Filosofia e Epistemologia

Segunda-feira, 13 de Dezembro de 2010

The non dialectical thought of Simon Blackburn

In his book “Truth, a Guide for the Perplexed” Simon Blackburn proposes a chart of theories in each area of knowledge– for example: mathematics, ethics, aesthetics, probability, chemistry, biology – and presents the schema bellow designed. He writes:

«Any map of alternatives must be provisional, but there is good reason to attempt to draw one. In the chart overleaf the central topic is discrebed as our area of discourse and commitment. In other words, the phenomenon about which theories cluster is the fact of our sayings and thoughts.» (...)

Eliminativism (1) Realism(2)

AREA OF DISCOURSE AND COMMITMENT

Constructivism (3) Quietism (4)

1) Eliminativism: (Get ride of it!)

2) Realism (Get it right, then talk of truth, ontology, reality, fact...)

3) Constructivism: (Keep on playing, but...) also fictionalism, instrumentalism, pragmatism, expressivism...

4) Quietism (No contest) Soggy pluralism » (Simon Blackburn, A Guide for the Perplexed, Penguin Books, page 113)

In the chart above, stays a mistaken division of theories, consequence of the non dialectical thought of Simon Blackburn. He confuses different levels, mixing genus with species of other genus, separating genus which mutually intersect. For example, quietism is not contrary to realism - in his last philosophical phase, Wittgenstein was realist and quietist - and can not be placed as it is (bellow realism) on the chart above. Realism belongs to the genus ontology and quietism belongs to the genus praxiology (this term means the discipline centred in action/ no action). Quietism is opposite to epistemological Mobilism.

Constructivism belongs to a genus different from realism, not absolutely extrinsic to it: there is a constructivist realism and a non constructivist (or static) realism. So, in some way, a part of constructivism is included in realism like a species: the realism constructivist. How can Blackburn exteriorize constructivism from realism, if the first is simultaneously inside and outside realism? There is a realist constructivism, an idealist constructivism and a phenomenological constructivism. And eliminativism belongs to genus ergoloy: it is not opossite to realism, because there is an elimiminativist realism... In fact, we can be a constructivist, eliminativist and quietist realist at the same time. These four terms are not excluding each other as Blackburn supposed. This one does not distinguish the contraries from the intermediates. He ignores dialectical reasoning.