Rorty and representations

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

I am still deep into reading Rorty’s ‘‘Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature’’
In part one, he attacks the philosophers use of representations…
Which got me to thinking about the idea of representations itself…
What exactly is ‘‘representations?" The idea of representations is an old
one in Philosophy… recall the title of Schopenhauer’s book
‘‘The World as Will and Representation’’ and so, what exactly does
the word "Representation’’ actually mean?

Representation: the action of speaking or acting on behalf of
someone or the state of being so represented…

The description or portrayal of someone or something in particular
way or as being of a certain nature…

The depiction of someone or something in a picture or other work
of Art…

Our congressmen, who we have voted for, are supposed to represent us
in the creation of official government policy… Gandhi is suppose to
represent good… and Hitler is supposed to represent evil…
a Map is supposed to represent or be a picture of a city…
I have used a map to find the local London Tube station…
the map represents the tube station location in relation to
other streets or objects…a successful map allows us to
accurately find the tube station and an unsuccessful map prevents us
from finding the station…

So, a representation is a map or a model of something else…
it could also stand for us in certain situations as in a lawyer or
a congressman…

Now one of the interesting things about maps or models,
they are not the thing themselves, they are representations
of the thing itself… a map is not the city, it represents the city,
which allows us to move around in a city, but it is not a city…

let us take a model or map that we commonly see…
a map or model of the Atom… we have all seen this model of an atom…
but is it an accurate map/model? Current science suggests that it is not
an accurate map/model of an atom… that that current map/model
gives us, at best, a vague idea of what an atom actually looks like…

now the next point that Rorty writes about in regard to representation,
is the word Ontological… he quite often refers to ‘‘ontological representation,’’
well, we have a sense of what the word representation means, but how
does the word representation work with the word ‘‘ontological?’’

Ontological: relating to the branch of metaphysics dealing with
the nature of being: Ontological arguments…

showing the relations between the concept and categories in a subject
or domain… an ontological database… an ontological framework for
integrating and conceptualizing diverse forms of information…

ontology is the study of existence…

so, it looks to me, and I could be very, very, very wrong, but
it looks to me like ontology is the overall field of study
and representation is a part of that field of study…
representation is a subset of ontology…
and both of which are maps/models of something…

this question of ‘‘Being’’ has dogged Philosophy since Heidegger…
but what if, what if we simply take it for what it is, simply a map/model
of something…for when I describe something, I am creating
a representation of something…a map/model of something…
‘‘He was an idiot manager’’ I am talking about a manager, I am
representing him, creating a map or model of him…
but and this is important, I am talking about him, it is not
him…

and this is exactly the point that Rorty makes about Philosophy
and representation… when we talk about philosophy, we are talking
about a representation of something philosophical, not about the thing
itself… when we refer to German Idealism, that is an representation of
the idea of German Idealism, a map/model of Idealism, not about Idealism
itself…and maps/models can be wrong, just as the map/model of the atom
is severely wrong… it gives us a clue, but a really bad clue about it…

and that is why philosophy is basically wrong… because it deals with
maps/models, and not philosophy itself…

and how do we get back to philosophy itself and not a map or model?

Instead of describing it, we live it… Philosophy as a way of life, not
as a description… and describing something is creating a map/model
of something, but it isn’t the something itself…
so, if we were to, as Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, actually
intended, we should be living our philosophy, not describing it…
philosophy as a way of life…

