian terms (state philosophies.

11

d63 will read this is and give it justice, Your analysis is lengthy, and i am pressed for time. it looks as if it has meat on it. I have not read Rorty, either in depth, but have a general idea of where he is coming from. later

12

It will be chancy. But at the risk of misinterpreting, I’m going to try to go through this random line by random line and hope I’m responding to what you’re actually saying –that is while trying to stay within the spirit of the present Rorty study. Anyway:

“The thought he [Deleuze] develops in D&R [Difference and Repetition] is basically expounding upon and drawing up the “hidden excessiveness” of materiality, which is to say of consciousness or “life”, that excessive quality (for it is a quality, basic “qualia” itself, as the form of the sensate) being what underlies all beings; all sensation is merely differentiation of the same basic, underlying "singularity of quality as excessive "materiality”.”

If I get you right, what you are referring to here is the inherent difference involved in repetition. Or as I like to put it:

Even a pure repetition must always be a different instant of the same thing. Therefore, the only thing that can truly be repeated is difference.

:in this sense of it, materialism represents an over-exaggerated faith in the repetition of the object before the subject when that object is always in the process of becoming due to the intimate relationship between subjectivity and time. And it is the illusion of stability that both Deleuze and Rorty react against –even if their approaches are quite different.

And this (the way that difference and repetition are so deeply intertwined (may be the source of the hidden excess of materiality you are writing about.

“Deleuze is still using metaphysical terminology but at least he is identifying the reality more than any other philosopher thus-far. “Machinic assemblages” are certainly not a reference to a merely reductive materialism, nor is his transcendental empiricism a one-dimensionalizing of experience to the “given known” of it, even if we extend givenness to all the vast abstract, conceptual and ‘poetic’ contents of human experience.”

It seems metaphysical at the same time it seems analytic. Once again:

Even a pure repetition must always be a different instant of the same thing. Therefore, the only thing that can truly be repeated is difference.

And has been pointed out by one of his scholars and interpreters: there is a difference between talking about machines and talking about the purely mechanical. It is this distinction that underlies both Deleuze’s Transcendental Materialism and Rorty’s Physicalism in that in both cases, it is merely a practical way of getting across a way of interacting with the world –that is through being one kind of machine interacting with a universe of other kinds of machines or through the Rortian machine of discourse. Neither one, as far as I know, was interested in reducing the mind to little more than the activities of the brain.

And as far as Deleuze reducing empiricism to the “given known”, this is exactly what he was reacting against in his embrace of the univocity of Being: the notion that to think a sensation (such as thought or a dream( has any less ontological status (to put it in Rorty’s terms (than the rock that stubs our toe makes no sense. In ontological terms, a thing either is or it is not. There is no in between.

That said, excuse the shameless digression off topic for the sake of showboating (which only makes it even more shameless (but this presents a kind of paradox involved in the univocity of Being (which I hope we have established the legitimacy of: if a thing is, we have to imagine the very possibility of it not being. And this would present no problem in itself since our imagining it not being would be a thought that does have being: presence in the face of the absence. Still, there are all these things that don’t exist (the nothingness (that we have never actually thought about, which makes nothingness a very real presence in our lives. This would mean that nothingness (non-being (has being.

Just something to play with.

13

Yes that’s it. Put it another way, the reduction into an ontological certainty, (this is why interestingly i bring in Steiner’s optics) is, that the overflow is based on a qualitative change, if the same models (Platonic or otherwise) are sustained. reversely, in the reduction, and here the phenomenological reduction comes to mind, the difference is the difference between the forward looking deduction, based on predictable models, minus the reverse, where all insignificant or non signified alternatives will loose the relevant junctures, whereby such models are constructed. The deconstruction entails a qualitatively impossible differentiation,where there is no certainty in a quantitative assessment of quantifiable differentiation from its progressively constructed model.

 Predictability is not an option in this process, and this is why, Capitalism rules out the differential concepts of diminishing returns, at least subjugating them to purely inductively derived material concepts.  Effects on social hierarchy and process, therefore are not merely disregarded, but developed as purely arbitrary and manageable constraints.  

 Capitalism succeeds in part, because of this disregard, but at the cost of presenting weakness  in the face of ideological lack, and is privy to monumental overcompensation in terms of what is going on today, the replenishing of money supply by the;printing of unsound money.  The printing of money without sufficient  shows the attempt to make up the difference in terms of actual monetary foundation, implying a non reversible or reducible status quo.  

 Short term, the props of incurring debt to pay for this 'difference' in material terms (money), seem to work, but when critical points are reached, (baseless technicals) ,and hypo or hyper inflation sets in, there is no more available corrections available.  

