Putnam I 243
Standards/values/Rorty: (Rorty 1985,xxxvii): the improvements are not better in relation to a previously known state, but only better in the sense that they now clearly appear better than their predecessors.
Norms/values/PutnamVsRorty: this is not a clarification of the concept of "improvement".
I 243/244
Since Rorty usually speaks of a Western cultural community, it may be that those who think that we can "cope best" with the extermination of Jews gain the upper hand.
PutnamVsRorty: "getting along better" is a question of how something seems to us and is not at all the concept of better and worse norms and standards. But standards and the image of them are logically independent!
That is why it makes sense to say that what most people think is an improvement is not really an improvement.
I 245
Norms/values/Goodman: norms and values are often in conflict with each other.
Putnam: this brings us to "reconstructive reflection".
I 246
Goodman: it does not lose its value because it is utopian!
Putnam: it leads to a kind of feedback loop: based on our norms we discover new facts that can change the images of these norms.
Norms/standards/values/Putnam: from where is the improvement assessed? From our image of the world, of course.
But from this picture we say that "better" is not the same as "we think it is better".
Cavell: sometimes I rest on myself as a foundation.
I 253
Norms/values/Bernard Williams: Norms presuppose the perspective of "some social world".
In contrast (according to Putnam) physics offers an absolute metaphysical truth.
PutnamVsWilliams, Bernard: The talk of the "content" of a belief being "perspectival" lacks any clear sense. This was grist to the mill of deconstructionism.
>
Bernard Williams, >
Deconstruction.
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Rorty VI 72
Norms/Putnam: (according to Rorty):
Our norms and standards evolve over time.
Our standards always reflect our interests.
Our standards are always reformable.
1. There is an issue in respect of which something is justified.
2. Justification is independent of whether the majority of the culture concerned would say to members that it is justified.
>
Culture, >
Cultural relativism, >
Cultural tradition.
