Monday, April 5, 2006 PHL105Y

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Monday, April 5, 2006PHL105Y

• This is our last class there are no tutorials
  this Friday.
• Study questions for the final exam are posted to
  the course website
• http//www.erin.utoronto.ca/jnagel/intro105.htm
• The final exam covers the whole year (except for
  the Weston section). There will be five
  comparative essay questions you are write on
  three of them. Keep your answers focused and
  on-topic. You need to show that youve
  understood the texts and can argue for a point of
  view (remember to consider objections against
  your point of view and respond to them).

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Margarita Rose LevinA Defense of Objectivity

• (1998)

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Levins general strategy

• 1. No good reasons have been given to abandon the
  notion of objectivity.
• 2. Those who argue against objectivity need to
  help themselves to the idea of objectivity even
  as they are trying to destroy that idea.

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What does Levin mean by objectivity?

• By objectivity I mean inter-subjectively
  accessible knowledge, by definition truly
  independent of anyones biases, traditions,
  wishes, or other influences. (549)
• Levin sees objectivity as not only possible but
  actually realized (545) she sees it as an idea
  that underpins modern natural and social science.

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What Levin opposes

• Nihilism the thesis that there is no fixed
  reality
• Skepticism the thesis that we cant know what
  that reality is

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Levin on Rorty

• Rorty claims to reject the metaphor of knowledge
  as a mirror held up to reality, as something that
  captures a single objective truth waiting to be
  discovered
• Rorty argues that the most we can hope for is
  unforced agreement rather than the old notion
  of objectivity.
• Levin How exactly is that unforced agreement
  going to come about?

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Levin on Rorty

• Levin what if a group of people came to an
  unforced agreement that the germ theory of
  disease was wrong?
• They stop purifying water, washing hands before
  surgery, refuse immunizations, etc.
• Is there really no objective fact here? Is
  actual agreement really all that counts?

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Could Rorty respond?

• Rorty could argue that our standards dont let us
  give up the germ theory of disease he could
  argue that this kind of superstition-based
  unforced agreement is not what we would allow.
• Levin could point out that Rorty hasnt given us
  any clear story about which kinds of unforced
  agreements are going to be OK if our society
  were to change standards, then the superstitious
  agreement would be good. And Rorty clearly
  allows our standards could change.

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Self-refutation?

• Levin sees critics of objectivity as in effect
  trying to persuade us that
• it is an objective fact that there are no
  objective facts
• it is absolutely true that everything is
  relative to a framework
• Is she being fair to the positions she opposes?
• Is it impossible to make claims without some kind
  of claim to objectivity?