Richard Rorty - Universality & Truth (1996)

[@BertWald-wp9pz]

For reasons I cannot quite pin down I love to hear Rory speaking even when I question what he is saying. His writing is beautifully nuanced.

[@dionysianapollomarx]

This is actually him responding to Habermas in the collection "Rorty and His Critics" edited by Robert Brandom. Really good read. I don't quite know, but I'm assuming the lecture series was done in a conference before they were all collected to be published.

[@AlexanderKoryagin]

Thank you so much for bringing this back!

[@blairhakamies4132]

Top as always. Thank you for sharing. 🌹

[@norabelrose198]

Rorty sometimes pronounces individual words with a non-rhotic (vaguely British) accent which is interesting

[@kaimarmalade9660]

I've started doing that and it feels so good. It's like wiping one's ass with live rabbits.

[@BrightAgeBeyond]

Thanks for the upload.

[@raycosmic9019]

The Word of Truth is ever faithful (loyal, true, isomorphic) to Reality (That which is).

[@Finding999]

*Still patiently waiting for the Hegel/kant/self consciousness video*

[@Philosophy_Overdose]

Yeah, yeah...I know! I eventually will put it up again, but to be honest, it isn't exactly a priority. I hope you'll be able to remain patient and not begin throwing fits like that one person who began screeching on very video and disliking them all because I did not re-upload something that he wanted me to right away.

[@Finding999]

@@Philosophy_Overdose lol Man some people feel really entitled, asking random strangers to prioritize theirs needs. Don't worry I'm patient, I was just poking fun at you a little.

[@Philosophy_Overdose]

@@Finding999 I'm not sure when I'll actually put it back up, but you can listen to it here: s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/renewolf-wp-data/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2014_01_27_Robert_Pippin_talk.mp3

[@Finding999]

@@Philosophy_Overdose thanks much appreciated

[@ANI_MEM]

What did he mean about artificial intelligence?

[@longcastle4863]

In our online world, can someone please explain to me how truth gets to have center stage in the world of ideas. Probably not a more serious question exist for our time. Except maybe figuring out how we survive the next thousand, then ten thousand, then one-hundred thousand years. Which is a one-hundred percent related question.

[@ericb9804]

Perhaps Rorty would complain that "truth" already has center stage in the online world, and that's the problem. "Truth" has always had center stage in human affairs, its just that now, the easy spread of information and amplification of dissenting voices exacerbates the problems that have always been there and that Rorty explained. Imagine what the world, online or otherwise, would look like if no one thought that what they were doing was "exposing the truth" but rather "justifying their goals" and that their goals and their justification enjoyed no privilege in any sense.

[@longcastle4863]

@@ericb9804 I'm sorry, but I really don't understand your comment. Probably just me not having read Rorty for years. I do get the _amplification of certain kinds of ideas exacerbating problems that have always been there..._ As that's really my point : where before it was just a few, now it's large portions of the population getting caught up in propaganda and conspiracy theories. What to do about this?

[@ericb9804]

​@@longcastle4863 Sorry - you mean not everyone is currently reading Rorty and looking to pick a fight? I don't know. I don't think anyone does. But to call it alarming is to put it mildly. Perhaps Rorty would say to keep doing what we've always done - Keep improving the lives of the least privileged among us by remaining sensitive to the suffering of others and maintain our commitment to democratic ideals while remaining cognizant that those ideals are not privileged in any sense. Beyond that we just accept that human is as human does and hope for the best.

[@longcastle4863]

@@ericb9804 Haha. No, I remember liking Rorty when I read him -- his _Mirror of Nature_ book and many essays like the ones on Orwell and other writers. I do remember disagreeing with him about free will, though... I'm definitely more with Daniel Dennett on that idea : )

[@Ignirium]

I think i can see why Sam Harris said (and i paraphrase) "all i did at Uni was disagree and debate with Rory every chance i had"

[@thomasd2444]

That must have been funny : The sound of one man debating . LOL

[@_VISION.]

Why?

[@Ignirium]

​@@_VISION. Sam mentioned Rorty and disagreeing with him every chance he got at Uni about pragmatism in a podcast with JP. In the podcast Sam and JP debate what something being true means or actually is. JP argues for Pragmatism being the foundation of truth while Sam argues that things exists independent of our knowledge/understanding of things; the Correspondence theory of truth. Sam called out that JP freights Truth with Good; nothing can be true unless it serves a good. Sam: "You are marrying the the concept of truth which is an epistemological one also the concept of goodness and maybe freight with the concept of beauty. You're gonna fuse truth and goodness and perhaps beauty together as this kind of jewel that can't be spoken about in its terms of its separate parts because they are fused now..." (Sounds strikingly similar to god to me and how people use the word) Sam makes great sense untangling inconsistencies with Pragmatism in the Pod cast, repeatedly with concision, especially when Sam says "Our language didn't put the energy in the atom, its not because we spoke a certain way about it that that determined the character of physical reality. No, physical reality has a character whether or not they're apes around to talk about it" kzbin.info/www/bejne/aJ2yZ4qAbteZqZY Waking Up With Sam Harris #62 - What is True? (with Jordan B. Peterson)

[@_VISION.]

