Being in the middle of the process of drafting an account of neo-pragmatism's relevance to design I thought I'd drop something in here. In passing, Richard Shusterman wants to resurrect the pre-linguistic aesthetics referred to by Dewey, which Rorty and peers see as mistaken - I'm not a shustermanian bur perhaps this is something of the spirirt of the debate. Otherwise. A linguistic and pragmatic response to both positions that may satisfy some of these differences may be found here:
First we resist the temptation to find some ideal correspondence between one of the current languages (vocabulary, discourse, metaphor set) that are used in society and Truth (with a capital T) and prefer pragmatic vaue
As long as we think that there is some relation called 'fitting the world' or 'expressing the real nature of the self' which can be possessed or lacked by vocabularies-as-wholes, we shall continue the traditional philosophical search for a criterion to tell us which vocabularies have this desirable feature. But if we could ever become reconciled to the idea that most of reality is indifferent to our descriptions of it, and that the human self is created by the use of a vocabulary rather than being adequately or inadequately expressed in a vocabulary, then we should have at least assimilated what was true in the Romantic idea that truth is made rather than found'
On the (instrumental/social) value of alternative vocabularies and redescription (and imagination I suppose)
I do not think there are any plain moral facts out there in the world, nor any truths independent of language, no any neutral ground on which to stand and argue that eiuther torture or kindness are preferable to the other ... Rather it is a matter of insisting that the kind of thing Orwell and Nabokov both did - sensitizing an audience to cases of cruelty and humiliation which they had not noticed - is not usefully thought of as a matter of stripping away appearance and revealing reality. It is better thought of as a description of what may happen or has been happening -to be compared, not with reality, but with alternative descriptions of the same events'
(Richard Rorty, Contingency, irony and truth)
The last line is a nice juxtaposition of poeisis and theoria
On the non-verbal or pre-linguistic nature of judgements about other people's mental states and emotions
We also say of some people that they are transparent to us. It is, however, important as regards this observation that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. we learn this when we come into a strange country with entirely strange traditions: and, what is more, even given a mastery of the country's language. We do not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves). we cannot find our feet with them.
On thought separate from language
When I think in language there aren't 'meanings' going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions:the language is itself the vehicle of thought. Is thinking a kind of speaking? One would like to say it is what distinguishes speech with thought form talking without thinking - And so it seems to be an accompaniment of speech. A process, which may accompany something else, or can go on by itself.
Wittgenstein
More generally on the overall contingency of scientific and other enterprises and the role of narrative and language in achieving this
scientific papers are polite self-serving fictions in their statements about doing science; they are at best, logical reconstructions after the fact, written under the conceit that fact and argument shape conclusions by their own inexorable demands of reason' (Steven Jay Gould - the richness of life)
Apologies to others who see these as tangential.
Swinburne University of Technology
CRICOS Provider Code: 00111D
NOTICE
This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and intended only for the use of the addressee. They may contain information that is privileged or protected by copyright. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution, printing, copying or use is strictly prohibited. The University does not warrant that this e-mail and any attachments are secure and there is also a risk that it may be corrupted in transmission. It is your responsibility to check any attachments for viruses or defects before opening them. If you have received this transmission in error, please contact us on +61 3 9214 8000 and delete it immediately from your system. We do not accept liability in connection with computer virus, data corruption, delay, interruption, unauthorised access or unauthorised amendment.
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
|