Kropotkin

2

Now comes the tricky part… is our representations or maps, the ''TRUTH?"
I believe that part of the problem of ''finding the ‘‘TRUTH’’ in Philosophy
comes from the fact that we use maps and models to describe the ‘‘TRUTH’’
and map/models can be and I am willing to bet, are usually wrong…
we can’t find the ‘‘TRUTH’’ because we use inaccurate maps/models
to describe reality… and the ‘‘TRUTH’’ and reality can’t match if we
are using inaccurate maps/models…

so, let say, I state my job as being a checker in a grocery store…
and that is a real statement… but it doesn’t give you the
reality of what being a checker really means… being a checker
in a store is my actually job classification, and thus is ‘‘TRUE’’
but it doesn’t give us the reality of being a checker in a grocery store…
I can make a ‘‘TRUE’’ statement and not state the reality of any given
situation… there is not much connection between what is ‘‘TRUE’’ or
‘‘TRUTH’’ and what is reality… for being a ‘‘checker’’ is just a job
description… a map or model of what I do, but it doesn’t give the reality
of what I do… and most people, including philosophers, mistake
the ‘‘TRUTH’’ with the reality of an given situation…

it is ‘‘TRUE’’ if it gives us the reality of the situation…
but what map or model actually gives us the reality of
the situation? what map/model actually give us the ‘‘TRUTH’’
of any given situation? Let us try our map of the London Tube again…
the map/model doesn’t tell us what is the reality of the area around
a specific London Tube station…

when the wife and I were in London several years ago, we were trying to find
a specific station…Charing Cross station… but the map/model didn’t inform
us of the specifics about the Charing Cross station… what it looked like,
what was around it, the number of people using it, what other stores were around it…
our map/model just told me about where it was and what other lines were
connected to that particular station… and so, the reality of that map/model
was not really the ‘‘TRUTH’’ of the Charing Cross station…
it gave at best, an approximate idea of the situation at the Charing Cross
station…

so, what is the ‘‘TRUTH?’’ depends on the map/ model we use and how
close to reality that map/model is to the ‘‘TRUTH’’ or reality…
so, the bottom line understanding of the world is this,
at best, we have a second hand (a map/model is second hand)
understanding of the world or the reality around us…

Kropotkin

3

I have two translations of the Schopenhauer book you cited one entitled “the world as will and representation”, the other entitled “the world as will and idea”. That provides a clue. I submit that by “idea” Schopenhauer meant the same thing as the immaterialist George Berkeley.

4

and missing the point… What is an ‘‘IDEA’’… it is just another
name for representation… it is a map/model of something…
it is not the thing itself… is the idea of evolution, evolution
itself or is the word, evolution just an idea/representation of evolution?
I think the answer to that, is rather easy to guess…

Kropotkin

5

The problem is how to get from the map to the thing-in-itself. To the contemporary materialist your world is nothing more neural firings in the brain.

6

Consciousness is an epiphenomenal illusion. As the AIs are demonstrating functional intelligence can operate in a mechanical zombie. Dawkins asserts that is what you evolved to be. Rorty is a pragmatist. He settles for “good enough” models. Good enough for what I don’t remember. My exposure to Rorty was years ago to “ Philosophy and Social Hope”.He dispenses with the possibility of ultimate reality altogether. No territory just maps.

7

I deny the bridge to nowhere. Take your maps and shove ‘em where the sun don’t shine.

8

Either you’re being ironic or your shooting the messenger or your just spraying bullets and you don’t care who gets hit like the Israeli soldiers you uncritically defend.

9

felix dakat:
Consciousness is an epiphenomenal illusion. As the AIs are demonstrating functional intelligence can operate in a mechanical zombie. Dawkins asserts that is what you evolved to be. Rorty is a pragmatist. He settles for “good enough” models. Good enough for what I don’t remember.

K: and the idea presented here suggests that what we call consciousness,
is really just a representation of something… for do we even have a good
idea what consciousness is? Not from what I can tell…nor do we have any
idea what unconsciousness is… nope…
it stands for something, we just can’t tell for what…

