> I am trying my best to stay away from my office during the break, so I
> don't have any of the Rorty books with me to give you a direct quote.
> But no, I am not paraphrasing inaccurately at all. I usually avoid
> that as much as I can. Take a look at Rorty's "Objectivity,
> Relativism, and Truth" for a good elucidation of his postmodern
> pragmatism (although Rorty's preference is pragmatism not
> postmodernism as a term for his philosophy).
What I was doubtful about in your last post was the statement: "every discursive-communicative context has its own internal logic." What I would like is a reference to a passage in which he makes this statement, or something very close to it.
I think Rorty knows enough about the results of 20th-century philosophy of logic not to talk about "logics" in the plural. Unless, of course, he's using "logic" in a very loose sense, the way non-philosophers often do. But when philosophers use the word, they are usually rather precise about referring to propositional, predicate, etc., logic. And the term "internal logic" doesn't make sense to me, anyway; what is logic "inside"?
I happen to have a copy of "Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth" here. It's been a quite a while since I read it, but I'll browse a bit and see if I can find anything in it about logic. (Damned thing only has a names index -- publishers can be so lazy these days!)
> By the way, I am mentioning Rorty only to show that your allegiance
> to him is not based on any solid understanding of his philosophy.
I don't have any "allegiance" to Rorty; I don't know where you got that idea. In my view of philosophy, "allegiance" has no place. "Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is the truth," as the old saw had it. I find a lot of Rorty's thought interesting and useful, but I certainly don't go all the way with him. Also, I don't claim to be an expert on him; if you have something to teach me about him that I don't know, I'd be grateful.
> By the way, where is this overgeneralization about the sociologists
> coming from? I don't mean to appear irritated, but these baseless
> generalizations are simply childish. Could you tell me who are the
> sociologists who confuse the subject's beliefs with the subject itself
> that you mentioned in your response to Joanna?
I was thinking of the "strong program" folks, Bloor, Latour, etc.
I admit, though, that English professors can be even more woolly-headed. An example I just recently came across is Prof. Mary Klages, at <http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html>. I especially love this one: "Postmodernism, in contrast, doesn't lament the idea of fragmentation, provisionality, or incoherence, but rather celebrates that. The world is meaningless? Let's not pretend that art can make meaning then, let's just play with nonsense." That's fine for art, but "playing with nonsense" doesn't work in philosophy, I'm afraid. At least, the kind of philosophy I'm familiar with.
I myself get a little irritated seeing so many people in certain academic fields who have acquired a smattering of philosophy and proceed to pose as philosophers. But it's been quite a while since I was employed teaching the subject, so I'll just leave it to those who are currently struggling with that task to try to clean things up.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax