Contingently i-RON-ick

The Idea that we should love Truth is largely responsible for the idea that religious belief is “intellectually irresponsible.” But there is no such thing as the love of Truth. What has been called by that name is a mixture of the love of reaching intersubjective agreement, the love of gaining mastery over a recalcitrant set of data, the love of winning arguments, and the love of synthesizing little theories into big theories. It is never an objection to a religious belief that there is no evidence for it. The only possible objection to it can be that it intrudes an individual project into a social and cooperative project, and thereby offends against the teachings of On Liberty. Such intrusion is a betrayal of one’s responsibilities to cooperate with other human beings, not of one’s responsibility to Truth or to Reason.

There is no such thing as the love of Truth. What has been called by that name is a mixture of the love of reaching intersubjective agreement, gaining mastery over a recalcitrant set of data, winning arguments, and synthesizing little theories into big theories.
PasAA p.34
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Truth

The Idea that we should love Truth is largely responsible for the idea that religious belief is “intellectually irresponsible.” But there is no such thing as the love of Truth. What has been called by that name is a mixture of the love of reaching intersubjective agreement, the love of gaining mastery over a recalcitrant set of data, the love of winning arguments, and the love of synthesizing little theories into big theories. It is never an objection to a religious belief that there is no evidence for it. The only possible objection to it can be that it intrudes an individual project into a social and cooperative project, and thereby offends against the teachings of On Liberty. Such intrusion is a betrayal of one’s responsibilities to cooperate with other human beings, not of one’s responsibility to Truth or to Reason.

The Idea that we should love Truth is largely responsible for the idea that religious belief is “intellectually irresponsible.”
PasAA p.34
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Truth

I have imagined such a non-Platonic and non-exclusivist form of Christianity in order to emphasize that no chain of inference links the ideal of human fraternity to the ideal of escaping from a world of appearance inhabited by animals to a real world in which you will become as gods. Nietzsche and contemporary criticisms of what they call “irrationalism” have been tricked by Plato into believing that, unless there is such a real world, Thrasymachus and Callicles are unanswerable. But they are unanswerable only in the sense that there are no premises to which they must assent simply by virtue of being rational, language-using—and, a fortiori, no premises which would lead them to agree that they should treat all other human beings as brothers and sisters. Christianity as a strong poem, one poem among many, can be as socially useful as Christianity backed up by the Platonist claim that God and Truth are interchangeable terms.

Christianity as a strong poem, one poem among many, can be as socially useful as Christianity backed up by the Platonist claim that God and Truth are interchangeable terms.
PasAA p.32
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Religion

Dewey seems to have been incapable of such connoisseurship, and of any Bataille-like fascination with the extreme. His taste is for the beautiful. His only acknowledgment of the sublime consists in his hope that the contingently produced series of better and better societies will continue indefinitely into an unimaginably better future. This was the hope that that democracy would produce ever more beautiful forms of human cooperation and mutual enjoyment, ever more complex ways of satisfying novel human needs. Dewey relished the imagined spectacle of ever richer, ever more diverse, forms of human fraternity. But he was devoid both of the need to abase himself before authority, and of sympathy with those who find such abasement thrilling. As he saw it, his anti-authoritarianism was a stage in the gradual replacement of a morality of obligation by a morality of love. This is the replacement which, in the West, is thought to have been initiated by certain passages in the New Testament.

Dewey was devoid both of the need to abase himself before authority, and of sympathy with those who find such abasement thrilling.
PasAA p.16
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Antiauthoritarianism

James and Nietzsche did for the word “true” what John Stuart Mill had done for the word “right.” Just as Mill said that there is no ethical motive apart from the desire for the happiness of human beings, so James and Nietzsche say that there is no will to truth distinct from the will to happiness. All three philosophers think that transcendental terms like “true” and “right” gain their meaning from their use, and that their only use is to evaluate human beings’ methods of achieving happiness. Nietzsche, to be sure, had no use for Mill, but this was a result of arrogant ignorance, which resulted in a failure to grasp the difference between Mill and Bentham.

