Materialist, are you? Forget objective reality, then.

[thrasymachus]

Terrapin Station wrote

You're just not going to stop the logorrhea no matter what, and you never really address anything, so I guess I should go back to the tactic of stopping as soon as there's a problem in a post:

Patently not true. I do not fail to address questions.

Regarding my "causality is about everything":

If I write a book about Iowa, where my book has nothing to do with Paris, my book isn't about Paris.

If Joe Smith later writes a book about Paris, he might have a chapter that gets into a discussion about my book about Iowa. So his book is partially about my book. Well, that would be fine and dandy, but it has no logical implication as to whether my book is about Paris.

So that x is about y has no implication for whether y is about x.

If the materialist position is right, then independently of my (a person's) thoughts and experiences, it can be affirmed that P exists as a body in space and time, and this space and time is not a subjective condition, but an objective state of affairs that does not depend on my affirming it or disaffirming it.There is a universe with planets and stars and atoms and quarks, and no one has to perceive it for it to be there.

As to you refutation of the universality and apriority of causality, why do you talk about a "logical implication"?? Do you mean a causal connection? I assume you do. And the same goes for "no implication". You mean, no causal connection, right?

I don't see the point, really. If you wrote about Iowa, Smith read your book and discusses it, clearly, your writing is causally connected to his discussing your writing. You wrote it, it was published, distributed to bookstores, he picked it up, etc. As to the thematic content, the aboutness of the two texts, Smith's on Paris, yours on Iowa is what is at issue, right? If everything is physical, then ideas are physical, and they conform to the principle of causality like everything else.

Materialism isn't about causality because one can be a materialist but think that causality doesn't even obtain. A materialist might think that everything is really random but that we have illusions of patterns. Or a materialist might think that everything happens simply as some wizard's whims. Any number of beliefs could be the case. None of those quirky beliefs would imply that the person in question isn't a materialist.

Causality isn't about patterns. It is the basis for randomness. One can think that causal mechanics implies that one could predict, if all were known about all causal relations, the future, and such a prediction defies randomness, but this doesn't work.

[thrasymachus]

Consul wrote
By "out there" I mean "not part of the experiential content of my consciousness", so the things "out there" are nonexperiences. (It follows that all nonconscious mental occurrences are "out there" too.)
Non conscious mental occurrences, that is, non occurrent, as in, I am not having an experience of mental event X right now, but X can be confirmed all the same. The confirmationwould be pragmatic, only though, meaning, to confirm it is to acknowledge that doing so works.

Such is the life of all known things, for in the occurrent knowing, what is constitutive of the fleeting now is an antecedent predelineation that becomes a future. But since it is absent, such predelineations are essentially "out there"; indeed, even the occurrent experience is out there. Nothing is pin downable.
I would say this puts knowledge in an entirely different light. The very generative foundations for it never given, and everything issues from "out there". Of course, there is a lot written about this, only it is called transcendence. Taken this seriously enough, and one realizes one's epistemic foundations are "no where' at all.

Of course, none of this may be up your alley.

[thrasymachus]

Consul wrote
By "out there" I mean "not part of the experiential content of my consciousness", so the things "out there" are nonexperiences. (It follows that all nonconscious mental occurrences are "out there" too.)

Non conscious mental occurrences, that is, non occurrent, as in, I am not having an experience of mental event X right now, but X can be confirmed all the same. The confirmationwould be pragmatic, only though, meaning, to confirm it is to acknowledge that doing so works.

Such is the life of all known things, for in the occurrent knowing, what is constitutive of the fleeting now is an antecedent predelineation that becomes a future. But since it is absent, such predelineations are essentially "out there"; indeed, even the occurrent experience is out there. Nothing is pin downable.
I would say this puts knowledge in an entirely different light. The very generative foundations for it never given, and everything issues from "out there". Of course, there is a lot written about this, only it is called transcendence. Taken this seriously enough, and one realizes one's epistemic foundations are "no where' at all.

Of course, none of this may be up your alley.

[Atla]

Like I said, I probably know more than most simply because I took a lot of courses. Maybe not. But this has no real bearing whatever on this matter.

Okay, sorry for the word "assertoric". But don't blame it on Kant.

I wish you would simply do what the problem asks of you and forget what a scientist might say. Such a person cares nothing about philosophical ontology. Nothing.

Many scientists do care about it a lot, they are usually just bad at it. Rather insulting towards them I'd say.

