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Single Idea 6599

[filed under theme 13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 8. Social Justification ]

Full Idea

If we see knowing not as having an essence, described by scientists or philosophers, but rather as a right, by current standards, to believe, then we see conversation as the ultimate context within which knowledge is to be understood.

Gist of Idea

Knowing has no definable essence, but is a social right, found in the context of conversations

Source

Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], Ch.5), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.5

Book Ref

Fogelin,Robert: 'Walking the Tightrope of Reason' [OUP 2004], p.126

A Reaction

This teeters towards ridiculous relativism (e.g. what if the conversation is among a group of fools? - Ah, there are no fools! Politically incorrect!). However, knowledge can be social, provided we are healthily elitist. Scientists know more than us.

The 16 ideas from Richard Rorty

19090 If we can't check our language against experience, philosophy is just comparing beliefs and words [Rorty]
4726 Rorty seems to view truth as simply being able to hold one's view against all comers [Rorty, by O'Grady]
2549 For James truth is "what it is better for us to believe" rather than a correct picture of reality [Rorty]
2548 If knowledge is merely justified belief, justification is social [Rorty]
2550 Pain lacks intentionality; beliefs lack qualia [Rorty]
2554 Is intentionality a special sort of function? [Rorty]
2553 The mind is a property, or it is baffling [Rorty]
2556 Rational certainty may be victory in argument rather than knowledge of facts [Rorty]
2557 Analytical philosophy seems to have little interest in how to tell a good analysis from a bad one [Rorty]
2558 Since Hegel we have tended to see a human as merely animal if it is outside a society [Rorty]
2559 Davidson's theory of meaning focuses not on terms, but on relations between sentences [Rorty]
2560 Can meanings remain the same when beliefs change? [Rorty]
2562 A theory of reference seems needed to pick out objects without ghostly inner states [Rorty]
2565 Nature has no preferred way of being represented [Rorty]
2566 You can't debate about whether to have higher standards for the application of words [Rorty]
6599 Knowing has no definable essence, but is a social right, found in the context of conversations [Rorty]