Reply INFORMAL LOGIC XVI.3, Fall 1994 Critical Thinking, Rational Evaluation, and Strong Poetry: A Response to Hatcher SHARON BAILIN Simon Fraser University Key words: Critical thinking, rational evalua- tion, strong poetry, foundationalism, postmodernism. Abstract: This paper tests Hatcher's thesis by attempting to reconstruct how Rorty might re- spond to Hatcher's criticisms. It argues that Rorty would approve of Hatcher's rejection of foundationalism and would agree that standards arise from practices, but he would claim that it is an error to set up principles of practice as nor· mative constraints. He would further attempt to ward off Hatcher's criticisms by claiming that he is engaging in a practice different from ra- tional argument, the practice of "strong poetry". The paper tnen argues that, faced with the alter- natives of rational evaluation and strong poetry, the only responsible choice is to rationally evalu- ate them. My initial reaction to Donald Hatcher's paper, "Critical Thinking and the Condi- tions for Rational Evaluation", was one of complete agreement. His arguments seemed to me correct, and obviously so. Yet I feared that such a reaction might in- dicate that I was merely confirming beliefs I already held and failing to consider seri- ously an alternative view. Thus what I have attempted in this paper is to seriously test Hatcher's (and hence my) views by sym- pathetically reconstructing the view with which we disagree and then seeing what conclusions I could draw. This task seemed to be particularly useful in light of a) the inexorable logic of Hatcher's position; b) the fact the arguments he proposes are not radically new, but are really variations of familiar and long-standing ones; and c) the fact those who hold the view he criticizes seem to be not at all struck by the force of these arguments. Perhaps Donald Hatcher and I are missing something. Hatcher's Argument Let me begin by reviewing Hatcher's argument. He sees postmodernism as a challenge to critical thinking, or more spe- cifically, to the standards and principles of rationality assumed in critical thinking classes. Because of the context-relativity claim, critical thinking becomes just one way among many of evaluating the rea- sonableness of claims, with no universal or meta-disciplinary standpoint from which to critically evaluate the rationality of all claims. Hatcher argues, however, that even given the demise of foundationalism, one can offer a non question-beggingjustifica- tion for standards of rationality in terms of the principles which are constitutive of the practice of discussion and inquiry. These principles are I) the principle of non-con- tradiction (that contradiction should be avoided); 2) the principle of reciprocity (that reciprocity should be allowed with respect to moves in arguments); 3) the rea- sons principle (that beliefs should accord with the evidence); and, 4) the clarifica- tion principle (that views should be clear). These principles are necessary in order for any beliefs to be supported and communi- cated, including the beliefs which consti- tute the postmodern position. 210 Sharon Bailin What Would Rorty Say? One difficulty with Hatcher's paper is that he does not distinguish among various versions of postmodernism. He does men- tion Rorty at some point, however, and as Rorty is a particularly influential theorist, I have chosen him as spokesperson for the view Hatcher is criticizing. Given Hatcher's critique, what would Rorty say? First, I think that he would express his approval that Hatcher has recognized the error of foundationalism and has realized that one must seek justification for claims in human practices. He might, however, want to clarify the precise nature of the challenge which this move poses to criti- cal thinking. Rorty would deny that his view implies that critical thinking stand- ards are unjustifiable or arbitrary. Rather, his claim is that justification is limited to particular practices or language games but makes no sense between them. Thus the standards used in critical thinking classes may be perfectly well justified within par- ticular practices. What they cannot do is adjudicate between practices/contexts/vo- cabularies. What is at issue, then, is criti- cal thinking's claim to offer a universal or meta-disciplinary standpoint from which to evaluate the rationality of all claims, as Hatcher rightly points out. Nor would Rorty see critical thinking standards as arbitrary, for arbitrariness implies that something could have been reasoned but was not. It is not a question of arbitrariness in our acceptance of critical thinking standards. They simply are an agreed-upon part of the practice. This discussion raises the issue of what, exactly, constitutes a practice. Hatcher seems willing to agree with Rorty that standards grow out of practices, but rather than