Richard Rorty: Edification and Naturalism

Notions you need to know

Edification: moral, intellectual or spiritual improvement by enlightenment or uplifting actions
Art edifies the space it is placed in Comprehension edifies the world around

 Naturalism : in the universe, laws of nature exist and function exclusively; the belief that nature governs the structure and behavior of the universe; nothing exists beyond nature, but if it does, it does not affect the natural world.
Ghosts, spirits, supernatural entities do not exist There is no purpose in nature

 Epistemology: the theory of knowledge,

with concern towards methods, validity and purpose; questions what knowledge is and how it can be obtained; how much of an object or entity can truly be known and how much remains unknown
How knowledge relates to truth, belief and justification (of actions, thoughts, propositions, etc.) There is a difference between knowing that, knowing how and acquaintanceknowledge

 Hermeneutics: a branch of knowledge that

deals with interpretation of things, entities and notions, concerns mostly text interpretation

Metaphysics: concerned with the

fundamental nature of reality and existence, it studies what is outside of objective experience, structure and constitution of reality being for itself being in itself

Pour-soi: abstract, a being that has feelings,

En-soi: material, a being with no feelings,

Edification and naturalism

Rortys essay deals with the methodology of resolving philosophical issues such as the distinction between spirit and nature, transcendental hermeneutics and the search for objective knowledge He evokes works of many philosophers in his rhetoric and works his way towards a conclusion of his own, about how we objectivize ourselves by reflection, changing our opinions, vocabulary and behavior through time

 Hermeneutics and phenomenology both suggest ways in which we might create a transcendental standpoint, refusing the notion that change in behavior results from change in self-description which in turn brings forth the objectivization of human beings Rorty believes that we should not expect philosophy to answer questions left unanswered by science Transcendental hermeneutics promises to see freedom as nature and advocates normal discourse as an element of edification

 Habermas: transcendental philosophy can analyze what functions knowledge has in practice
If cognitive interests are analyzed through inquiry in natural and cognitive sciences, they are transcendental in nature If analyzed in the contexts of anthropology, they are empirical in nature

 Rorty feels it unnecessary to find a general way to analyze these roles, advocating the use of cultural anthropology as enough Habermas: transcendental corroboration criticizez an overly self-confident selfunderstanding of itself because it comes up with subjective conditions that make a theory possible and limited at the same time Overconfidence: thinking that there is truthfulness to reality in philosophical realism

 Analysis of categorical structure of objects Distinction: people as empirical selves and moral agents

 Normal scientific discourse can be seen in two ways:

1. Successful search for objective truth 2. One discourse among other in which we engage

Error in systematic philosophy: answering the above questions with new discourse, which is the philosophers bad faith, substituting pseudocognition for moral choice

 Kant made possible to see scientific truth as something unable to supply a point, a justification and to claim that our moral decisions are based on knowledge of the nature of the world by destroying the traditional conception of reason He called this the discovery of inevitable subjective conditions, which would be revealed by reflection upon scientific inquiry.

 Rorty tries to recast distinctions (nature & spirit, objectivizing science & reflection, epistemology & hermeneutics) in terms of historical and temporary distinctions between familiar & unfamiliar and normal & abnormal. Allowing us to see them as a distinction between inquiry and the questioning out of which inquiries may or may not emerge Combining advantages of normality with abnormality

 Epistemology is connected to moral commitment (reality, truth, objectivity, reason) Behaviorism within epistemology is to look at normal discourse in a bifocal way:
As patterns adopted for historical reasons As achievement of objective truth or the best explanation we have so far

Practices of justification may take the form of subjective conditions, which are facts about which society or certain groups think as proof or assertion, and are studied by anthropology

 Are these subjective conditions beliefs? They combine common practical imperatives with standard current theory These subjective conditions may change through time, objectivizing their past selves through reflection and making new sentences true to their present lives (is this the process through which taboos about certain people change?)

Rortys conclusions
Transcendentalist explanations are unnecessary, just acceptance of abnormal discourse Everything can be predicted by our minds and thought processes, because we depend on decisions, intentions and choices We cannot go from a pour-soi state to an en-soi state, so the fear of this happening is unjustified Abnormal discourse, the catalyst of the process, may face threats from the stigmas abnormal subject matters or differently treated subject matters hold in society, leisured and free conversation being limited on some scale