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Title: Debating the State of Philosophy by Jozef Niznik, John T. Sanders ISBN: 0-275-95835-3 Publisher: Praeger Paperback Pub. Date: 30 October, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Hope in Habermas
Comment: ....
In the first few pages, Jurgen Habermas delivers a helpful picture of the historical emergence of rational thinking from preceding mythical worldviews and the debate which then ensued between Platonism (rational, ideal forms of thought) and anti-Platonism (relative, contingent skepticism) that continues to this day. He demonstrates how a flux between the two sort of generates a need for the other, but also why anti-Platonism (like Rorty's relativism and Derrida's deconstruction of today) can never deliver a legitimate, conclusive argument against the necessity of Platonic idealism.
Habermas' argument in a nutshell, quoted here from page 4:
"The practice of criticizing Platonist pseudo-objects moves within a conceptual frame and employs conceptual means which in turn cannot be deconstructed without depriving anti-Platonism of it's own critical sting. The radical attempt to do away with any abstraction, idealization, or concept of truth, knowledge, and reality that transcends the local 'hic et nunc' would run into performative contradictions."
In other words, deconstructive critique operates from a rational, metaphysical premise of thought, even if that premise is obscured by labyrinthine linguistics (the critique requires a rational frame of mind to recognize the critique).
The point is not that relativism is always a worthless concept, but that idealized forms of thought can never be done away with because they are in fact a necessary premise of human communication. Therefore we ought to work toward mutual understanding and definition of ideas than destroying them. This is the basis of Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action, which tries to direct philosophy away from divisive moral relativism and toward enlightened intersubjective responsibility.
Rating: 4
Summary: Does neo-pragmatism represent the future for philosophy?
Comment: The debate held in Warsaw is, in essence, a valiant defense by Rorty of the merits of American anti Platonism. Habermas, Kolakowski and Gellner offer criticism of Rorty's "relativism," but none of them are able (except perhaps Gellner in his brief and insightful American history narrative) to compete with Rorty's style, confidence, and multi-textual brilliance. Is Philosophy dead? Rorty's case presumes that the realization of the Platonic myth of "finding" knowledge requires an embracing of pragmatic utility towards a unified global community, and a better existence. Rorty's case is, as he admits, a romantic one. In addition, several of his thoughts delve frighteningly further into extreme liberalism as to partly dissociate himself from moderate pragmatists such as Quine and James. Yet the dry, albeit insightful, arguments of Habermas and the occasionally obtuse criticisms by Kolakowski are unable to sway the impetus of persuasion away from Rorty. Rorty, in my mind, wins this debate--if it can be won at all. This does not, however, imply that the intellectual realm is abandoned. To the contrary, as Rorty asserts, it means much of the work has yet to begin.
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Title: Richard Rorty by Charles Guignon, David R. Hiley ISBN: 0521804892 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Pragmatism, Postmodernism and the Future of Philosophy (Routledge American Philosophy Series (RAPS)) by John J. Stuhr ISBN: 0415939682 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: December, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Beyond Realism and Antirealism: John Dewey and the Neopragmatists (The Vanderbilt Library of American Philosophy) by David L. Hildebrand ISBN: 0826514278 Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) by Jurgen Habermas, Frederick Lawrence ISBN: 0262581027 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 14 March, 1990 List Price(USD): $32.95 |
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Title: Phenomenology of Spirit by G. W. F. Hegel, A.V. Miller ISBN: 0198245971 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1979 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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