It is about what physics presupposes, which is a theory of material things and efficient cause.

Technically, materialism presupposes material things, not physics.
I'm not even a materialist, for example I understand perfectly well that 'matter' is just an empty made-up concept that some Greeks who were really high, came up with. Matter is not actually valid ontology in that sense.
And yet I see physics work just fine anyway, it merely has to be reinterpreted.

You think science has the final word in all explanatory matters, but where science's basic assumptions are the things in question science is simply out. Kaputz! Nada! If you talk about biology, you assume exactly what needs to be examined in this matter!

I don't think that science has the final word, but I do think that the best and most likely ontological explanations (our best bet) should to be consistent with all scientific finds.

1) There you are and you know the cat is on the couch. You "know" this.

No, I don't "know" it. I assume that this is the most likely way how the world is.

2) For S to know P, P at least has to show up for S. It is the presence of P that makes knowledge what it is. If I ask you if it is raining, and you say yes, and I ask you how do you "know" and you say because you looked out the window and saw that it was raining, then we have here a perfect model of knowing, confirmed by witnessing that which is known. Knowing lies within the confirmation, and confirmation lies with the witnessing, the observing, in empirical cases of knowing.

For the nth time:
YOU seem to live in a world of wishful thinking, where you can't accept that the outside world object will never show up in your head. Therefore the kind of knowledge you require is impossible. A certain leap of faith, the above assumption is always inherent in it.

YOU have the wrong idea of 'knowledge'. P does not have to show up to be 'known'. That doesn't mean that P doesn't exist.

Everyone keeps saying it, when will you finally address this?

When we question this assumption, we find the cat "out there" in the physicalist sense of the term, is lost altogether in the process.

What are you talking about, honestly. We do find the cat to be "out there", although the above assume is always inherent in everything we do.

We are many pages in and I still can't figure out what your actual argument against materialism is.

[Terrapin Station]

I'm hesitant to answer more than one point in this post, since that's just going to encourage you to type more, but since we'll never get back to the other stuff otherwise . . .

This is because we have two standards in play here. One is in the everyday out thereness of things, and out there is a relative term: out of what, exactly? It could be out of this room, out of Nebraska. No one would dream of questioning how well this idea works in ours daily lives or that there is genuine perceptual foundation for it. The other has to do with what "out there" means when discussing philosophical ontology.

Conventionally what we're talking about is stuff that's external to our bodies. If one believes there are such things, one is a realist. That might be an unfortunate term, but that's the conventional term for it.

This second guessing is not unfamiliar at all. Einstein said space bends, but in everyday talk, such a thing is absurd. Is light waves or particles? In physics, a valid question, but in everyday talk, light is just light. Philosophical idealism recognizes that our normal world is what it is, and nothing changes in the philosophical inquiry. We still pay bills, go to restaurants; but if you ask the technical question about confirming a reality independently of the mind's concepts, rationality, and experience, "out there'becomes radically re-contextualized.

On my view, if one making a distinction between one's theorizing and one's everyday way of being/doing/thinking, one is doing one side or the other of that equation wrong.

A few comments on your analysis: a) It is not just belief, but knowledge.

And indeed I didn't say anything like "it's just belief." There are three components. I characterized all three. Belief is just one component.

Belief is weaker, for one can believe but then, not know P. Knowledge requires P to be true in the traditional analysis

This makes me wonder if you're really reading what I'm writing. It seems like you are not. Hence one reason why we should try to not write so much.

My position is that one never ever gets beyond the justification at all

"Beyond justification" ??? What in the world are you talking about?

c) Things being external to S is an essential part of physicalism.

Here comes Joe. He believes that only his body (including his mind) exists. And Joe has the unusual belief that the entire universe is only his body. Joe also believes that (a) his body is solely comprised of things that are physical, and (b) that all of the physical stuff that comprises his body has mental properties.

So Joe is not only a physicalist, but he's also a panpsychist and an ontological solipsist. Which of course means that Joe is a physicalist who believes that there is nothing external to his self.

[Terrapin Station]

If the materialist position is right, then independently of my (a person's) thoughts and experiences, it can be affirmed that P exists as a body in space and time,

First off, nothing can be affirmed independently of persons. Affirming something is something that persons do. It's not something that rocks or rivers or physical fields do.

What we'd be person-dependently affirming is that there are person-independent existents.