James and Nietzsche did for the word “true” what John Stuart Mill had done for the word “right.”
PasAA p.25
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Truth

James and Nietzsche did for the word “true” what John Stuart Mill had done for the word “right.” Just as Mill said that there is no ethical motive apart from the desire for the happiness of human beings, so James and Nietzsche say that there is no will to truth distinct from the will to happiness. All three philosophers think that transcendental terms like “true” and “right” gain their meaning from their use, and that their only use is to evaluate human beings’ methods of achieving happiness. Nietzsche, to be sure, had no use for Mill, but this was a result of arrogant ignorance, which resulted in a failure to grasp the difference between Mill and Bentham.

Just as Mill said that there is no ethical motive apart from the desire for the happiness of human beings, so James and Nietzsche say that there is no will to truth distinct from the will to happiness.
PasAA p.25
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Truth

Dewey seems to have been incapable of such connoisseurship, and of any Bataille-like fascination with the extreme. His taste is for the beautiful. His only acknowledgment of the sublime consists in his hope that the contingently produced series of better and better societies will continue indefinitely into an unimaginably better future. This was the hope that that democracy would produce ever more beautiful forms of human cooperation and mutual enjoyment, ever more complex ways of satisfying novel human needs. Dewey relished the imagined spectacle of ever richer, ever more diverse, forms of human fraternity. But he was devoid both of the need to abase himself before authority, and of sympathy with those who find such abasement thrilling. As he saw it, his anti-authoritarianism was a stage in the gradual replacement of a morality of obligation by a morality of love. This is the replacement which, in the West, is thought to have been initiated by certain passages in the New Testament.

As Dewey saw it, his anti-authoritarianism was a stage in the gradual replacement of a morality of obligation by a morality of love. This is the replacement which, in the West, is thought to have been initiated by certain passages in the New Testament.
PasAA p.16
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Love

Dewey seems to have been incapable of such connoisseurship, and of any Bataille-like fascination with the extreme. His taste is for the beautiful. His only acknowledgment of the sublime consists in his hope that the contingently produced series of better and better societies will continue indefinitely into an unimaginably better future. This was the hope that that democracy would produce ever more beautiful forms of human cooperation and mutual enjoyment, ever more complex ways of satisfying novel human needs. Dewey relished the imagined spectacle of ever richer, ever more diverse, forms of human fraternity. But he was devoid both of the need to abase himself before authority, and of sympathy with those who find such abasement thrilling. As he saw it, his anti-authoritarianism was a stage in the gradual replacement of a morality of obligation by a morality of love. This is the replacement which, in the West, is thought to have been initiated by certain passages in the New Testament.

Dewey’s taste is for the beautiful. His only acknowledgment of the sublime consists in his hope that the contingently produced series of better and better societies will continue indefinitely into an unimaginably better future.
PasAA p.16
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#BeautyVsSublimity

Dewey seems to have been incapable of such connoisseurship, and of any Bataille-like fascination with the extreme. His taste is for the beautiful. His only acknowledgment of the sublime consists in his hope that the contingently produced series of better and better societies will continue indefinitely into an unimaginably better future. This was the hope that that democracy would produce ever more beautiful forms of human cooperation and mutual enjoyment, ever more complex ways of satisfying novel human needs. Dewey relished the imagined spectacle of ever richer, ever more diverse, forms of human fraternity. But he was devoid both of the need to abase himself before authority, and of sympathy with those who find such abasement thrilling. As he saw it, his anti-authoritarianism was a stage in the gradual replacement of a morality of obligation by a morality of love. This is the replacement which, in the West, is thought to have been initiated by certain passages in the New Testament.

