I'm a pragmatist, and no skeptic. I'm a coppper-bottomed realist about science and at least a tin-bottomed realist about ethics. I think arguments can help us become better justified in our beliefs, and more likely to have true ones. I just doubt their motivational power where argument opposes interest or even intellectual intertia. Marxists and people influenced by historical materialism ought to be comfortable with that idea.
--jks
>From: Kelley Walker <kwalker2 at gte.net>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Ethical foundations of the left
>Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 01:49:14 -0400
>
>At 10:39 PM 7/22/01 -0700, you wrote:
>>In what sense do you mean that pragmatists are
>>skeptics?
>
>"they employ powerful
> > analytical arguments to undermine argument itself.
> >
> > -- Luke"
>
>not AN argument, but "argument itself"
>
>dunno for sure what Luke meant. but, personally, i didn't take him to be
>talking about skepticism as substantive philosophy or philosophical
>tradition; rather, i saw him as referencing what he sees as a method of
>argumentation.
>
>
>kelley
>
>
>
>
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