But materialism isn't about affirming anything, and it's not about there being anything person-independent. Materialism is about the "nature" of whatever exists, whether anything other than persons exists or not.

Re realism, which is what you're talking about rather than materialism, it doesn't matter one whit whether we can affirm it or not. It can be the case that there are person-independent existents whether we affirm it or not. The claim isn't about affirming things. It's about the nature of what exists.

I've already explained this to you, so why am I needing to repeat it?

[Terrapin Station]

I forgot to add a couple sentences I intended to add above:

After "Materialism is about the 'nature' of whatever exists, whether anything other than persons exists or not," I wanted to type, "Materialism simply claims that everything that exists is material. (Or better for a few reasons: Physicalism simply claims that everything that exists is physical.) This is the case even if the materialist/physicalist thinks that only persons, even only one, exist(s)."

[Faustus5]

You should look closely at "not all the details are known." What details are known?

We know quite a lot about what parts of the brain processes which kinds of perceptual content, we know some things about where memories are stored and how they are recalled, we know in a general fashion what is happening in the brain when content becomes conscious.

Basically, we know extraordinarily more today than what was known when 99% of Western philosophy was written.

Presumptions of knowing are everywhere, but the problem here is knowing itself.

It is apparently a problem for you, but not for most of the rest of us.

You might want to read about those irritating Gettier problems online.

I have no interest in that kind of stuff, none whatsoever. If philosophers who think that kind of thing is useful, when they reach a consensus that they’ve achieved a result, they can inform the rest of us. Right now it strikes me as a waste of intellectual energy.

Even if you can expose a causal relationship (which is essential to empirical knowledge) you still have to show how causality imparts knowledge given that the chain of events possess nothing of an epistemic nature. How does causality "carry" P to S so that S "knows" P?

The only form in which this question is interesting and meaningful is where the answer consists of a story telling me about how a stimulus enters a nervous system and how that nervous system processes and stores information about that stimulus. You could supplement that story with another story about how norms and traditions within a person’s culture shape the kinds of statements that person would make about the nature of that stimulus.

If philosophers can contribute to either of those projects with clarifications that are genuinely helpful, great. But they’ll have to leave the metaphysics at the door.

Taken as itself, causality has no epistemic force.

Then don’t take causality as itself. Talk only about specific causes and their role in the network of other specific causes that leads to subjects forming, describing, and justifying specific beliefs, in context.

Talking about causality and knowledge in the abstract is almost always a waste of time, especially the way you like to do it.

A spectral analysis of the composition of a start, or the study of the earth's orogeny: take a look at these or any actual scientific study; read them online, and you will find no reference whatever to philosophical ontology.

There is no need for scientists to discuss ontology, because at least methodologically, materialism forms the grounding of all scientific practice. That is to say, even for the minority of scientists who aren’t materialists, their scientific norms and methods are exactly what materialism dictates.

Material this and that is just the way we talk in everyday affairs.

And how we talk and behave in everyday affairs is literally all that matters. No philosophical position or discourse which does not help us in everyday affairs (in the broadest sense) is worth our time. Spare me with empty metaphysical prattlings that have no bearing on anything outside of philosophy.

And this is a fine way to put it if you are writing a science textbook. Ask the scientist who writes it if she can give an account of ontological materialism and you will get a very confused look.

Yes, but something tells me you are drawing a lesson from this fact that is 180 degrees in the exact opposite direction than what you ought to be drawing.

No, that is not what you think it is. If this is what your position is, then you will find yourself in Richard Rorty's camp. Rorty's ontology is pragmatism.

A. Yes, I am in Rorty’s camp.
B. No, he did not regard pragmatism as an ontology. You will never be able to cite him saying so in his own words. All you’ll be able to do is completely misrepresent him.

He will agree with materialism as far as such a concept works, but his foundational ontology is not materialism, but pragmatism: truth is not discovered, but made. . .

Rorty’s actual views were for more nuanced and complicated than this simplistic slogan and the rest of the confused gobbledygook which you wrote after it. Of course he thought it makes sense to say we discover things. (Oh, and by the way: no one who understands even a little of Rorty would describe him as having a theory of truth.)

And yeah, I’ve read Mirror of Nature--twice. Your description of the book bears no relationship to what is actually written in it.

What are those materialist assumptions?

That the universe contains only what physics can or will describe. The moment any scientist encounters a model or result which seems to violate any already established law of physics, it will be immediately rejected or questioned. That is exactly the reaction which materialism requires.

