Reply to Josh Soffer - Part VI + Rorty hack
TL
"May 1968 retutes the doctrine of parliamentary liberalism." What makes this
so central in french philosophical thinking?
Josh Soffer wrote:
>
>Let me just quote Putnam here:
>
>"Theories in a mature science typically include earlier theories as
>limiting cases. But it is important to notice that what they include as
>limiting cases are the EQUATIONS of the earlier theories , ...
Okie-dokie so far...
>................................................................not the
>WORLD-VIEWS of these theories. There is no sense in which the world-view
>of Newtonian physics is a "limiting case" of the worldview of general
>relativity, or a "limiting case" of the world-view of quantum mechanics.
>There is no more evidence that science converges to one final world-view
>than there is that literature or morality onverge to one final
>world-view.........(Bohr's e- ).
This leads me to my analysis of Rorty (Objectivity, Relativism and Truth),
which I defer until the end of this e-mail.
However let me say this now, as a preface. I agree with the above quote,
almost completely. It does point to a major difference between say, physics,
philosophy and, say, literature.
In physics, mathematical equations and the "geometry" of the problem are
important. The equations are not "metaphors", but dynamical descriptions - a
concise geometrical description of the "laws" governing the dynamics of a
physical (or other) problem. Although the term 'metaphor' can be streteched
to mean just about anything, I use the more restrictive sense of metaphor as
describing X by stating that X is just like Y.
In literature, although metaphor is an important device, it is not necessary
nor always desired, depending on what the author is trying to do. The author
is trying to descripe a human condition, usually by describing how it plays
itself out, and as such uses "dynamical descriptions" of the character,
rather then just metaphor.
In philosophy, it seems to me that metaphor plays a much more necessary and
central role, than it does either in literature or in physics.
The notion of a "worldview" seems to me to be a very important example of
metaphor, and its use in understanding.
For in trying to present a "worldview" of an equation of physics, one is
forced to take 'X' out of a context where it is expressed in equations which
constrain its results, and try to make sense out of it by describing it in
terms of "Y". Such as, "an electron is sort of like a planet orbiting the
sun", or "an electron is both sort of like a particle and also sort of like
a wave".
In a metaphor, say in which "X" is interchanged with "Y", both X and Y have
definitions and contexts previous to the metaphor. Now with the metaphor, a
"link" is established. This link may or may not have "truth value" either by
intention or by result. For instance, another important example of metaphor
is creating image sequences in order to facilitate memorization of very long
sequences of seemingly unrelated names.
Thus, it seems that metaphor is principally usefull for making memory
associations (much like web links in the internet, to use a metaphor) rather
then in evaluating the usefullness or correctness of expressions.
So, what I'm saying is that there is a fundamental difference between a
mathematical equation (expression) and a worldview: the equation is a
description of 'X' - the laws or rules that govern 'X'. A "worldview" is
principally a metaphor, in that 'X' is replaced by 'Y' to generate the
metaphor.
Worldviews are important to society, particularly in enabling societies to
decide on alternative futures - which societies do by decisions on allotment
of scarce resources.
Literature uses descriptions of people and events, and the use of metaphor
is not necessarily central. As such, literature is more similar to physics
than to philosophy.
I don't believe that all fields of human intellectual life, be it physics or
philosophy or literature, need to use the same devices or techniques or
neurological/cognitive apparatus. They don't necessarily use the same
neurological facilities. To insist that they do is to deny functional
specializations in our nervous systems. Rorty makes the case against this by
stating that "there is no central self just as there is no center to the
brain", This of course, is a metaphor, but hardly factual - since the
functional specializations of the various parts of the brain have been and
continue to be empirically mapped out. Of course Rorty smugly thinks that he
has protected himself against all empirical evidence by hiding behind
Davidson, and to state that all statements and concepts are reduced to
"metaphors".
Rorty tries to make a case against reductionism, and then proceeds to reduce
all statements, "scientistic" or literary, to metaphor. This is "hard"
reductionism at its worst (even chemists aren't that bad!) and appears to
make his argument absurd. However since he is considered to be America's
greatest living philosopher (according to the NYTimes review of books), I
guess it really doesn't matter.