  Now my point is, that this process of materially based technicals, do relate to psychological indexes, where literally investors will panic at a certain point and change the program of trading altogether .

   Here , the psychologicalism can be extended to social paradigms which may resemble Freud's notion of the economy of the ID.  

    This has been going on since the industrial revolution, and only noticeably later  was difference linked between economic and social and finally personal parameters.  This was a bold move on part of of the existentialists, and Sartre in particular, who made the  interestingly premature, but relevant reduction of this process to 'bad faith'  Deleuse saw this, as a consequence of Sartre's reversal on Communism, on cue, and got out of the fix, by seeing reduction itself as a bad faith attempt to qualify it , on basis of a social paradigm.  (Communism)

He was bold enough to univocally reduce the social into the realm of the psychological, the singular attitude. This is why, psychologists of the anti psychiatry movement took to focus on socio-economic effects on singular nomenclature. A society can not be spoken of as schizophrenic, and social alienation can only be considered as the sum total of singularly considered alienation. This is why anti-psychiatry looked for economic reasons behind the politics of experience(Laing, Szasz) , because they were unable to take formerly social explanations,(as Comunism-abandoned bySartre).

Capitalism is fought on it's own turf, that of not a political-social system, based on ideological grounds, but a materially motivated system of defined human interaction in terms of material exchange.  So their attack and Sartre's, shortcut of  an 'ideological, Marxian class struggle, a struggle they knew was lost, in favor of attacking the economical-psychological struggle, based not on class, but on a total quantified derivative, the individual.  

 Here, Capitalism is vulnerable, because it's spelled out that men, have the right to enjoy the un-alienable rights.  With alienation shown to be a product of this system, literally, the reduction dispenses within any quantified changes of capitalization as products of social stratification.

  De-literation as pointed to your objection to my use of loose association, is a product of this process, and not necessarily a symptom of lack of understanding?

   Remember, art always precedes by some kind of intuit, the actual weaknesses which they anticipate.

    At this point , it is very difficult to take sides, between personal, socio-political, or economic point of view, since i believe, the New World Order's function is to de-differentiate these parameters, so as to completely knock out any form of ideological struggle. 

     If someone were to take the utalitarian-empirical attitude as their vantage point, then they would come up with a different type of understanding as those, who look at the far reaching ontologically reduced points of reference.  Since, this differentiation largely depends on the outcome of this New World Order, all bets are off.m  It is too early to call  one way, or the other.

This is why, in the forum entitled will machines replace men, i opted for a non-committed and impartial attitude. I think individual psychology in terms of such factors as alienation, a largely discarded factor, is at the present time not a popular notion, from which to try to evaluate a situation (Sartre) It remains to be seen, whether, Deleuze may in the future, retrospectively be,the correct measure by which to gage the state of affairs a futuristic post modern world finds it’s self in.

14

Now aside from the subject of Rorty, I brought up Steiner’s ideas, in terms of solutions of so far, at least ,it seems to me, unredeemed problems. In particular, difference, in Deleuze’s presentation relates to that. I am working on a meta problem, which has come up in conjunction
with the psychological end of the spectrum, in the psycho-political continuum , mentioned above.

The ideal paradigm,constructed over the thousands of years of patterning, evaluating etc, have taken a sharp turn around recently, a process began with the onset of the industrial revolution, and less so , by the enlightenment. This process has reversed the further construction/reconstruction of this paradigm, and resulted in the very basic split between what psychologists call the ideal and the real self.

The real self, has always ben a problem subsequent to Narcisse’s confusion over the reflection between the perception of himself, and others. This is myth. This myth, has been debunked, as an archaic vestige of a gone by time, and now the very same psychologists proclaim a new era of ‘insight’. Reflection, not only as a way of perceiving within certain situations, and contexts, but, as a way of thinking or reasoning, by virtue of a ‘rational’ mind, has also been post-scribed as a non issue. But how was such non issue derived? It was not the result of continuing differentiation per useful successive adaptation of those mythological artifacts, but by a de-differentiation, a simplification into linear meaning. (Marcuse, et al-One dimensional man, c. 1969)

The ideal self and the real self have been in essence been likewise been de-clawed as viewed from the perspective of being different in kind, or type, whereas retaining similar traits.

What has this effectively created? A non analyzable field, of which Lewin’s ideas on topology have more or less been invalidated, based on the idea that such mathematical formulations are non derivable.