@@Ignirium I'll check it out but Rorty also thought that things exist independent from our understanding/knowledge of things. Which is why he valued going with theory of justification rather than theory of Truth. He thought you can say something about justification but nothing about Truth. No description or interpretation is closer to ultimate reality more than another. But some interpretations have more instrumental value toward a logistical or social aim which is why we deem it the truth. Truth is just a word people use to endorse a specific belief or thought that they agree with. This is actually a metaperspective about knowledge so it doesn't actually assert anything about Knowledge. Most broadly, he's making a descriptive meta-epistemic claim. That means it’s making an assertion about the ontology of epistemic assertions, yes, but is in of itself not an epistemic assertion

[@Morfeanath]

​@@Ignirium Pragmatism about truth is more William James than Rorty. Rorty was a deflationist, he did not have an epistemic theory of truth. Rorty just said (with Davidson) that truth is a property about sentences, not a property of the world and that language is not a medium. And yeah, Sam Harris' naive realism/scientism is totally opposite to Rorty in spirit, but Rorty is really similar to Daniel Dennett, which Sam Harris really respects, so either Harris doesn't understand Rorty or Dennett. Both Rorty and Dennet (and Davidson) owe a lot to Wilfrid Sellars, for instance.

[@johntornay419]

I'm a big fan of Rorty's writing, but listening to him talk makes me uncomfortable, because he finishes each sentence with a different accent than he starts it with.

[@King_Illuminaughti]

Why don’t you guys get together around a fireplace & make a KZbin video of your discussion, where you can have an enlightened debate with each other directly, rather than trying to characterize each other’s beliefs outside their presence? That’s a video I would love to watch, & as a pragmatist, you might find such a format more productive, no⁉️🙏🏻🗽👼🏻

[@Khuno2]

Rorty setting up truth as an ethereal, unobtainable correspondence is a strawman. How many philosophers hold that view? Truth is irrelevant to practice in Democratic societies? Well, not when it comes vaccines, tax codes, civil rights, fin reg, infrastructure bills, etc. Not multiple choice. Can't have a democracy without a well informed citizenry; and that's not just storytelling, but the truth. It's a good idea to know which bridges are on the verge of collapse if public safety plays even a minimum role in governance. Policy mugged of the truth has played a large role in some of the biggest catastrophes of the past forty years, and counting.

[@ericb9804]

You are missing Rorty's point in thinking that it is bigger than what it is. How do you know when a bridge is on the verge of collapse? How do you know when vaccine should be taken or when taxes are fair? How do you know when democracy is in danger of collapse? You have no way to know these things except by interpreting relevant evidence, right? In other words, it doesn't make sense to think of the answers to these questions independent of the evidence and methods you used to get them. i.e. "truth" and "justification" are, for all practical purposes, the same thing and this unity is of vital importance to democratic societies. On the other hand, divorcing truth from justification is the first step toward authoritarianism.

[@ericb9804]

@@Khuno2 regarding truth and justification, you are putting the cart before the horse. Saying that an inference is justified is to say that it has "paid off." Saying that a posit is justified is to say that it has led to a "reliable patterns of predictive success." If a bridge collapses, then yes, some ideas that were thought to be justified when the bridge was built are re-evaluated and deemed unjustified. But that reevaluation is a result OF THE BRIDGE COLLAPSING; you don't know which ideas are justified and which aren't until you build the bridge and see what happens. You can't know "truth" ahead of time. You can only use your experience to justify future behavior. People defend "morally deformed political ideologies," all the time, but that doesn't make the ideology "justified," does it? You have a problem with people defending morally indefensible actions, and more power to you. So do I. But our only recourse is to demonstrate that these people are not "justified," despite their claims. We do this by referencing evidence and outcomes, just like with the bridge. But, just like with the bridge, this justification is not different than some other thing you want to call "truth."

[@Khuno2]

​@@ericb9804 First, saying that an inference is justified is saying that there is sufficient evidence to make that inference, not that it has paid off or is sound. (Rorty doesn't even say that). I can think of countless examples in which a person is justified in believing that x by the evidence, and yet believes falsely. Secondly, it's not that you can know truth ahead of time, it's that the truth exists to know in the first place. That there's some thing to find out, which is mind independent (Rorty denies). Epistemic limitations aside, the bridge will collapse or it won't. And that seems to be what is at issue. If that is denied, again: why are some beliefs/predictions successful and others not if truth is irrelevant? How is it even possible? If you deny that a belief can be justified and yet false (or, if you prefer, justified and doesn't pay off), on what grounds is a justified belief even revised upon new evidence? Revised with respect to what (....the true)?. When the bridge collapses, the justification shifts. One claims that upon new evidence, their previous beliefs are no longer justified, and you agree. But the truth hasn't shifted. No one says that the bridge wasn't going to collapse under the previous belief, only that those beliefs were mistaken because the bridge collapsed. So no, justification and truth are separate, and necessarily so to make sense of either concept. You seem (not Rorty) to be denying that one can be rational and yet believe falsely (or, believe "unsuccessfully"). But what makes a belief rational is the very real possibility (epistemic) that it could be false. That it submits to revision based upon evidence. By restricting justified beliefs and inferences to only those that work out, you are denying those justified beliefs the possibility of rationality (they are simply the patterns of inference that work out independent of intentional content). As you said, the bridge collapses, and certain beliefs are invalidated and others validated. The ones that were invalidated couldn't be justified? It's not even possible that they were justified? That seems like a very steep epistemic price to pay. *People defend "morally deformed political ideologies," all the time, but that doesn't make the ideology "justified," does it?* Well, certainly to them it does. And barring a hearing in a higher court by asserting that the truth is irrelevant to the dispute, it seems like justification is a matter of opinion. That seems pretty dangerous to me.