the problem of philosophy is the problem of representations…
that all we have in philosophy is representations, which really means
we have nothing to discuss in philosophy… because at no point does
philosophy in its discussion of representations, does philosophy
actually touch something real…a representation is just a discussion
about something that is real… we hope…that is why sometime, when
we talk about human beings, it seems to be unreal… detached from
reality…and that is because we talk about human beings, literarily
in the third person… a human being is one who is rational
and walks on two legs… BTW, this was the Greek description of
human beings… a description is a representation of something
else… and are our descriptions very accurate, about either people,
places or things? sometimes, sometimes not… we cannot accept
a description as being something that is real…about something else,
yes, a description of evolution isn’t actually evolution… and
that evolution acts without any sort of description to go along with it…
we have to decipher with our words what has happened in evolution
and that description may or may not be an accurate description of
what has evolved…or changed…

all of philosophy is built upon descriptions of or representations of
something else… to be blunt… philosophy doesn’t actually exist…
because it is about a description about something else,
which is the exact same conclusion Rorty came to…

Now what?

Kropotkin

10

Perhaps this is closer, @felix_dakat:

11

Peter Kropotkin:
all of philosophy is built upon descriptions of or representations of
something else… to be blunt… philosophy doesn’t actually exist…
because it is about a description about something else,
which is the exact same conclusion Rorty came to…

Now what?

K: when last seen, we asked, now what in regard to the point that if
all of philosophy is representations, and there is no such thing as
representations, now what?

Rorty himself spent the last few years of his life working on '‘Cultural criticism."’
instead of philosophy… I wonder why? so, if we don’t have philosophy per se…
what do we have? so, instead of representations, what do we have in philosophy?

if Philosophy is not about something, some representations,
then it has to be about us… and what is possible for us…
the point is not to think about something, to represent something in
one’s mind, but to be something… to live philosophically…
to live one’s life as a philosophy… as a way of life…

that seem to be all that’s left of philosophy, given we can’t use representations…

and what of the other aspects, of finding the ‘‘TRUTH’’ AND being ‘‘TRUE’’,
can be found in our way of life… if ‘‘TRUTH’’ is reality, then by living life
philosophically, we can find reality… does this work? by living life with
philosophical notions such as justice or love or hope… instead of living life
by secondhand notions such as given by our use of representations…
instead of talking about the ‘‘TRUTH’’ as a representation, as a secondhand
notion, we live our lives… we do straight to the source… and we live
philosophy as a way of life… and if it works, that is the ‘‘TRUTH’’ …
that is reality…so, if I engage with life with justice as my way of life,
and it works, that is reality, that is the ‘‘TRUTH’’…
and no amount of discourse or words can change that reality…

one might ask, what about math? Math is supposed to be the framework
of reality… Math is supposed to be the ‘‘TRUTH’’ because the universe
has mathematical properties… but what is math but another form
of representation… 1 body plus one body equal two bodies…
but we can use anything to replace the word body… wood,
can’s, books, tables, apples… anything… that’s because numbers
are a representation of something else…

mathematics are abstract… as is any representation is abstract…
recall one of my earlier representations… that of Gandhi being
a representation of good… we can easily replace Gandhi with
any other person and represent them as good… we can say, Lincoln,
or Jesus or MLK, or even Clinton…pick one… and that representation
is just as good as any other representation… the point being is not the
person chosen, but the representation… that of being good…

how do we return philosophy from being this abstract thing about
representations into being something that is real and… ‘‘TRUTHFUL’’

philosophy as being a way of life is one such way… are their others?
I would have to think so…

Kropotkin

12

We don’t have to be able to explain consciousness to be conscious. Every object of the mind appears in conscious for its existence. What you see, hear, smell, taste and/or touch, think or imagine is contingent—dependent on the brute fact of inexplicable consciousness.

Every object whether of the senses or the mind is a representation… So there’s nothing else to talk about whether in philosophy or science.

Ontology must use metaphors to talk about that which is literally unspeakable. It must make a representations out of what cannot be represented.

Being itself is not a being. Yet language appears to make it so. Rorty recognized that the correspondence theory of truth is untenable. Being and consciousness are identical.

Yes philosophy must be lived. Ancient philosophers knew this. Vedantists have always known this. For them religion and philosophy is one.