The "outthereness" of things becomes just a useful parlance, for all outsides are essentially inside the pragmatic field of meaning construction.

And philosophers, the good ones, will be satisfied with just and only pragmatic considerations.

[thrasymachus]

Atla wrote
Many scientists do care about it a lot, they are usually just bad at it. Rather insulting towards them I'd say.

But the caring they may have does not translate into empirical investigations, which is what science does. I don't mean they have no interest in the philosophical implications of what they do; rather what they do is not about those interests.
Insulting? It is merely a description of what they do. There is no insult in this.

echnically, materialism presupposes material things, not physics.
I'm not even a materialist, for example I understand perfectly well that 'matter' is just an empty made-up concept that some Greeks who were really high, came up with. Matter is not actually valid ontology in that sense.
And yet I see physics work just fine anyway, it merely has to be reinterpreted.

Not sure what you're arguing here, or what your position is vis a vis the OP.

I don't think that science has the final word, but I do think that the best and most likely ontological explanations (our best bet) should to be consistent with all scientific finds.

But it was you who said my position was not informed enough by science! Therefore, I felt I had to emphasize that philosophical arguments are apriori arguments, and what scientists do places them outside this kind of thought.

No, I don't "know" it. I assume that this is the most likely way how the world is.

Yes, there are things assumed in cases of knowledge claims. The point here is the usual one, though: If you want to analyze, critique knowledge as such, you need to look at a simple, unproblematic case of knowledge, as with knowing my cat is on the couch, or a cloud is in the sky. If these are unproblematic, and by this I mean usual, plain, typical, then we can examine their features and get an idea of how knowledge is constructed AS knowledge.
Analyzing knowledge begins with S knows P and yes, it is assumed knowledge is in place. But what IS knowledge? How does it get there, in your, if you will, private epistemology? This is the question on the table.

For the nth time:
YOU seem to live in a world of wishful thinking, where you can't accept that the outside world object will never show up in your head. Therefore the kind of knowledge you require is impossible. A certain leap of faith, the above assumption is always inherent in it.

YOU have the wrong idea of 'knowledge'. P does not have to show up to be 'known'. That doesn't mean that P doesn't exist.

Everyone keeps saying it, when will you finally address this?

Sorry Atla.
The details are important. I didn't say P doesn't exist; I said affirming P in the materialist conception of what all things are runs into very serious problems, the principle one being that the empirical knowledge in your head is knowledge that is supposed to be about the thing before you. Very clear on this. How does this work? Review my last post. And with regard to your objection to P "showing up" you would have to explain how this works to me. E.g., I know Fred had an omelette for breakfast. Now, what is the essential structure of this knowledge claim? Such a structure includes verification; knowledge claims must be verified to be genuine. Verification can either be done analytically, intuitively (as with causality) or empirically, and here, we are talking about empirical knowledge of objects. How does verification work in an empirical knowledge claim? Look at a typical case. See my previous post, which was I thought crystal clear.

I don't think you are aware of the problem. It is with the materialist model, and it doesn't matter if you are a materialist. If you are something else, then it's not to the point. Perhaps you want to argue that a typical model for knowing P should not apply here. The tell me why.

The real trouble is that my cat "out there" cannot be empirically confirmed. Can it be analytically confirmed? That would make it a tautology;clearly no. Intuitively, as with causality? Intuitive knowledge is rare and many do not thing there is such a thing. Everything has parts, is reducible to parts.

What you are really looking for is an alternative account that makes the assumption of my cat being known to be on the couch unproblematic in the ways it is problematic according to materialism. I haven't put that out there because the argument as presented has not been yet appreciated. At any rate, I did say we are stuck with some form of idealism.

What are you talking about, honestly. We do find the cat to be "out there", although the above assume is always inherent in everything we do.

We are many pages in and I still can't figure out what your actual argument against materialism is.