[@ericb9804]

​@@Khuno2 "saying that an inference is justified is saying that there is sufficient evidence to make that inference, not that it has paid off" Justification is a matter of experience. And experience is necessarily after an inference is made. It is only after an inference has "paid off" that we know the extent to which it is justified. "paying off" is precisely what constitutes evidence that an inference was justified. First you make an inference, then you test it against experience, then you determine if your inference is justified, right? If not, what kind of evidence do you have in mind to justify an inference? "I can think of countless examples in which a person is justified in believing that x by the evidence, and yet believes falsely." But that is simply to say that you have information that the person doesn't. In other words you find their belief unjustified, but you acknowledge that they rightly find their belief justified because they lack some experience that you are privy to. I don't see why it needs to be more complicated than that. I don't see what we gain by insisting the person is "wrong" in some sort of "mind independent" way. "the bridge will collapse or it won't. And that seems to be what is at issue." Yes, that is exactly the issue. My point is all we are ever capable of knowing is the extent to which we find ourselves justified in thinking one way or the other. And we know we could change our mind. And if so, we just go back and try something different. Again, so what? I don't see how insisting that our mistake was somehow "mind independent" gets us any thing we didn't already have. "why are some beliefs/predictions successful and others not if truth is irrelevant? How is it even possible? " We know that some beliefs/predictions are successful and others aren't. But that is all we know. I don't know that there is a "reason" for this in the sense that you mean. Luckily, we don't actually need anything more than this. It seems like you are just grasping for the ineffable and being shocked that you come up short. "If you deny that a belief can be justified and yet false" I don't think I quite deny that, not in the sense you mean. I just point out that a person can't actually know if their belief is justified but also "false" - they can ONLY know the extent to which they find it justified. YOU might be able to know, but that is just shifting the locus of justification, its not a demonstration of existential truth. A person only knows the extent to which their beliefs are justified given their current experience. As such, this justification is as close to "truth," as they can ever get. "on what grounds is a justified belief even revised upon new evidence? Revised with respect to what (....the true)?" When a person revises their beliefs, it is because those beliefs no longer serve the person's purposes. In the example of the bridge, if it collapses, the engineer goes back and finds their mistake because their purpose was to build a standing bridge. but when they find their mistake, they are in the same epistemic situation as they were before, namely that of thinking their current beliefs are justified. The only difference is that now they are are staring at a collapsed bridge. Again, I don't see what we gain by positing some metaphysical "truth." i.e. I don't see why we can't just say the engineer revised their standards of justification in light of the evidence that their goals weren't met. With regard to your paragraph, "You see (not Rorty)..." I'm not quite sure what you are getting at, but it seems you want a "theory of rationality" and I'm not sure such a thing is necessary. At the end of the day, we have our experiences and our goals, and that's it. We use our experiences to formulate beliefs that help us achieve our goals. The beliefs that we deem most successful in meeting our goals, we keep, the rest we discard. Its not complicated and, despite your protests, we don't need anything "mind independent" to make it work. Or, at the very least, if something "mind independent" is necessary, we have no access to it, so who cares? "it seems like justification is a matter of opinion. That seems pretty dangerous to me." I suppose you could characterize it that way. But it strikes me as unnecessarily pessimistic. Sure, we are bound to disagree from time to time, but no one said this would be easy. I've seen enough to believe that, for the most part, we can come together under the banner of justification, even if it amounts to little more than shared opinions.

[@77capr3]

@@ericb9804 "we can come together under the banner of justification even though if it amounts to little more than shared opinions" I agree with everything you write about Rorty and with much of Rorty himself. I don't know though why he puts that banner of "justification" over what is nothing (assuming) more than shared opinions. It seems like a misleading title for the content. "Justification" invokes measuring up to some "just" standard, but that standard turns out to be nothing more than what the aggregate of people who care prefers. So why not cut out that next middleman "justification" (after "truth") and model human behavior with the fewest needed concepts: Our preferences are based on what we need to survive and flourish and we act in accordance with those preferences. If we live in societies, we take into account some of the preferences of the other people, because we like living in communities because they help us survive and flourish. I don't see the need for an idea of truth or justification arise in this model. Whether that model is a dangerous one to live by (I don't think it is), is a separate question from whether it's the most parsimonious. But positing notions of absolute truth that we can't seem to find a non-human bedrock for or ethnocentric justification that we can't root in anything other than human preferences won't make it any less dangerous.