13

to move on from here… we exists today in a epistemologist
world… knowledge and how we know such knowledge is the
name of the game… remember, knowledge is power…
or so the saying goes…

we can break up the world, philosophically, into three parts…
one, the world from Socrates to Descartes, was a metaphysical
world… metaphysics was the name of the game… being was
the point of philosophy…

Descartes changed the name of the game into epistemology…
what can we know and how do we know it?
and this stage lasted from Descartes to say, Nietzsche…
having read Nietzsche, almost everything he wrote, he has
little use for epistemology… Kierkegaard had little use for
epistemology… In, fact do any of the so called, ‘‘Existentialists’’
have any use for epistemology? No, in fact Heidegger tried to
change the game back to metaphysics… to thinking about being…
that didn’t work because Metaphysics was a stage long ago…
its like as adults, we can’t revert to being a teenager again…
it was a stage that had passed, and it was gone…

so, we get Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, not concerned about
epistemology at all… but what were they concerned with?
the next philosophical stage… which is political science…
with a minor in morality/ethics… the philosophers themselves,
Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Sartre, Heidegger were concerned
with Morals/ethics… but other philosophers like Leo Straus,
and Isaiah Berlin, were concerned with political science…

(Nietzsche thoughts was drafted into political science even though
he himself was really non-political… the Nazi’s for example, used his
thoughts for political matters even though it wasn’t written that way)

the Nietzschean question of choice was really about morals and ethics…
If god is truly dead, what is the basis of our morals/ethics?
that was the question that N. worked on… how do establish
morals and ethics in a no-god world?
and most people today, including virtually everyone on this website,
has failed to understand this question… its importance for us…
On what basis are we to understand morals/ethics?
what is the base camp of ethics, of morals?

in the last hundred years, well, slightly more, we have had two world
wars, the Holocaust, the cold war, Kent State, the My Lai massacre,
Abu Ghraib, 9/11 and Guantanamo Bay… it is quite clear that we have
lost our moral compass…on what basis, do we reestablish our morals,
our ethics?

This is the question that Rorty should have engaged with…
as this is the primary question of our age… on what grounds
are we to base our ethics/morals on? that is the stage we are in
today… not epistemology or metaphysics, but ethics/morals…

Kropotkin

14

let us try this: on what epistemological rock are we to understand
morals/ethics? on what knowledge, and what certainty can we have
about this knowledge, about what is moral/ethical?

or to say, on what knowledge are we to base our ethical, moral theories
on? and do we know for sure/certainty, that this base of knowledge is
the best base of knowledge we have to work, out our ethical/moral theories…
can we base ethical/moral theories on some epistemological basis?
and if so, which one? how can we ‘‘know’’ which ethical, moral theory
is the correct one based on epistemological understanding?

and if we remove metaphysical ‘‘knowledge’’, then metaphysically,
how are we to know what the correct moral, ethical theory is?
How can we ‘‘know’’ which ethical, moral theory is the correct one
based on metaphysical understanding?

let us try this, what about another area of philosophy as the ‘‘rock’’
of morality, ethics? Logic…

Logic: reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles
of validity…

a particular system or codification of the principles of proof and inference…
Aristotelian Logic…

the syllogism of ''All men are mortal… Socrates is a man… therefore
Socrates is mortal…

but to be honest, I am hard pressed to make a connection with
logical process and a theory of ethics/morality…
and honestly, part of the syllogism, that all men are mortal,
cannot be considered true… as we have not, and cannot ever
know if ‘‘all men are mortal’’ that is information outside of
our knowledge… for we can’t know about every single person
ever born… we can assume, but we can’t know… epistemology
that ‘‘all men born are mortal’’… it is, at best, an assumption…
and should we really base our morals and ethics based on
assumptions?

and what of other areas of philosophy that we can use to judge
the basis of ethics/morality?

we have the new kid on the block, which is Axiology…

Axiology: is the philosophical study of value… it includes
questions about the nature of and classification of values
and about what kinds of things have value…

and here we pause… for values seem to line up nicely with
ethics and morals…
what values are ethical values and what values are not?
but the question of values run into the same problem we run
into in ethics and morals… on what justification do we use
certain values as ethical values? epistemological,
how do we know what values we should be or not be, using?
what knowledge gives values their place in the sun?