Dewey hoped that democracy would produce ever more beautiful forms of human cooperation and mutual enjoyment, ever more complex ways of satisfying novel human needs. Dewey relished the imagined spectacle of ever richer, ever more diverse, forms of human fraternity.
PasAA p.16
#Rorty
#Democracy

I have discussed elsewhere James’ and Dewey’s solutions to the problem of reconciling science with theology, and have argued that Dewey was more successful than James in purifying religion of the appeal to authority (4). This was, I think, because James got a kick out of sublimity—out of the sense of limitlessness—whereas Dewey did not. James, in his Varieties of Religious Experience, is a connoisseur of unusual experiences. His reaction to report of the rapture of the soul is like his reaction to the experience of the San Francisco earthquake of 1907: he wanted the earthquake to become more intense, to show what it could really do. Dewey seems to have been incapable of such connoisseurship, and of any Bataille-like fascination with the extreme. His taste is for the beautiful.

Dewey was more successful than James in purifying religion of the appeal to authority. This was, I think, because James got a kick out of sublimity—out of the sense of limitlessness—whereas Dewey did not.
PasAA p.15
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Antiauthoritarianism
[Quote for 2026-02-18, posted belatedly.]

Houseguest Just Going To Lie There Until Rest Of House Wakes Up

Houseguest Just Going To Lie There Until Rest Of House Wakes Up https://theonion.com/houseguest-just-going-to-lie-there-until-rest-of-house-1819571350/

There is a useful analogy to be drawn between the pragmatists’ criticism of the idea that truth is a matter of correspondence to the intrinsic nature of reality and the Enlightenment’s criticism of the idea that morality is a matter of correspondence to the will of a Divine Being. The pragmatists’ anti-representationalist account of belief is, among other things, a protest against the idea that human beings must humble themselves before something non-human, whether the Will of God or the Intrinsic Nature of Reality. Seeing anti-representationalism as a version of anti-authoritarianism permits one to appreciate an analogy which was central to John Dewey’s thought: the analogy between ceasing to believe in Sin and ceasing to accept the distinction between Reality and Appearance.

Seeing anti-representationalism as a version of anti-authoritarianism permits one to appreciate an analogy which was central to John Dewey’s thought: the analogy between ceasing to believe in Sin and ceasing to accept the distinction between Reality and Appearance.
PasAA p.1
#Antiauthoritarianism

There is a useful analogy to be drawn between the pragmatists’ criticism of the idea that truth is a matter of correspondence to the intrinsic nature of reality and the Enlightenment’s criticism of the idea that morality is a matter of correspondence to the will of a Divine Being. The pragmatists’ anti-representationalist account of belief is, among other things, a protest against the idea that human beings must humble themselves before something non-human, whether the Will of God or the Intrinsic Nature of Reality. Seeing anti-representationalism as a version of anti-authoritarianism permits one to appreciate an analogy which was central to John Dewey’s thought: the analogy between ceasing to believe in Sin and ceasing to accept the distinction between Reality and Appearance.

The pragmatists’ anti-representationalist account of belief is a protest against the idea that human beings must humble themselves before something non-human, whether the Will of God or the Intrinsic Nature of Reality.
PasAA p.1
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Antiauthoritarianism

Dewey, like James, was a utilitarian: he thought that in the end the only moral or epistemological criteria we have or need is whether performing an action, or holding a belief, will, in the long run, make for greater human happiness. He saw progress as produced by increasing willingness to experiment, to get out from under the past. So he hoped we should learn to view current scientific, religious, philosophical, and moral beliefs with the skepticism with which Bentham viewed the laws of England: he hoped each new generation would try to cobble together some more useful beliefs—beliefs which would help them make human life richer, fuller, and happier.