It is in the assumption the problem lies. When we go about our daily business, knowing the cat is out there is not an issue. But this is preanalytical. What is going on at a level of deeper analysis? Part of this kind analysis must include an account of the connection, how it is that that out there even gets in here at all. The matter turns to what knowledge is in the first place. My view is that when you see the cat, you are always already embedded in language and logic and familiarity, that is, a history of exposure to a uniform language environment that constitutes, when you were young, a complex body of problem solving events. You were once, as James put it, in a world of "blooming and buzzing" in which there was little articulation and no "sense" of reality (a ponderous point, I'll grant you) and no conceptual divisions at all. You learned these, and in so doing your grounding in the world was established. It is a problem solving matrix that describes our personal (and societal) history, and we carry this into the many events of life, but in these events, it is this matrix that not only rises to the occasion to inform me, but is an integral part of the ontology of the world: that felt sense of reality, if you will, that gives things their stable sense of Being--this is a pragmatic epistemology. This is what knowledge is, and so knowing my cat is one event of a stable (shared, confirmed with every "hi, how are you?") familiarity that is essentially a construct that belongs to experience (inherently pragmatic), and the "out thereness"of things is a simply part of this.
It is not that there is nothing "out there" in this kind of,call it second order of analysis; we call this transcendence. Nothing to say, as Wittgenstein so adamantly put it. Nonsense to even try. Remove this problem solving matrix of history and language, that is, YOU, the knowing agency, and there is nothing to say at all. No cats, no trees, no forests, and the scientist's world simply vanishes.
This is one way express the idea of idealism.

[Terrapin Station]

"It is in the assumption the problem lies"

Why?

No matter what conclusion you reach, you're going to be making assumptions.

[Terrapin Station]

My view is that when you see the cat, you are always already embedded in language and logic and familiarity,

You can see a cat as an infant, prior to gaining any language skills or concepts, and prior to refining any inherent logical skills or concepts.

We could also raise a child in an environment where we don't expose them to language (though of course no one would actually agree to do this experiment), and they'd certainly be able to see cats. It's debatable whether mice have anything that's like a language, but they can certainly see (and smell, etc.) cats. With mice, there's no objection to raising one in isolation, by the way, and a mouse raised in isolation from other mice can see (smell, etc.) cats.

a history of exposure to a uniform language environment

The notion of a "uniform language environment" seems dubious, but we'd have to clarify what you have in mind there. Of course, to posit a language environment in the first place, you're probably positing people that exist externally to oneself.

You were once, as James put it, in a world of "blooming and buzzing" in which there was little articulation and no "sense" of reality

Speaking of epistemic problems, how would we know that anyone infant is in a world with no sense of reality?

You learned these,

On my view one can't literally learn concepts and meanings. One invents them. Of course, one invents them--usually, at least--so that one's inventions cohere with the observable aspects of language usage from others, but nevertheless, one is still inventing them.

and in so doing your grounding in the world was established.

Which puts way too much weight on language in my view. But it seems like some people think in a very linguistically-oriented way, so those folks are more likely to come up with theories like this.

This is what knowledge is,

These things could factor into knowledge, but they're not what knowledge is. Knowledge is justified true belief.

[Atla]

But it was you who said my position was not informed enough by science! Therefore, I felt I had to emphasize that philosophical arguments are apriori arguments, and what scientists do places them outside this kind of thought.

I disagree, as usual I blame Kant.
A priori only philosophy is one form of philosophy. Another form of philosophy is where a priori arguments should be compatible with, consistent with a posteriori findings.

Yes, there are things assumed in cases of knowledge claims. The point here is the usual one, though: If you want to analyze, critique knowledge as such, you need to look at a simple, unproblematic case of knowledge, as with knowing my cat is on the couch, or a cloud is in the sky. If these are unproblematic, and by this I mean usual, plain, typical, then we can examine their features and get an idea of how knowledge is constructed AS knowledge.
Analyzing knowledge begins with S knows P and yes, it is assumed knowledge is in place. But what IS knowledge? How does it get there, in your, if you will, private epistemology? This is the question on the table.

And science roughly explains how knowledge happens. So?

I also explained why we shouldn't start with stupid assumptions like: S and P are fundamentally separate things, or that knowledge itself is some special kind of thing that "travels" in some kind of already finished state. Or that the cat what we directly experience (which is a model inside the head) is what the actual cat out there is like. Actually all these things are well-known and shouldn't need to be stated.
I don't think you read any of my comments actually.

Sorry Atla.
The details are important. I didn't say P doesn't exist; I said affirming P in the materialist conception of what all things are runs into very serious problems, the principle one being that the empirical knowledge in your head is knowledge that is supposed to be about the thing before you. Very clear on this. How does this work? Review my last post. And with regard to your objection to P "showing up" you would have to explain how this works to me. E.g., I know Fred had an omelette for breakfast. Now, what is the essential structure of this knowledge claim? Such a structure includes verification; knowledge claims must be verified to be genuine. Verification can either be done analytically, intuitively (as with causality) or empirically, and here, we are talking about empirical knowledge of objects. How does verification work in an empirical knowledge claim? Look at a typical case. See my previous post, which was I thought crystal clear.

