Rhizome: 3/23/16
“Rorty is wrong. Truth is correspondence and we have discovered a very workable method of discovering it: Science. I saw Rorty after he wrote Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. His problem then and the problem with hermeneutics is the failure to accept real universals like those in Mathematics. They can be derived from Set Theory so there is no need for Platonic Forms and reality can simply be defined as whatever satisfies a bound existential variable.” –John Schoenemann
“But mathematics is still a language responding to reality, not reflecting it exactly. Look, for instance, at weather reports. They have, due to computer technology, fulfilled the criterion of horseshoes in getting closer while not exactly predicting the weather. This is because they are mainly dealing with fractal causality (as compared to linear (which defies all scientific claims to have exclusive access to reality. Science can only confidently handle linear causality.” –me
I would first apologize to John if I came off as mocking in posts after the above quoted. It was strictly my bad in departing from the point that Rorty was trying make and succumbing to the old temptation to knock down that which is opposed to your own position in order to defend it. But this is in no way the agenda of the pragmatic/ironist position: that of undermining the value of science. We can no doubt assume that mathematics has made some discoveries (think Einstein here (that seem universal. But the thing we need to think about here is how much application Einstein’s (as well as those of mathematics in general (tell us about what we need to do to create a just world. While I cannot be sure of what John’s agenda is, one of the applications of it I see is similar that of Rands so-called objectivism:
1+1=2, Laisse Faire Capitalism is the only means by which man can achieve greatness
:as if we are to be so impressed by the fact that she got the 1+1 part right, we should automatically accept her assertion concerning Laisse Faire Capitalism. And I apologize to John, but his point was clearly about discouraging me from Rorty and the pragmatic position based on the fact that mathematics have found a few principles that seem to be universal –that is while not actually representing reality as we perceive it every day. Furthermore, it serves as little more than a misdirect from the real agenda of pragmatism which has more to do with theory and philosophical discourse:
“For the ironist theorist, the story of belief in, and love of, an a-historical wisdom is the story of successive attempts to find a final vocabulary which is not just the final vocabulary of the individual philosopher but a vocabulary final in every sense - a vocabulary which is no mere idiosyncratic historical product but the last word, the one to which inquiry and history have converged, the one which renders further inquiry and history superfluous.” -Richard Rorty. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Kindle Locations 1387-1389). Kindle Edition.
And, of course, what we are talking about here is the intellectual arrogance of anyone who might think that they (like some kind of chosen one (will have the final word on intellectual discourse, that their process will be the end of all processes. The ironist can only see this as silly, self indulgent, and contrary to the real value of creative and intellectual inquiry. John may well be right in pointing out mathematics’ ability to point out universal principles; but that seems little justification for acting like mathematics must have the last word in every discourse we engage in. In fact, do so could be detrimental to the extent that it establishes a vertical/hierarchal power structure in which we allow mathematicians to tell us what our reality is. As Rorty points out:
“The ironist theorist distrusts the metaphysician’s metaphor of a vertical view downward. He substitutes the historicist metaphor of looking back on the past along a horizontal axis.”
And:
“(Metaphysically, and so misleadingly, put: The ironist wants to find philosophy’s secret, true, magical, name - a name whose use will make philosophy one’s servant rather than one’s master.)”
The point is, ultimately, that our situation is such that it will take a lot of different people doing a lot of different things and using a lot of different methods in order to fix it. Therefore, we might be better off not haggling over the advantage of our methods and just using them and letting the products speak for the method.