The Rorty Discussion with Donald Davidson - Part 2 of 6

An interesting discussion between two great philosophers of the latter half of the 20th century, exploring topics such as truth, meaning and reference. I apologize for the audio sync. It was a problem with the original file (not that it matters much, the video is simply two old men talking).

Richard Rorty (1931-2007) developed a distinctive and controversial brand of pragmatism that expressed itself along two main axes. One is negative—a critical diagnosis of what Rorty takes to be defining projects of modern philosophy. The other is positive—an attempt to show what intellectual culture might look like, once we free ourselves from the governing metaphors of mind and knowledge in which the traditional problems of epistemology and metaphysics (and indeed, in Rorty's view, the self-conception of modern philosophy) are rooted.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rorty/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rorty#Biography

Donald Davidson (1917-2003) was one of the most important philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century. His ideas, presented in a series of essays from the 1960's onwards, have been influential across a range of areas from semantic theory through to epistemology and ethics. Davidson's work exhibits a breadth of approach, as well as a unitary and systematic character, which is unusual within twentieth century analytic philosophy.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/davidson/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Davidson_(philosopher)

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Richard
• Rorty
• Donald
• Davidson
• Quine
• Sellars
• Tarsky
• Dewey
• James
• philosophy
• pragmatism
• truth
• meaning
• reference
• discussion
• realism
• anti-realism
• relativism
• science

[HornyJoeBaloney]

Is it true his middle name is Dork?

[soultorment27]

Why isn't truth a value? Is it not better to have true beliefs rather than false beliefs? I'm not so this relates to any of the Platonic overtones of the notion of truth...

[Krelianx]

I don't understand why we couldn't explain recursive propositional structures not in terms of conceptual acquisition and use, but in terms of natural-causal mechanisms. We wouldn't say a man has a concept of disjunction just because he acts according to the concept; lest we think there is a concept for every potential individuating description of our behavior. We don't need to have concepts to react adequately to concepts. Flies have no concepts but so have recursive behavioral structures.

[zetterberg]

@polymath7 No. Grapling with trying to define the undefinable can be a difficult task. This is Rorty's world view regarding Truth with a captial T. And he does an excellent job of describing why it is in fact a philosophical problem. No doubt he has an outstanding grasp of the English language. But he has admitted historically that he worries some philosophical problems seem to be untenable as opponents can simply 're-define the intellectual landscape'. Thats is why he abandons "T"

[zappafile123]

@polymath7 wow you think philosophy is dead? how po mo of you! come on man, they are arguing about something that is pretty important. moreover its interesting to see such radically different approaches.

just because the socio-cultural impacts of philosophy dont hit you in the face like the forefront of science and technology do, does not mean that it isnt a highly significant endeavor. to discount philosophy is tantamount to dismissing the worth of a vital part of western culture altogether.

[polymath7]

Two parts in, and neither has said a thing.

Not a single goddamn thing.

Nothing.

Not that I was expecting them to, of course.

This harlequin Rorty is absolutely nothing but a verbal juggler, and few people can more sorely can more sorely tempt one to concur with Stephen Hawking's claim that philosophy is dead.

Ah, but I might this discussion more substantive if I knew a knew a great deal *less* philosophical jargon.

[vladaro]

LIAR!!! YOU ARE A RELATIVIST YOU SON OF A B@#$!!!!

[shiningwhiffle]

@cmeast Davidson doesn't reject correspondence *per se*. He says in a number of essays that his issue with the correspondence theory of truth is that it doesn't explain anything because it can't be explained itself, so he prefers to think of statements as simply true or simply false — without defining truth.

[nibus9]

An ANSWER is always governed by a QUESTION..

[riversonthemoon]

"...but of course there is no magical 'Truth' (capital T)"

Yes. We create the standards for truth, and we adjust those standards if they don't work, i.e serve our purposes. In the case of science, our purpose is largely accurate prediction of phenomena, but also satisfactory explanations of them. So in a sense, it is because we like it. We like to see our goals reached, and we like t have more control over reality, and so our standards of truth have been honed for those purposes.