tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895520553397267613.post8539404772100805391..comments2023-05-10T11:09:24.664-07:00Comments on The Invisible Environmentalist: Environmental pragmatismKevin Shoemakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05753136299292542125noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895520553397267613.post-39557485587150877442010-10-01T11:17:09.586-07:002010-10-01T11:17:09.586-07:00Cont … You ask whether, "the only valid proje...Cont … You ask whether, "the only valid project for philosophy is to undermine philosophy's traditional claims of metaphysical or ethical truth" and you go on to wonder whether if society became enamored with dictatorships and fascism then is it still true that, "philosophy would not have much to say?” So to your first question, the postmodern project does work towards destabilizing truth, even metaphysical and ethical truth insofar as it/ (I'll go ahead and throw myself under the bus here and say) we understand truth to be something that is emergent and as Rorty suggests, it is created in the swamp of the human condition or in the lifework of a people rather than discovered whole in an objective state. As soon as we begin pointing out truth with certainty and locating it in certain communities, within particular disciplinary or societal boundaries, then we invoke a universal style of truth that can't be extracted from dynamics of power and ultimately (at least ultimately as history shows us) hegemony. What philosophy doesn't propose to do (at least not since the Enlightenment) is to export its truths, its ethical certainties etc. Rather, with an eye towards the type of imperialistic and colonialist legacy that this kind of exportation implies, philosophy (or at least some of its more recent work) has more recently become about recognizing the amorphous nature of nature and navigating it for - as you so beautifully state, "meaning and purpose" rather than mining it for truth and certainty. <br /> <br />To your comment that, it is a "tough pill" and it leaves us on very unstable ground. This is, of course the point, that postmodern philosophy understands all of these issues (including scientific issues) to be endlessly unstable. It is not, some believe, a matter of firming up the ground but rather of entering the world differently, recognizing that stability is (as Foucault would say) a chimera and the only truth that we can hope to achieve is subject to culture. <br /> <br />Our colleague noted that the only thing conservation biology can do to insure its "normative potency" is to solve the problems of concern to conservation biology but to think that pragmatism can be used as a method to do this work is in conflict with a philosophical refusal to colonize other fields with its methods. And this was where I read the authors of the original paper to be thinking of pragmatism as more of a back-end style than a method to be integrated into the scientific process. I think you were going towards this when in your letter you wrote, "even as conservation biologists make fruitful use of pragmatic concepts such as Maris and Bechet's "adjustive management", we may choose not to wholeheartedly accept the pragmatist worldview." I think the authors agree without saying so insofar as they are proposing that conservation biology, once it identifies a course of action that it collectively determines to be right (and this determination is more of an empirical alignment of a series of discovered truths towards an objective common to the community of conservation biologists, than it is a deliberative resolution) then the community of conservation biology would put this determination out for discussion as a means of illuminating for the broader (lay) community how conservation biologists have come to their decision. They do this also in order to get buy-in and consensus not about what scientists should do but to get consensus that what scientists have already determined to do deserves broad community support. To imagine that scientists are going to integrate the full measure of a pragmatic approach including all this business of truth as a fallacy is unreasonable. No, I see them wanting to demonstrate that they're using "philosophy" to give the appearance of democratizing their process. <br /><br />Your thoughts, my friend?Marianne Patinelli-Dubayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00940960170270610913noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8895520553397267613.post-57843112143987668142010-10-01T11:15:31.460-07:002010-10-01T11:15:31.460-07:00Hi Kevin and thank you for such an interesting let...Hi Kevin and thank you for such an interesting letter and for allowing me to contribute a few thoughts. I’m doing so in two comment submissions – as per my usual I’ve gone on too long … I hear you acknowledging the value of a participatory approach generally before questioning not whether pragmatism might be a functional tool, but whether pragmatism might not be a functional tool for conservation biologists. I hear you questioning whether the kind of shift from scientific "fact finding" (forgive my lay-woman’s term) to truth seeking in a discursive forum, as a pragmatic model would require, is the right path for science to take. Ultimately, I think the authors Maris and Bechet make a series of assumptions that they lay out in the phase description beginning on p. 971 that undermine their project and confirm your skepticism. <br /> <br />But first, to the question of whether a philosophical approach is right for science is in my mind, the primary resistance and the understandable tension between science and philosophy (especially postmodern philosophy). The notion that truth is, as our mutual colleague noted, made and not located shifts the definition of truth to something that is in conflict with the scientific project. Put another way, in the postmodern philosophical context truth is a concept with no center - it is an idea subject to constant shift and its myriad definitions along with it, which means it is no "Truth" at all. I also hear your exasperation when – again our mutual colleague – writes "Philosophy cannot vouchsafe the norms inherent in any practice outside of philosophy" as you wonder then what the hell is the use of philosophy at all? Yeah, fair point and one that has plagued philosophy and philosophers since ideas split into disciplines and science adopted a method of its own. The primary way that philosophy has maintained some purchase in the scientific discourse is due to the idea that the scientific method is bookended by the philosophical method. <br /> <br />Heresy! Oh hells yes...<br /> <br />Empirical data collection doesn't emerge in a vacuum but first a mind (not exhumed from, but as one part of the sensual human condition) has to be drawn to an inquiry, has to draw the parameters of that inquiry based on the desire to discover one thing or another about the physical world. These elements of drawing towards, of desire have no relationship to the type of objectivity that science is premised upon. But going past that there is as you point out, "the mechanism of DNA replication." But here again, this event (is that the right way to think of it?) has to be interpreted, given meaning and brought about in language. All of which brings us again into the philosophical domain including perspective, ethics, emphasis, coercion, manipulation, bias and on and on. So while philosophy, particularly the discursive method of pragmatism, can't/won't protect the truth or process of any other discipline, it seems always to have a seat at the table because every other discipline including science which understands truth and fact as discoverable aspects of the world through its method, is a discipline brought about in the context of the human condition and the human condition is the concern of philosophers, whatever their area of emphasis.Marianne Patinelli-Dubayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00940960170270610913noreply@blogger.com