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Richard Rorty Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1980). Pp. xv + 401.

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Richard Rorty Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1980). Pp. xv + 401.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Bruce Hunter
Bruce Hunter*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
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Critical Notice
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 1982 , pp. 621 - 645
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1982

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References

1 Cf. Kuhn's notion of a disciplinary matrix, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd edn. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1970) 187ff.

2 Sellars, Wilfrid Science, Perception, and Reality (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963) 169Google Scholar

3 Popkin, Richard The History of Scepticism From Erasmus to Descartes (New York 1964) 88Google Scholar

4 Sextus Empiricus, Volume I, The Outlines of Pyrrhonism, trans. by R.G. Bury (London 1957) 161. See alsop. 17.

5 Ibid., 213-83

6 Ibid., 199

7 Popkin, 121-3

8 Why, one might ask, is modern philosophy epistemology-centred in a way in which ancient and medieval philosophy were not? My ignorance, not Just of the history of philosophy, but more importantly, of political, social and religious history prevents me from more than speculation. The Greeks were interested in epistemological issues as Plato and Sextus testify. Remember that Sextus is Just a 'textbook’ summation of other philosophers. Our perception of Greek philosophy sometimes is blinded by ‘defining’ its concerns as those shared by its greats, Plato and Aristotle. Since the latter wasn't much interested in epistemological concerns, they are left out of our ‘definition’ of Greek philosophy. However they weren't nearly as central in ancient philosophy as in modern philosophy because Luther's questioning of traditional religious authority shook the foundations of Christian civilization as no similar questioning of authority (e.g. of the oracle of Delphi) could shake ancient civilization. Medieval philosophy arose from religious concerns. The chief preReformation religious issues (the ones Christians slaughtered each other over and betrayed each other to the Arabs over) were metaphysical, e.g. the divinity of Christ, bodily resurrection, the Trinity. Metaphysics-centred religious issues and the application of Greek metaphysics to these issues naturally led to an interest in metaphysics as such and metaphysics-centred philosophy. The crux of Luther's questions, however, was epistemological. His questioning of authority extended to other areas of culture as the tremors of a major earthquake in the centre of a region are felt everywhere in the region. The effects are still being felt today in every area of culture. Epistemology-centred issues and the application of Greek epistemology to them naturally led to an interest in epistemology as such and epistemology-centred philosophy. Thus the most important question is Why did Luther and the Reformers ask the question and why did so many Christians take them up on it?’ An answer to this question, if it ever comes, will be far too mundane to touch on the issue between Rorty and myself. The story which I have outlined is perfectly consistent with an anti-Kuhnian perspective on the history of philosophy, as I have argued above. At the very end of his book, Rorty admits that epistemology is not Just ‘an episode in the history of European culture’ (390) peculiar to modern culture, but, instead, modern philosophy is Just ‘where the search for foundations of knowledge is most explicit’ (390). This vacillation amounts to abandoning his Kuhnian perspective on the history of philosophy, which is described in the opening sections above and which Rorty frequently announces throughout the course of his book.

9 My examples are sometimes too crude to attribute accurately to the philosophers cited and hide significant differences among them. They are, I think, roughly attributable to them and serve for purposes of illustration.

10 Quine, W.V. Word and Object, (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press 1960), 221Google Scholar

11 Quine, ‘Epistemology Naturalized,’ in his Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York 1969) 87CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 For example, it may be beyond reasonable doubt to a Jury that Jones killed Smith and thus warranted assertible by its members, but not by Brown who has contrary information about Jones’ whereabouts, which he won't reveal because he wants Jones out of the way. Gettier cases supply others.

13 Sellars, Science 164, 169-70Google Scholar

14 Sellars, Science, 160Google Scholar

15 See Sellars, Science, 167·70

16 Donald Davidson, Thought and Talk,’ in Guttenplan, S. ed., Mind and Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1975)Google Scholar

17 More traditional foundationalists might claim that I am Justified in believing that a green object is before me because I am non-inferentially Justified in believing that I am presented with a sense impression of green and what non-inferentially Justifies me in believing so is some non-epistemic fact.

