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From: "Nathan Goralnik" <rhizome85@xxxxxxxx>
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Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 15:58:36 -0700
Asher says:
> Framing the question as this search for coherence is exactly what enables
> Rorty to co-opt the entirety (whatever that means) of critical theory in
the
> name of liberalism.
Huh?! <see below>
> Sometimes I think it might be better that way. Rorty is like Habermas.
> T(he)y are(is) the Borg. Coherence is a way of making so many distinctions
> that a system can be established to do away with things you don't like.
> Saying that it is ridiculous, sometimes, is a way of refusing to engage
such
> absurdity. After all, who has been able to attack all of the errors in
> either Rorty or Habermas without getting lost in their own moral (liberal
> for Rorty) ooze?
You sound like Rorty here. In the autobiographical section of "Philosophy
and Social Hope," he criticizes the idea "that the test of philosophical
truth [is] overall coherence, rather than deducibility from unquestioned
first principles" (10). Rorty also says on many occasions that theory is a
toolbox. What's your problem with him?
~Nate