The difference, the surplus, in the deconstruction between the ideal prototype and it’s contextually ‘real’ counterpart, therefore, has ceased to be conceptually be quantified. The residual, the surplus, you talk about, just as in Capitalism, surplus value, again, is not easily, or, even possibly quantified, has the reason de etre to disqualify differance, as adopted as an existential tool.

Why is this? Is the deconstruction of value correlate to means of production, whether they be of territory or their deconstruction, or of desire producing machines. In the first place the material available to appraise real value is available , however, as we read of it every day, the proper transparency lacking in modern day economics, masks, and even mystifies surplus value, there are really no accounting forthcoming, whose statistics can really figure surplus value.

The Rorty mirror does not closely reflect the true nature of what is going on, since the ontology of singular notion can not ‘reflect’ the earliest, values ascribed to such accounting, and this is why, d63, i made the bold attempt to connect Rorty’s mirror, with the one used by the existential antipsychiatrist’s. That this very basic , but extremely and conditionally relevant fact, is reduced across the board, is not new, either. Sartre failed in the attempt. Merle-Ponty and others became apologists for this failure.

Deleuze continues not as an apologist, but an observer. He takes the position that it is what it is, and his focus on a political ‘cure’ becomes a projective attempt, generated by a complete denial by those of the opposite camp.

The ‘god project’ has been going on for thousands of years, as a gross anthropomorphic projection on a universal scale, and the denied difference breaks any attempt to salvage of what was once the re channelling of the basic ideations, in terms of typical modes of understanding, because and again i come back to Steiner, and his optical solution, and it is the only viable concept which i could come across, here. But another man who may be considered is Polany, and his notion of tacit knowledge. Nothing really new here, , he is very Kantian, however in a more up to date garb.

These two views, may hold a key to further elaboration.

15

Reading Tartaglia’s study of Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, I had one of those ah-hah epiphanies that came as they usually do: after a long period of gestation in which the concept has always been there in the empathetic sense of being understood in the cognitive sense of knowing all the definitions, but not fully assimilated to the point of being sympathetic with it. It usually comes with one of those moments when you pick a random point in a book and are able to focus on it, as compared to just reading through to get to the end of a particular section. Sometimes it can even come with a couple of hits of really good weed –or a combination of both.

But this one came from reading through to the end of a particular section of Tartaglia’s study and involved the concept of Hermeneutics. And what made the impact of this particular epiphany particularly strong was the realization that what was being described was pretty much the cornerstone of my process. As Tartaglia describes it:

“The hermeneutic method, as it has been understood ever since Heidegger adopted it from Dilthey, is essentially the method of immersion: we immerse ourselves into the phenomenon to be understood (a text, an exotic culture, an historical epoch, etc.) in order to understand it from the inside out. This means not starting out with fixed preconceptions about what needs to be understood, but rather building up familiarity and then systematising the understanding we acquire later on.” -Tartaglia, James (2007-08-14). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Rorty and the Mirror of Nature (Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks) (p. 180). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

This basically puts some shine on my assertion that the process of the intellectually and creatively curious is basically one of a relationship: that of turning content into form via form. And it is the same process by which we form friendships. We start with the other as a composite whole: how they look, what they say, and what we know about them via our common social circles. And we stick with them as they reveal more about themselves through a process of unfolding in which they become more beautiful to us as we see what was hidden become more and more what we see at the surface that we interact with on a superficial level. In other words, they become more beautiful when we can interact with their complexity without having to put a lot of thought into it.

And we do as much with a particular philosopher or book of philosophy.

“A crucial feature of this approach is the so-called ‘hermeneutic circle’, which is the idea that you cannot understand the whole until you understand the parts, and you cannot understand the parts until you understand the whole. The only way to break into the circle, then, is to ‘play back and forth between guesses’ (319), as Rorty puts it, the hope being that you will eventually pick up a ‘new angle on things’ (321). What you do not do, if you are being hermeneutic, is start from some unquestionable starting point or foundation and build up from there. Rather, you just jump in and try to get into the swing of things, just as you might join a conversation before having any clear idea what the topic is.” -Tartaglia, James (2007-08-14). Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Rorty and the Mirror of Nature (Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks) (p. 180). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

Hence: my process: and the connection with the concept of Hermeneutics in the admission that I have little interest in telling anyone what “the Truth” is and more interest in describing a process I have been blessed with being able to engage in. I am far more interested in stringing together a perfect sentence about reality then telling you what reality actually is, more resonance and seduction than a desire to tell anyone how they should think. As compared to scientific discourse, Hermeneutics is about engaging in the pleasure of discourse for the sake of discourse: just to see what happens.