Josh wrote:
>We all have to view people in connection with some sorts of categories....
I'm not a philosopher, and although I've had some exposure to philosphy, my
knowledge of the history of philosophy is much more fragmentary than your
encyclopedic (in relation to mine) knowledge of the subject.
My present interest in philosophy is to read some of the current writers and
to criticise them in light of my knowledge of the history and practice of
math, science and engineeering. I do this out of filial concern, rather
then, say , Richard Feynman's approach. I've found Alan Sokal to inspiring
in this respect.
As such, I find myself identifying empirically and historically incorrect
statements that form the basis of some philosophers programs. In addition, I
find myself identifying a priori programs that form the basis (gestalt)
behind those hypothesis, that is the reasons that motivate the assumptions.
>....And you have already expressed your distaste for PM.....
Let me state my attitude dejour towards PM:
Some of PM i find helpfull, usefull and informative. The priciples of
Deconstruction, I find interesting, as well as usefull in critical
analysis - the notion of identifying the instabilities of conceptual
frameworks I find extremely useful in getting at "the truth".
I've been reading Derrida's "On Grammatology" and his notion of
"Logocentrism" and have the following response to it:
I've found it very stimulating and has inspired me a great deal; I don't
necessarily agree with all his statements, but I find that I cann't read him
without a lot of ideas being generated both in response as well as in
association. I find him a great writer and highly catalytic. Although I do
not completely buy everything that he has to "say" in "on gramatology" I
find it artistically experimental and provacative in a positive sense.
For example, he critiques speech versus writing (to state the notion
clumsily) in a way that I find highly stimulating without necessarily being
"reliable". for example he has the mistaken notion (as does Rorty) that the
reason that Plato favored philosophy over poetry is because of the
"presence" of a voice in speech rather then the lack of such presence in
poetry. The fact is that Plato approved philosophy over poetry because for
him, philosophy consisted of a "dialog" (dia -logos) rather then the
"uni-logos" of poetry. Truth required a critical dialog (as in Popper: "I
may be wrong and you may be right, but together, will will get closer to the
truth of the matter").
I don't quite think he's gotten history quite right either. For example,
speech was dominant up until gutenberg and the resulting wide availablility
of texts. Books (scrolls, papyrus's, etc) before the late renaissance
(actually into the enlightenment, factually) were meant to be read outloud
by the reader to a larger audience, of either illiterates or people without
books. For example, Bibles in churches, single music manuscripts (vellums)
in church choirs, government documents, educational materials. As such, in
this period the book was simply an aid to public speech.
However concurrent with this exisited iconography, both religious as well as
political, whose function was to indoctrinate/teach - by using an
"authoritative presence" other then speech - torah scrolls in synagogues,
the central location of crucifixes, tabernacles and eurcharists in churches,
etc. Also the "authoritative presence" of temples, statutes, etc.
Only later, with the wide and cheap availability of books did the written
word become a "memory aid" rather then a voice- that is the presence of the
author/speaker is minimized/eliminated, and the reader absorbes the
information from the book as an adjuunct to his own memory.
Only in the modern era of the internet have we returned to the original
socratic idea of knowledge as "dialog".
I find mathematical equations to be another very good example of
"non-speech" writing, as his example of hieroglyphics and chinese
characters. The reason is that mathematical expressions aren't symbols of
speech (a translation) but of geometry (visual imagery).
You once asked why does physics and math texts contain natural language
text - the reason is that natural language is ideal for commanding and
instructing people - "do this, then do that", "do this in this way", "though
shall not create false gods before me",..... These verbal instructions are
necessary in mathematical papers to describe proceedure.
Speech also represents authority - the masters voice. This is currently seen
by our laws and our sacred texts: "the word of god". Derrida sees writing in
the hierglyphic texts on egyptian obilisks, but I see "non-verbal" presence
in statutes, iconography, etc. Ordinary egyptions couldn't understand
hieroglyphics when they saw it, but they understood them to be "religious"
presence - of the gods or the god-pharoahs.