I don't think you are aware of the problem. It is with the materialist model, and it doesn't matter if you are a materialist. If you are something else, then it's not to the point. Perhaps you want to argue that a typical model for knowing P should not apply here. The tell me why.

The real trouble is that my cat "out there" cannot be empirically confirmed. Can it be analytically confirmed? That would make it a tautology;clearly no. Intuitively, as with causality? Intuitive knowledge is rare and many do not thing there is such a thing. Everything has parts, is reducible to parts.

What you are really looking for is an alternative account that makes the assumption of my cat being known to be on the couch unproblematic in the ways it is problematic according to materialism. I haven't put that out there because the argument as presented has not been yet appreciated. At any rate, I did say we are stuck with some form of idealism.

Okay let's finish it here.

I can't tell you apart from a troll. I wrote like 8 times that of course the cat can't truly be empirically confirmed. Trying to confirm it runs into the same problem that perception/knowledge runs into. That's why the assumption that there is an outside world at all, is always required. There is always this leap of faith.

You also didn't understand that this doesn't invalidate materialism, nor does it mean that idealism is any better since with idealism we also can't confirm what we can't confirm. Wishful thinking that some form of idealism can do the impossible, doesn't help either.

[thrasymachus]

Faustus5 wrote
We know quite a lot about what parts of the brain processes which kinds of perceptual content, we know some things about where memories are stored and how they are recalled, we know in a general fashion what is happening in the brain when content becomes conscious.

Basically, we know extraordinarily more today than what was known when 99% of Western philosophy was written.

But in this knowledge, you have not moved to the issue that stands before you. You stay safe behind everyday thinking. You are being asked question the assumptions this kind knowledge rests on.

It is apparently a problem for you, but not for most of the rest of us.

No, it's problem in epistemology. And I care nothing for this ad populum thinking here.

I have no interest in that kind of stuff, none whatsoever. If philosophers who think that kind of thing is useful, when they reach a consensus that they’ve achieved a result, they can inform the rest of us. Right now it strikes me as a waste of intellectual energy.

Curmudgeons make for bad philosophy. So you thought you would join a philosophy club and do what, talk about science? Why not join a physics club? I'mm sure there is a garden in need of weeding somewhere.

The only form in which this question is interesting and meaningful is where the answer consists of a story telling me about how a stimulus enters a nervous system and how that nervous system processes and stores information about that stimulus. You could supplement that story with another story about how norms and traditions within a person’s culture shape the kinds of statements that person would make about the nature of that stimulus.

If philosophers can contribute to either of those projects with clarifications that are genuinely helpful, great. But they’ll have to leave the metaphysics at the door.

I think those weeds are getting pretty tall. Philosophy IS metaphysics, but it depends on how you define this term. Wittgenstein, the positivist in Tractatus, have a metaphyscis? A positivist? Well, yes; but this was not about inventing worlds beyond this one. It was about drawing a line.

Then don’t take causality as itself. Talk only about specific causes and their role in the network of other specific causes that leads to subjects forming, describing, and justifying specific beliefs, in context.

Talking about causality and knowledge in the abstract is almost always a waste of time, especially the way you like to do it.

But you see, and thank you for saying something interesting, the question comes down to where knowledge actually occurs, and if it is not causally "received" because causality does not freight knowledge, it is in you head, to put it bluntly. If knowledge in in your head, then how can it be about what is not in your head?
And your attitude generally possesses too much resentment. I don't think you are aware of it.

There is no need for scientists to discuss ontology, because at least methodologically, materialism forms the grounding of all scientific practice. That is to say, even for the minority of scientists who aren’t materialists, their scientific norms and methods are exactly what materialism dictates.

Materialism as...wait a minute. We've been through this. You have to do better. You wear your dismissiveness on your sleeve, and this is good for...well nothing. Weeding a garden?