And excuse the cheap segway into my Deleuze board (which I would miss if I couldn’t find such cheap segways (but I can’t help but feel that the French approach to philosophy (the free indirect discourse (invites the hermeneutic approach. I can’t help but feel that French philosophy (w/ its deep ties to dissent (would rather be literature than ever make claims to “the Truth” which is an expression of state philosophy.

I mean compare that to Dennett and Searle (American philosophers (who both celebrate the achievements of producer/consumer Capitalism through clear exposition.

16

As far as the circle of understanding is concerned, what You are implying is true, , but French literacy is never really 'literate, rather, it is much more of the associative free flow, the bringing to light of the poesy of the sub conscious, a reaction to Sartre’s retraction, as his a takeoff on the unsuccessful interpretation of Nietzche’s attempt at allusions.

Someone implied that there really is no legitimate exit from the nihilism which covers some decades in a fashionable close of the late 19th century, and as such fashion proved to be a for-bringer of cataclysmic and irrevocable change leading to two world wars and the slaughter of nearly a hundred million souls. Therefore such poetry, covered by very wide latitude of interpretation, can not be taken lightly, and therefore those who wield ever powerful words, may bear responsibility upon the en suing debacle, which swords can never bear.

We are coming ever closer to the essence of Deleuze, skirting around him as cats around a bowl of milk, never coming to grips with it, by way of literacy as You describe it. This is why i am by and by associating them with Steiner, who again, at least peripherally, seem as if, an inadequate description. But it is a start.

The main culprits such as Bergson, Voltaire, had much to say to inspire the insipid breasts of repressed souls, but once done so, they gave no direction, only subterranean communication, spread among those of the aristocracy, who felt at that point, that they had nothing to loose, as they allied with the reactionary.

Formal thinkers as Deleuze, had no exit in the traditional sense, either. Their life reflected a Remebrance of Things Past, a building upon the strictly adhered conventional structures , whereby they could still live, within that circle of no exit.

17

Jesus, Obe! There is lot here to work with. I’ll have to focus a whole study on it.

Still: love ya, man! My world is much better with you in it.

18

“….although honestly, Tariglia’s linking edifying to systematic philosophy appeared to me to be a non sequitur from the outset.
Systematic Philosophy wants to model truth, or to describe what the truth is once and for all- that is, it conceives an end point toward which it is directed.
I think Edifying Philosophy has no such end point in view- unless it is to eternally disabuse us of the notion of being Systematic Philosophers!

Saying then that Edifying Philosophy should also end is like saying that we should stop telling stories about why we do what we do.
It may be so that somehow we will in fact be completely disabused from Systematic Philosophy and there will be no need for this particular kind of story (Edifying Philosophy) about it. The significance of Edifying Philosophy (rather than its “truth”) would no longer speak to us.
But not only do I think this will never happen- that the urge or compulsion to Systematic Philosophy is so deep that it will always recur in some group of people- but I also think that it would be a shame if that urge or compulsion were lost completely.
I think for Rorty losing this urge equates to ‘growing up’ and putting aside childish wishes. This may be so and it is what I often argue myself- but the idea that we can put away all childish wishes begins to look like a childish wish. It somehow at a critical juncture simultaneously fails to understand adults, children and wishes.

Arguing against the possibility of Systematic Philosophy is not the same as wishing it would disappear, anymore that arguing against universal and eternal truth that encompass more than descriptions of the most fundamental regularities of nature amounts to a replacement of such an idea.”

Actually, Greg, I’m not sure if it’s the way I wrote it, or the way you interpreted it (doesn’t matter either way (but it would have been a really bad move on Tartaglia’s part to connect the 2 when Rorty was pretty clear in presenting systematic and edifying philosophy as two opposing terms. All Tartiglia was actually doing was pointing out that Rorty, by arguing edifying philosophy to be the way we should go, was inadvertently simply presenting another system –albeit, a much looser one.

And in that sense, it kind of weakens my argument that Tartaglia’s argument is somehow different than the abuse of the skeptic’s paradox. For some reason, he seems to be working at an existential level of verification. But there is still the stench of the semantic in it. As you rightly point out:

“Arguing against the possibility of Systematic Philosophy is not the same as wishing it would disappear…”

I’m torn and may have to eat my own assertion. Hopefully you guys will be able to help me out with that.

Outside of that, I’m pretty much in agreement with everything you say. It’s like you, me, and maybe even Rorty were separated at birth.

19 
Thanks for keeping current thought live! I can say the same about Your paragraphs above, will need to spend quality time on it.  And my world is likewise enriched by Your presence.
20

Truth can be “modeled” or “mirrored” in many different ways (much like many very different languages can speak the same statement). But each model must independently reveal the same outcome if they are all to be right.