I've also been reading rorty, in particluar his book "Objectivity relativism
and truth". I found the reading very difficult, not because its hard to
understand him - not at all - Dirrida is much "harder" to understand. I find
him difficult because I find myself stumbling over the inaccuracy and
misdirection of his ideas. In other words, where I "liked" Derrida, I
"dislike" rorty. For example, rorty also misinterprets Plato as far as his
dislike of poetry relative to plilosophy - rorty interprets this as favoring
"reason" over "art", something that was not the distinction among the
athenians that it is presently in society due to specialization. Plato
favored dialog over fixed 'text' or speach, as mentioned above.
What I have found in Rorty is the concretization of a particular program,
either intentional or unintentional, that I find in some PM and that I find
to be the fatal weakness in PM. Let me list them as I understand them:
1. A dislike and aversion towards the greeks. I think that in the present
moment, when "western/european" values need to be reconciled with "islamic"
values, that the Greeks are the only way to bridge the two cultures. For
hellenic culture is as much a legacy of middle eastern and north african as
well as persion culture as it is western european, if not even more so. Much
of european knowledge of hellenic knowledge was received from Islamic
intermediaries. I have had the good fortune to have had some iranian and
Algerian friends, and I was suprised to find that they were very proud of
their Hellenic past. Where our common "Abrahamic" ancestry is a source of
conflict, our Hellenic "Alexandrian" commonality will be our source of
resolution, as it was between catholic and protestant intellectuals in
europe during the enlightenment.
2. A linkage between "Platonism" and "Christianity" with the collorary that
"rationalism is a form of religion". This can be attributed directly to
nietszche, of course. However it is a very bad "metaphor", and really is
used as a form of slander. In assuming the role of offical state religion of
the late roman empire, it naturally assumed much of the exisiting pagan
religious personel as well as philosophies. All forms of contemporary
religion were influence by hellenistic philosophy, not only christianity.
Also influenced was judaism, islam, zoroastroism, mithraism, budhism, etc.
Much like present cults have a "pseudo-scientific" facade in order to mimic
the present respectablity and intellectual sophistication of modern science
among the unsuspecting: UFO cults, etc. A strong association between
platonism and christianity is unfounded, especially considering its stronger
hybridization with Imperial Roman cults and religious administration,
judaism, and other much later pagan cult assimilations. Any platonism to be
found in christianity was of course never allowed to be sufficiently
"socratic" to ever question the authority or principals of Christain
religious doctrine. Medieval scholasticism is much more associated with
Aristotelianism and Stoicism, then with platonism.
As far as science and math being religious, this is simply false. Nothing
has done more to undermine religious dogma then science. Empiricism and
objectivity has everything to do with confidence in "man" and "nature" and
nothing to do with the supernatural. Although it is true that many
post-hegel continental philosophers pine wistfully after the good-old-days
of religious absolutism, especially Roman Catholicism. Perhaps Jose Ortega y
Gasset expressed this wistful pinning best as a need to "completely dedicate
ones life to a cause". according to him, the loss of Christianity has led to
other substitues, such as socialistic and nationalistic utopia. In judaism,
a similar notion is expressed as the need for religious "presence" by Martin
Buber, especially in his "dialog" with Rosenzweig.
Thus, there is no linkage between science and religion or the supernatural.
Any attempt to do so is easily refuted and constitutes willfull slander.
Of course, if one is completely removed from science, then the results of
science become "received wisdom" and must be taken on authority just like
anu other belief - the scientists (the ones that publish in popular press,
anyways, like Hofstaedler, Penrose, Sagan, Weiner, etc) then seem like high
priests and in no way distingishable from other eligious high priests,
except that they have better "magic" (i.e. technology sufficiently advanced
is indestinguishable from magic to the untrained).
This is a real problem, taken advantage of by many religious fanatics.
Examples are legislation making educators teach biblical creationism along
side evolution. Also the claims of UFO-ologists and other new-age-magik folk
that science has a vested interest is preventing the ordinary population
from knowing that aliens are visiting and abducting humans, etc.