And how we talk and behave in everyday affairs is literally all that matters. No philosophical position or discourse which does not help us in everyday affairs (in the broadest sense) is worth our time. Spare me with empty metaphysical prattlings that have no bearing on anything outside of philosophy.
First, it is not metaphysical; it is apriori; philosophy looks to see if conceptions of things actually make sense. Next, I don't know who "our" referes to, but such a comment goes to the value of philosophical thought, and it is not for everyone, nor is baking. The value it has is, for one thing, it keeps our beliefs in line by looking to ground level implications. Take social issues. Philosophers tend to be liberal thinking people because they give all things analysis, and modern liberalism, at its core, is all about why people are the way they are, what social forces were in place, can we really make any sense responsibility apart from environmentally made motivation?? and so forth. Philosophy is a METHOD, not a body of solved issues. It brings questions (the piety of thought, the question!) to bear upon the world at the most basic level.

A. Yes, I am in Rorty’s camp.
B. No, he did not regard pragmatism as an ontology. You will never be able to cite him saying so in his own words. All you’ll be able to do is completely misrepresent him.

You use words like "completely" and the like too much. You have to know, since you are a fan, that Rorty was very much a Heideggerian; in fact, he equated Heidegger's concept of instrumentality and a ready-to-hand, ready-at-hand way of characterizing knowledge and reality with pragmatism. He also, drew from Kuhn (no, he cites Kuhn as a fundamental inspiration), a Kantian, and discusses Derrida in his Contingency Irony and Solidarity.These would be no friend of yours. Let me, just for this once, put the matter as you would to me: You obviously know nothing of Rorty. AT ALL!!! You say you know Rorty, then show clearly you don't. Now you are in Heidegger's corner? A phenomenological ontologist, explicitly so! Kuhn's?? these are phenomeologists!! idealists. Are you trying to be foolish?

Heh, heh.

Rorty’s actual views were for more nuanced and complicated than this simplistic slogan and the rest of the confused gobbledygook which you wrote after it. Of course he thought it makes sense to say we discover things. (Oh, and by the way: no one who understands even a little of Rorty would describe him as having a theory of truth.)

And yeah, I’ve read Mirror of Nature--twice. Your description of the book bears no relationship to what is actually written in it.

]]

First, his actual views are complicated. He straddles the fence between analytic philosophy Continental. One of the few. There is no slogan, but there is an idea of pragmatism. Rorty resurrected Dewey (James, Pierce), whom he thought one the three greatest philosophers of the 20th century, along with Heidegger and Wittgenstein.
A theory of truth lies with the concept of pragmatism, and if you read more closely, you will find it. Do you know what pragmatism IS? I mean, I doubt this, because most of what you say is free of content. Maybe you read it long ago and forgot? The basic pragmatist epistemology is that meaning is pragmatic, that is, there is no truth in the "out there" sense I have been talking about. Truth, says Rorty, is in sentences, propositions, and there is none of this beyond the pragmatic constructions we live in, or better, that we are. Read his Contingency: you will find his analysis of Heidegger very enlightening, on this. You see, Heidegger held the "no way out" view (just like Wittgenstein but very differently) of what an object was, meaning, following Husserl, an object was to understood as a predicatively formed eidetic affair. there is no separation, no duality: concepts are IN the presence of the thing! They are the thing, part and parcel. You have to see why Rorty was attracted to this (though the phrase itself comes from Husserl and Rorty was not a Husserlian. Husserl had, it is well known--see Caputo's Radical Hermeneutics): it is because it agrees with the pragmatic premise that the very concept of existence is a really pragmatic foundation. Heidegger's presence at hand is just like Rorty's pragmatism. Rorty thought a great deal of our problems in philosophy were due to "hypostatized universals" of the Platonic sort. You know, a reification of justice, virtue, ****ness, cowness??

Anyway, when you read Rorty next time, ask yourself, how does Rorty defend a monist position in science (rejecting dualism) and still remain a pragmatist?

And philosophers, the good ones, will be satisfied with just and only pragmatic considerations.

You are forgetting that Rorty is a philosopher and his views go deep into an examination of the assumptions you think unworthy of discussing.

[thrasymachus]

Opps. I just read my own writing. Presence at hand, ready to hand, it should read. Hope there are no others. I have to go.

[Terrapin Station]

But you see, and thank you for saying something interesting, the question comes down to where knowledge actually occurs, and if it is not causally "received" because causality does not freight knowledge, it is in you head, to put it bluntly. If knowledge in in your head, then how can it be about what is not in your head?

The idea there is, what, that if x can be about something, it can only be about something in the same location as x? What would that follow from? It seems as if it would be doubting aboutness period.