18 Sellars, ‘The Structure of Knowledge,’ in Hector-Neri Castañeda, ed., Action, Knowledge, and Reality (New York 1975) 337Google Scholar

19 This point was made in my Ph.D. thesis, ‘Empiricism and the Foundations of Empirical Knowledge,’ Brown University (1975), p. 78, and, independently and more clearly, by Bonnie Thurston at the C.P.A. meetings, Halifax, 1981, in a colloquium in which, as a respondent, I suggested ways in which Sellars might avoid the problem. One way out is to deny that knowing that there is a green object before one presupposes knowing that one has Just tokened ‘this is green.' However, this amounts to denying Rorty's thesis about Justification because one will then no longer be in a position to Justify claiming ‘this is green’ since one lacks knowledge of one of the premises of the Justifying inference. Furthermore an often stressed element of Sellars’ behaviourist account of knowledge disappears. When we have non-inferential knowledge of a green object before us we must be in the same epistemic (not causal) position with respect to ourselves as others are with respect to themselves when they know that there is a green object before us by inferring it from their knowledge that we have uttered ‘this is green.’ This will no longer be true. It might be replied that we can Justify our claim because we can know that we have Just tokened ‘this is green’ and if we were to know this, we could construct the Justifying inference. However, the foundationalist can say as much. There are certain facts which we can know and if we were to know them, we could construct Justifying inferences for basic beliefs. In either case, even if we don't know these things, and so aren't in an epistemic position to Justify our beliefs, they are nonetheless Justified.

20 Sellars, ‘Structure,’ 319, 322-3

21 Chisholm, R.M. ‘Sentences about Believing,’ in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume II (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1958).Google Scholar Whether the arguments would be any good without Rorty's alleged conflation is, of course, a different matter.

22 Thomas Nagel, What it is like to be a Bat,’ Philosophical Review, 1974. Rorty asks, ‘How can we get from the fact that knowing Martian physiology does not help us to translate what the Martian says when we damage his tissues to the claim that he has got something immaterial we haven't got’ (29). However Nagel's argument is: if we don't understand what it is like to be a Martian by understanding Martian physiology and they don't understand what it is like to be one of us by understanding our physiology, then, since (by assumption) we share the same ‘objective’ knowledge of physiology with the Martians, we don't understand what it is like to be one of us by understanding our physiology and similarly for themselves. The only objection is the one I go on to discuss.

23 Since the parties are Justified, the issue is not ‘non-cognitive,’ as Rorty suggests. Also, of course, since the parties’ conflicting claims can't both be true, the claims can't both be cases of knowledge.

24 A similar argument was presented at Jasper, April 1981, by Brian Loar.

25 Roderick Firth, ‘Are Epistemic Concepts Reducible to Ethical Concepts?’ in Goldman, A. and Kim, J. eds. Values and Morals (Dordrecht: D. Reidel 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 E.g. Moore, G.E. ‘Four Forms of Scepticism’ in his Philosophical Papers (London: Allen and Unwin 1959)Google Scholar

27 Sellars, ‘More on Givenness and Explanatory Coherence,’ in Pappas, G. ed., Justification and Knowledge, (Dordrecht: D. Reidel 1979) 179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar As if recoiling from full-fledged holism, Sellars seeks an objective ground for epistemic principles in the ‘necessary connection between being in the framework for epistemic evaluation and being agents.’ Agency has as an end, ‘being in a general position so far as in us lies, to act, i.e. to bring about changes in ourselves and our environment, in order to realize specific purposes.’ This end requires espousing certain patterns of reasoning, namely, those involved in the establishing of statistical hypotheses, laws, and theories, and relying on introspective, perceptual, and memory reports. Unless these patterns and reports are reliable, ‘the concept of effective agency has no application.’ Rorty would object to this quasi-transcendental argument by questioning whether there is such a thing as ‘the’ concept of effective agency, and thus any interesting constraints on epistemic principles to be espoused. This is Just a different form of the objection I consider.

28 Rorty often links being hermeneutical with having a knowledge and a sense of history. Yet Hume was no slouch at acquiring either, and his sense told him, 'The more things change, the more they remain the same.’ Rorty shares Dilthey's opposite historicist sense. Neither is straightforwardly dictated by a knowledge of history.