The real solution of this, in my mind, is that people involved in the
humanities must come to understand science (in particular mathematics) at
least in part, and incorporate it into their world views, rather then simply
rejecting all "objectivity" so absolutely and thoughtlessly. This will
reduce some of the divisions between science and the humanities. After all,
science and math are by nature (if not by academic catagory) "humanities".
3. A "rationalist" (or "scientific") versus "artistic" dualism. Pitting
rationalism (science) against the arts and humanities. Probably because of
specialization and the rapid growth of science, technology and culture, it
is imposible to be intelligently well versed in all the arts and sciences,
leading to a favoring of one or the other because of "professionalism". Thus
true polymaths and "renaissance" people are very rare, especially when
compared with the renaissance and the enlightenment. The fact of the matter
is that a true picture of the human condition as well as the human person
requires both the sciences as well as the arts and humanities. Both science
and the arts are experiments and explorations of the possible - what it
means to be human. Favoring, say, literature over the other arts and
sciences when creating a metaphysics with generate one of such extreme
distortion as to be monstrous and stillborn.
4. A willfull disreguard for empiricism, ontological realism, any form of
objectivity and any ability to evaluate statements as "true" or "false"
based on observation or other empirical evidence.
One problem with this is that it willfully disreguards and ignores a major
human capacity. Many philosophers, such as Rorty and davidson either ignore
science, rationality and objectivity because "its not their field" and
therefore try to create metaphysics without science so that science
intentionally doesn't "interfere" or else they are so removed from science
in their everyday professional and personal lives as to not understand the
implications of its negligence. Either way, it results in a metaphysics so
distorted from human nature as to be ignored by all except professional
academics. Not a good thing for either philosophy or culture, which needs an
active and flourishing philosophy.
Another problem with minimizing the role of empiricism - that is sense
information, is to harden the traditional dualism between mind and body. If,
as rorty describes it, all cognition is metaphor and sense data provides no
means to "test" statements or hypothesis, then this in effect hardens the
wall between mind and body - between the outside world and the mental frame.
This seems to be a philosophical regression rather than progess.
An aditional problem is that eliminating or minimizing the relationship
between mind and the outside world and making all cognition as "metaphor" is
that this practices a very restrictive and "hard" reductionism, as discussed
earlier. Again, this seems like philosophical regression rather then
progess.
Ontological realism and the ability to be objective does not necessarily
assume ethical realism. It just assumes that factual statements can be made
based on observation. This is in turn usefull in human problem solving and
decision making, but doesn't necessarily determine it. However, objectivity
and "reality testing" aids and assists human problem solving and decision
making as well as ethical decision making. Eliminating the possibility of
objectivity and "reality testing/checking" seems to undermine human problem
solving and ethical decision making, and in no way facilitates it - just
reduces it to "conformance". In other words, someone who has better "facts"
will make a better ethical/moral decision then one without the facts. For
example, a parent who has access to medical and biological data, techniques
and technology will be in a better position to make decisions concerning the
proper treatment of their child then one who has no exposure to medical
facts but simply to "beliefs" (such as Christian Science or other such).
5. The absence of the importance of coersive social frames in forming
beliefs/emotions. Rorty discusses the mind in terms of cognitive mental
processes. He uses Davidson to refute the notion of rationality, objectivity
and "empirical truth" and instead focuses on metaphor and beliefs. I discuss
my objection to his dismissal of objectivity previously. What is also
missing is the role of extra-personal social structures and frames that
determine much (if not all) of our personal cognitive metaphors and beliefs.
Damasio has done much to erode the post-modernist strict mind-body dualism
with his emphasis on the role of emotion and the primacy of the body in the
generation of emotion. However I find this inadequate, for our social belief
systems has just as much of a role in generating a persons emotions and
shaping their beliefs (and consequently the way they solve problems) as a
persons own internal, private cognitive processes. I don't need to go into
depth in describing the role that religious, racial, tribal (familial),
nationalistic and political frames play in arousing deep (and lethal)
emotions and beliefs in individuals. These social frames have taken on much
of the role of our bodies as well as our minds in the formation of metaphor,
beliefs and emotions. No wonder that it is called the "body politic".
