Thanks SO much for recommending this essay. It triggered a powerful epiphany for me: 'tragic meliorism' is another way of saying 'will to power'. This passage makes the connection:
«As I understand the pragmatic perspective on life, it is an attempt to make it possible for men
to live in a world of inescapable tragedy, which flows from the conflict of moral ideals, without lamentation, defiance, or make-believe. According to this perspective, even in the best of human worlds there will be tragedy—tragedy perhaps without bloodshed but certainly not
without tears. It focuses its analysis on problems of normative social inquiry in order to reduce the costs of tragedy. Its view of man is therefore melioristic, not optimistic. Some philosophers belittle man by asking him to look at the immensities without; others belittle him
by asking him to look at the perversities and selfishness within. Pragmatism denies nothing about the world or man which one truly finds in them, but it sees in men something which is at once, to use the Sophoclean phrase, more wonderful and more terrible than anything else in
the universe—the power to make themselves and the world around them better or worse. In this way pragmatic meliorism avoids the romantic pessimism of Russell’s free man, shaking his fist in defiance of a malignant universe, and the grandiose optimism of Niebuhr’s redeemed man
with his delusions of a cosmic purpose which he knows is there but knows in a way in which neither he nor anyone else can possibly understand.»

Hook's claim that pragmatism "sees in men…the power to make themselves and the world around them better or worse" is exactly what
Nietzsche was describing in "the will to power". Note that to those who believe in opposing goods and rights, the pragmatist's meliorism will appear as a naked will to power, and vice versa. That the inherent tragic dimension of the will to power: it can be redescribed as
meliorism or oppression.

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More from @ironick

11 May
Thanks for 👇. It got me to read his last lecture. In it, he makes an astonishing claim:
"[T]he parochial, historically-conditioned character of justification is compatible with the eternal and absolute character of truth."
I find it almost impossible to believe Rorty said
this. Here's the context:
«But pragmatists, at least those of my sect, do not think that anything—either the physical world or the consensus of inquirers—makes beliefs true. We have as little use for the notion of "what makes a true sentence true" as we do for that of "what a
true sentence corresponds to." On our view, all consensus does is help us recognize moral truths. We can cheerfully agree that truths—all kinds of truths—are eternal and absolute. It was true before the foundations of the world were laid both that 2 + 2 = 4 and that I should be
Read 8 tweets
12 Jan
@clarkjosephf @QuillRKukla @carl_b_sachs First, Thank you for sharing your "opinionated introduction"/reading list. I love it!
Second, Thank you for highlighting the @QuillRKukla essay on stances. It's amazing! It brings together several threads I was in the middle of working on: the interpretive stance, coping,
@clarkjosephf @QuillRKukla @carl_b_sachs Davidsonian triangulation, and of course pragmatism. Their generalization of the stance concept to economic stance and interpretive stance was EXACTLY what I was getting at in my tweet.

My favorite line: "There is no neutral stance." In other words, there is no
@clarkjosephf @QuillRKukla @carl_b_sachs neutral/universal way of interpreting patterns. Interestingly, Rorty made a very similar claim regarding his panrelationalism: "Naturalism as the claim that (a) there is no occupant of space-time that is not linked in a single web of causal relations to all other occupants and
Read 10 tweets
2 Dec 20
@Jeffrey_Howard_ @FreihandDenker "There doesn't appear to be any..completely moral action."

It's much more than that.

"Anything can be made to look good or bad..by being redescribed." -- Rorty

So ANY action can be redescribed as moral or immoral.

When that sinks in, the contingency of morality is staggering.
@Jeffrey_Howard_ @FreihandDenker Examples:

Eating an apple. The ultimate sin.

Sacrificing your son. The ultimate act of faith.

😉
@Jeffrey_Howard_ @FreihandDenker BTW, Rorty wasn't the first to make this claim about redescription. I'm collecting such claims. I've only found two other so far:

1) "I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for
Read 4 tweets
16 Oct 20
@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks Sorry to jump in late, but I think in his "Reply to Ramberg" (mentioned in your excellent recent podcast) Rorty partially recanted the sentiment expressed in "Truth is simply a compliment…": “Ramberg sets me straight here too. He tells me, in effect, that _it was a mistake /1
@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks on my part_ to go from criticism of attempts to define truth as accurate representation of the intrinsic nature of reality to _a denial that true statements get things right_. What I should have done, he makes me realize, is to grant Davidson's point that _most of our beliefs /2
@Jeffrey_Howard_ @JonAlanSchmidt @Mookmonster30 @FerraraKev @CSPeirceSpeaks about anything_ (snow, molecules, the moral law) must be true of that thing - _must get that thing right_.” p374

In his reply, Rorty clarified what he means by "true of". He does so by more fully embracing and explicating Davidson’s triangulation: ‘Since I now want to agree /3
Read 17 tweets
15 Jun 20
Prediction: The #SCOTUS ruling in #Bostock will become the central case in law school classes teaching the meaning of "but-for" causation. The entire decision comes down to applying but-for causation analysis! /1
'In the language of law, this means that Title VII’s “because of ” test incorporates the “‘simple’” and “traditional” standard of but-for causation. Nassar, 570 U. S., at 346, 360. That form of causation is established whenever a particular outcome...' /1
'...would not have happened “but for” the purported cause. See Gross, 557 U. S., at 176. In other words, a but-for test directs us to change one thing at a time and see if the outcome changes. If it does, we have found a but-for cause.

This can be a sweeping standard. ...' /2
Read 6 tweets
14 Nov 18
Best jargon-free description of #designthinking approach we applied at @ibmdesign … by @mjane_h at @autodesk: To advocate for investment, we don’t start by rationalizing the things we need to do. We start with a vision of what designing and making can feel like to our users. /1
That vision opens with a single, powerful statement that the business can rally around, with a few supporting points to make it visceral and visual. When we’ve done this well, business leaders see their own strategic intent in what we’ve presented. /2
The discussion turns to unpacking possibilities for what strategic intent might be like from this point of view. Only then, when leadership feels it too, do we introduce the areas of investment we request. /3
Read 4 tweets

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