Dewey hoped each new generation would try to cobble together some more useful beliefs—beliefs which would help them make human life richer, fuller, and happier.
PasAA p.3
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Dewey

There is a useful analogy to be drawn between the pragmatists’ criticism of the idea that truth is a matter of correspondence to the intrinsic nature of reality and the Enlightenment’s criticism of the idea that morality is a matter of correspondence to the will of a Divine Being. The pragmatists’ anti-representationalist account of belief is, among other things, a protest against the idea that human beings must humble themselves before something non-human, whether the Will of God or the Intrinsic Nature of Reality. Seeing anti-representationalism as a version of anti-authoritarianism permits one to appreciate an analogy which was central to John Dewey’s thought: the analogy between ceasing to believe in Sin and ceasing to accept the distinction between Reality and Appearance.

There is a useful analogy to be drawn between the pragmatists’ criticism of the idea that truth is a matter of correspondence [MOC] to the intrinsic nature of reality and the Enlightenment’s criticism of the idea that morality is a MOC to the will of a Divine Being.
PasAA p.1
#Rorty
#Truth

Dewey, like James, was a utilitarian: he thought that in the end the only moral or epistemological criteria we have or need is whether performing an action, or holding a belief, will, in the long run, make for greater human happiness. He saw progress as produced by increasing willingness to experiment, to get out from under the past. So he hoped we should learn to view current scientific, religious, philosophical, and moral beliefs with the skepticism with which Bentham viewed the laws of England: he hoped each new generation would try to cobble together some more useful beliefs—beliefs which would help them make human life richer, fuller, and happier.

Dewey saw progress as produced by increasing willingness to experiment, to get out from under the past.
PasAA p.3
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Dewey

Dewey, like James, was a utilitarian: he thought that in the end the only moral or epistemological criteria we have or need is whether performing an action, or holding a belief, will, in the long run, make for greater human happiness. He saw progress as produced by increasing willingness to experiment, to get out from under the past. So he hoped we should learn to view current scientific, religious, philosophical, and moral beliefs with the skepticism with which Bentham viewed the laws of England: he hoped each new generation would try to cobble together some more useful beliefs—beliefs which would help them make human life richer, fuller, and happier.

Dewey, like James, was a utilitarian: he thought that in the end the only moral or epistemological criteria we have or need is whether performing an action, or holding a belief, will, in the long run, make for greater human happiness.
PasAA p.3
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Dewey

Since these lectures cover quite a wide variety of topics and philosophical debates, it may be tempting to think of them as offering a philosophical system. But pragmatists should not offer systems. To be consistent with our own account of philosophical progress, we pragmatists must be content to offer suggestions about how to patch things up, how to adjust things to each other, how to rearrange them into slightly more useful patterns. That is what I hope to have done in these lectures. I see myself as having shifted a few pieces around on the philosophical chess-board, rather than as having answered any deep questions or produced any elevating thoughts.

To be consistent with our own account of philosophical progress, we pragmatists must be content to offer suggestions about how to patch things up, how to adjust things to each other, how to rearrange them into slightly more useful patterns.
PasAA p.xxxv
#Pragmatism
#Rorty

Since these lectures cover quite a wide variety of topics and philosophical debates, it may be tempting to think of them as offering a philosophical system. But pragmatists should not offer systems. To be consistent with our own account of philosophical progress, we pragmatists must be content to offer suggestions about how to patch things up, how to adjust things to each other, how to rearrange them into slightly more useful patterns. That is what I hope to have done in these lectures. I see myself as having shifted a few pieces around on the philosophical chess-board, rather than as having answered any deep questions or produced any elevating thoughts.

It may be tempting to think of these lectures as offering a philosophical system. But pragmatists should not offer systems.
PasAA p.xxxv
#Pragmatism
#Rorty

The second lecture in this pair—“Against Depth”—says that if we are pan-relationalists we shall see everything on, so to speak, a single horizontal plane. We shall not search for the sublime either high above, or deep beneath, this plane. We shall instead move things about, rearrange them so as to highlight their relations to other things, in the hope of finding ever more useful, and therefore ever more beautiful, patterns. From this point of view, great intellectual achievements (Newton’s laws, Hegel’s system) are not categorically different from small technical achievements (getting the pieces to fit together neatly in a piece of cabinetry, getting the colors of the landscape to harmonize in a watercolor, finding a reasonable political compromise between conflicting interests).