Cognitive dissonance, social ostracism as well as real financial and
professional punishment awaits those that challenge the "body politic". I
see a major lack of discourse in the role that these social frames play in
our cognitive processes - therefore I find Rorty's focus on challenging
"objectivity" to be a red herring.
Josh Soffer says:
>.................................By the way ,a crucial feature of
>post--Hegelian is the rcognition that what we know (rationality,
>science, empiricism) and what we want (values, ethics, motivatrion) are
>profoundly interconnected.
I accept the distinction as well as the interrelationship between what we
know and what we want, as you stated it. I accept the possiblility of
objective knowing (empirical, analytic), as well as metaphor and belief. I
also understand that what we want may be in part driven by, or satisfied by,
(or not) by what we know. I also recognize that what we know may be directed
by what we want (need) to know. I also recognize that what we can
objectively determine may conflict with what we want (need) to know. It may
or may not be easier or more "natural" to simply ignore or disreguard what
we know "objectively" from what we "want/need" to know. Every racist knows
that there is no objective/biological/evolutionary reason to be racist -
that it is simply an "unjustified" belief, but "chooses" to be racist
nontheless. Every religious conservative "knows" that any belief in gods or
"divinely inspired texts" is objectively false but chooses his beliefs
anyways in a self-consious "act of belief", inspired by the new idenity he
"receives" in the new religious frame.
Thus the role that social, especially religious, frames play in a persons
identity (as alluded to in the previous e-mail in reference to William
James) is crucial. The price an individual plays in "accepting their
identity" from the social frame is to intentionally and consciously abandon
their right to use their own empirical and analytical facilities to gain and
use objective knowledge. Much like in joining the military you sign away
your right to sue the government or ignore your superior in favor of your
own decisions.
I hope this make further clear why i found the missing role of social frames
(in Rorty's and others works) on our cognitive processes so important.
The "coersion" that Lyotard discusses and Rorty alludes to that may be the
consequence of abandoning rationality and objectivity, can have many
different manifestions, but perhaps the most profound one is to coerse the
individual to abandon what "she" empirically or rationally knows to be true
under pressure of their received social identity.
Josh Soffer wrote:
>...........................By the way, its ironic you chose Descartes
>to quote, because it is precsiely Cartesianism which is under attack by
>Varela, Dennett, and Lakoff.
First off, I'd like to thank your for the quotes (Varela, Minsky, Kelso,
Taylor (I've ordered the book!), Deacon, Piaget- they've helped to educate
me in the present state of the field. I subscribe to all such adaptive/pdp
cognitive models. Unlike physics where its easy to isolate a particular
problem set (say planetary orbits) from all others to generate a
"sufficient" model, it seems much more difficult to isolate a particular
mental "feature" or "problem" to the exclusion of all the others and
maintain its "authenticity" (ps: not a judgement - an observation).
I personally have given much attention to the role of vision and hearing in
"understanding" - how vision relates to mathematics; how hearing relates to
"location" (that is our ability to position other "presences" around us) as
well as trying to "figure out" what music "is" and how it differs from
mathematics, as well as why there seems to be a "corollation" between the
two in folk wisdom. If you have any insight into this, i'd be much obliged
for any pointers.
Also, I have a personal preference for criticising "live" philosophers such
as Rorty, as oppose to dead ones such as Descartes or Spinoza. Comparing
Descartes to Spinoza feels a lot like comparing Babe Ruth with Josh Gibson
(or even worse, Hank Aaron) - fantasy philosophy rather then "real"
philosophy (or better yet, Punch and Judy, with the puppets dressed like
dead philosopher of different eras beating each other with sticks). Its more
fun with real-live philosophers - you might even make them rethink their
positions! (dead philosophers seem to be immune).
Ted Lechman
Utica, New York
April 20th, 2003