Here we bring up an historical point… that of Kant…
his idea was about universals… the values we follow are
the values that if we were to turn into universal values,
would work for us… the idea of values being used
universally… we can, individually, use hate as a value
but we cannot turn hate into a universal value because
it would destabilize the society/the state…
we can only use values that can be universalized…
used by everyone…the problem with having universal values
is that they don’t cover all or even some situations…
there are always going to be exceptions to every rule…
that is the nature of rules…there are going to be exceptions…
and having a universal rule will not be flexible
enough to deal with those exceptions…
for following the rules to the letter without exceptions is
the path to injustice… too strict interpretation of the rules
leads us to injustice…and we cannot condone injustice…
even if it comes from the right place…

later:

Kropotkin

15

Peter. Ohhhhhhhh, Peter.

Peter, Peter, Peter.

The rock the builders rejected has become (because always was, and will be) the Archimedian point/force.

16

to continue on the idea of a universal value…

we have, as Hegel demonstrated, idea that are historical…
ideas have history… if we were to correctly understand the idea
of Justice, we would have to follow it through history… from Socrates,
who specifically talks about justice and Plato, who does too,
to Rawls, who also asks about justice…
an idea can and does flow through history…
but ideas are also historically based… in other words,
specific times and places have their own idea of justice…
that very specific idea of justice is not an historical idea…
or to say another way, it is not a universal idea if it is
tied down to a specific time or place…universal values are values
that extend beyond any specific time or place…
thus, the vague idea of justice, is a universal value, but the specifics
as to what is justice… is not a universal value… the specifics
of justice are historical… thus not universal…

the idea of Justice as a specific value to Plato or Socrates,
was specific to that time and place… it has no real bearing
to us today as a specific value… as a vague value, JUSTICE…
it has value as being a marker that such a thing is possible…
and in the past, historically, certain society/states thought justice
was…and that allows us to gain some understanding as to
what some societies/states thought Justice was… it gives us
something to compare our version of justice to…
values have to have something to compare or contrast themselves
to, in order to have some value… it is by comparing and contrasting
that we can better understand an idea or values…

so, if a value is historical, it is not universal…if a certain society/state
used a value in a specific manner, that is not a universal value…

Kropotkin

17

Now we return to our original point which is what areas of philosophy
can we use to work out moral/ethical issues…

and we come to Aesthetics…

Aesthetics: concern with beauty or the appreciation of beauty…
How can we apply Aesthetics to morality/ethics?

how can we apply Aesthetics to morality/ethics?
that becomes rather tricky given that Aesthetics itself
is historical… what is beautiful changes with each generation…
Popeye the sailor has as its main female protagonist, Olive Oyl…
and the idea behind Olive Oyl is that she is the ideal women of
that time period… she was the ideal of beauty in those days…
an ideal broken by such models of beauty like Marilyn Monroe
and Shelly Winters…women with curves… beauty itself
changes as the idea of beauty is historical… what was a beautiful
women in Ancient Greece, is vastly different than out vision of
a beautiful woman today…I don’t see how we can connect
this idea of Aesthetics with any type of standard of ethics/morals…

and we turn to political philosophy…
and that devotes an entire post to itself…

Kropotkin

18

Tell me where I’m wrong: After monologue superficially summarizing history of western philosophy and getting nowhere, man turns back to rehash his political philosophy.

19

my apologies for confusing you… philosophy done right should be
confusing… thank you for confirming I am doing philosophy ‘‘right’’…

Kropotkin

20

You haven’t presented anything to be confused about yet.