From the pan-relationalist point of view, great intellectual achievements (Hegel’s system) are not categorically different from small technical achievements (getting the pieces to fit together neatly in a piece of cabinetry).
PasAA p.xxxiv
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Panrelationalism

The second lecture in this pair—“Against Depth”—says that if we are pan-relationalists we shall see everything on, so to speak, a single horizontal plane. We shall not search for the sublime either high above, or deep beneath, this plane. We shall instead move things about, rearrange them so as to highlight their relations to other things, in the hope of finding ever more useful, and therefore ever more beautiful, patterns. From this point of view, great intellectual achievements (Newton’s laws, Hegel’s system) are not categorically different from small technical achievements (getting the pieces to fit together neatly in a piece of cabinetry, getting the colors of the landscape to harmonize in a watercolor, finding a reasonable political compromise between conflicting interests).

We pan-relationalists move things about, rearrange them so as to highlight their relations to other things, in the hope of finding ever more useful, and therefore ever more beautiful, patterns.
PasAA p.xxxiv
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Panrelationalism

The second lecture in this pair—“Against Depth”—says that if we are pan-relationalists we shall see everything on, so to speak, a single horizontal plane. We shall not search for the sublime either high above, or deep beneath, this plane. We shall instead move things about, rearrange them so as to highlight their relations to other things, in the hope of finding ever more useful, and therefore ever more beautiful, patterns. From this point of view, great intellectual achievements (Newton’s laws, Hegel’s system) are not categorically different from small technical achievements (getting the pieces to fit together neatly in a piece of cabinetry, getting the colors of the landscape to harmonize in a watercolor, finding a reasonable political compromise between conflicting interests).

If we are pan-relationalists we shall see everything on, so to speak, a single horizontal plane. We shall not search for the sublime either high above, or deep beneath, this plane.
PasAA p.xxxiv
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Panrelationalism

The third pair of lectures turns…to what might, somewhat misleadingly, be called metaphysics. In “Panrelationalism” I argue that a lot of the best recent philosophy can be summed up as an attempt to get rid of the substance-accident and essence-accident distinctions by claiming that nothing can have a self-identity, a nature, apart from its relations to other things. I argue that a thing has as many identities as there are relational contexts into which it can be put. This suggestion chimes with my suggestion (in an essay called “Inquiry as Recontextualization” which I published some years ago) that there is no such thing as “the correct context” in which to read a text, place a person, or explain an event. Rather, there are as many such contexts as there are human purposes. For the same reason, there is no such thing as the correct description of anything: there are only the descriptions which, by relating it to other things, put it in contexts which serve our current, varied, needs.

There is no such thing as the correct description of anything: there are only the descriptions which, by relating it to other things, put it in contexts which serve our current, varied, needs.
PasAA p.xxxiv
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Panrelationalism

turns out when Bezos suggested "democracy dies in darkness" it was a goal, not a slogan

The third pair of lectures turns…to what might, somewhat misleadingly, be called metaphysics. In “Panrelationalism” I argue that a lot of the best recent philosophy can be summed up as an attempt to get rid of the substance-accident and essence-accident distinctions by claiming that nothing can have a self-identity, a nature, apart from its relations to other things. I argue that a thing has as many identities as there are relational contexts into which it can be put. This suggestion chimes with my suggestion (in an essay called “Inquiry as Recontextualization” which I published some years ago) that there is no such thing as “the correct context” in which to read a text, place a person, or explain an event. Rather, there are as many such contexts as there are human purposes. For the same reason, there is no such thing as the correct description of anything: there are only the descriptions which, by relating it to other things, put it in contexts which serve our current, varied, needs.

There is no such thing as “the correct context” in which to read a text, place a person, or explain an event. Rather, there are as many such contexts as there are human purposes.
PasAA p.xxxiv
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Panrelationalism

Contemplating this failure helps one realize that philosophy is what is left over after one has bracketed both common sense and all the various expert cultures. It was never supposed to be such a culture. Whenever it has attempted to become one it has degenerated into scholasticism, into controversies which are of no interest to anyone outside the philosophical profession. The idea that either literary criticism or philosophy should become an expert culture is a result of unfortunate attempts to squeeze these areas of culture into a university system tailored to the needs of lawyers, physicians, and natural scientists.

The idea that either literary criticism or philosophy should become an expert culture is a result of unfortunate attempts to squeeze these areas of culture into a university system tailored to the needs of lawyers, physicians, and natural scientists.
PCP p.125
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Philosophy

The third pair of lectures turns…to what might, somewhat misleadingly, be called metaphysics. In “Panrelationalism” I argue that a lot of the best recent philosophy can be summed up as an attempt to get rid of the substance-accident and essence-accident distinctions by claiming that nothing can have a self-identity, a nature, apart from its relations to other things. I argue that a thing has as many identities as there are relational contexts into which it can be put. This suggestion chimes with my suggestion (in an essay called “Inquiry as Recontextualization” which I published some years ago) that there is no such thing as “the correct context” in which to read a text, place a person, or explain an event. Rather, there are as many such contexts as there are human purposes. For the same reason, there is no such thing as the correct description of anything: there are only the descriptions which, by relating it to other things, put it in contexts which serve our current, varied, needs.

A thing has as many identities as there are relational contexts into which it can be put.
PasAA p.xxxiv
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Panrelationalism

From the point of view taken in these lectures, the attempt to make sublimity central to reflection on the human future is as dangerous as making God, or Sin, or Truth central to such reflection. As I see it, philosophy should treat the quest for the unconditioned, the infinite, the transcendent and the sublime as a natural human tendency—one which Freud has helped us understand. We should see it, as Freud saw the sublimation of sexual desire, as a precondition for certain striking individual achievements. But we should not see it as relevant to our public, socio-political, cultural prospects.

The attempt to make sublimity central to reflection on the human future is as dangerous as making God, or Sin, or Truth central to such reflection.
PasAA p.(xxxi)
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Sublimity

In the spirit of Dewey, we should see these institutions as tools to be justified by their success in getting certain finite jobs done, rather than as instantiations of eternal truths. Moral and political principles should be viewed as abbreviations for narratives of successful use of tools, summaries of the results of successful experiments, rather than as insights into the nature of anything large (Society, or History, or Humanity). We should be as suspicious of attempts to ground political proposals on large theories of the Nature of Modernity as we are of attempts to ground them on the Will of God.

Moral & political principles should be viewed as abbreviations for narratives of successful use of tools, summaries of the results of successful experiments, rather than as insights into the nature of anything large (Society, History, or Humanity).
PasAA p.xxxiii
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#PublicVsPrivate

The third pair of lectures turns…to what might, somewhat misleadingly, be called metaphysics. In “Panrelationalism” I argue that a lot of the best recent philosophy can be summed up as an attempt to get rid of the substance-accident and essence-accident distinctions by claiming that nothing can have a self-identity, a nature, apart from its relations to other things. I argue that a thing has as many identities as there are relational contexts into which it can be put. This suggestion chimes with my suggestion (in an essay called “Inquiry as Recontextualization” which I published some years ago) that there is no such thing as “the correct context” in which to read a text, place a person, or explain an event. Rather, there are as many such contexts as there are human purposes. For the same reason, there is no such thing as the correct description of anything: there are only the descriptions which, by relating it to other things, put it in contexts which serve our current, varied, needs.

A lot of the best recent philosophy can be summed up as an attempt to get rid of the substance-accident and essence-accident distinctions by claiming that nothing can have a self-identity, a nature, apart from its relations to other things.
PasAA p.xxxiii
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Panrelationalism