limiting the notion of practices to par- ticular disciplines or contexts, he views discussion or inquiry in general as a prac- tice. Given this move, he can then view certain principles as emanating from and necessary to the practice of inquiry. Rorty's response at this point might be to point out that, in attempting to set up these principles as normative constraints, Hatcher has misunderstood the nature of the relationship between such principles and practices. Rorty would claim that the practices are prior, and the principles are simply ways of describing the practices. They are empty outside of the context of particular practices. Moreover, they have no normative force. He refers, for exam- ple, to the fallacy of "seeing axioms where there are only shared habits, of viewing statements which summarize such practices as if they reported constraints enforcing such practices" (Rorty 1991, p.26). Thus someone who engaged in a different sort of practice under the name of inquiry might simply not agree to the principles which Hatcher outlines. This, in fact, seems to be Rorty's stance with respect to his own position, and he would doubtless attempt to ward off Hatcher's criticism by maintaining that he is not putting forth theories, that he is not playing the game of rational discussion and argument, that he is engaged in a different practice, that he is changing the subject. He maintains frequently, in fact, that he is not arguing for his position since argument is only relevant within vocabularies but not between. Thus he states, "It [the new method of philosophy] does not pretend to have a better candidate for doing the same old thing which we did when we spoke in the old way. Rather, it suggests that we might want to stop doing those things and do something else. But it does not argue for this suggestion on the basis of anteced- ent criteria common to the old and the new language game. For just insofar as the new language game really is new, there will be no such criteria." (Rorty 1989, p.9). Rather than arguing, what Rorty claims he is do- ing is redescribing. His aim is to make his redescription attractive so that people's patterns of talking will gradually change, and they will gradually come to adopt his new vocabulary. He makes the point thus: "The method [of the new philosophy] is to redescribe lots and lots of things in new ways, until you have created a pattern of linguistic behavior which will tempt the rising generation to adopt it, thereby caus- ing them to look for appropriate new forms of non linguistic behavior, for example, the adoption of new scientific equipment or new social institutions" (Rorty 1989, p.9). Thus as an alternative to rational argument and evaluation, Rorty offers us strong po- etry. "A sense of human history as the his- tory of successive metaphors would let us see the poet, in the generic sense of the maker of new words, the shaper of new languages, as the vanguard of the species ... I shall try to develop this last point ... in terms of Harold Bloom's notion of the strong poet" (Rorty 1989, p.20). His claim, moreover, is that culture never changes through argument and rational choice of alternatives, but rather through such a proc- ess of speaking differently. "What the Ro- mantics expressed as the claim that imagi- nation, rather than reason, is the central human faculty was the realization that a talent for speaking differently, rather than for arguing well, is the chief instrument of cultural change" (Rorty 1989, p.?). The strong poet, not the critical thinker, is the agent of cultural change. What Do I Do Now? As an inquirer faced with these conflict- ing views, the postmodern view as exem- plified by Rorty and the rationalist view as exemplified by Hatcher, my problem is to know what to do next. According to Rorty's view, I should probably see if his new vo- cabulary appeals to me aesthetically, if I am tempted away from my rationalist vo- cabulary by it in much the same way as I might be tempted away from a game I was playing by another game which seemed more interesting at the moment, a game which is not necessarily bound by the prin- ciples which Hatcher expounds. Or I could wait and see if I become swept up in a gen- eral change in the prevalent way of speak- ing engendered by his new vocabulary, a A Response to Hatcher 211 vocabulary not bound by Hatcher's princi- ples. According to Hatcher's view, I should critically evaluate the opposing views ac- cording to the standards of rationality ex- plicated by his principles. It seems to me that I have only one pos- sible and responsible choice. Given the purposes of inquiry as determining what to believe and do, these purposes are served only by critical evaluation. I realize that once I make that move, I am ceasing to try and play Rorty's game and I am opting into the rationalist position. What I think this demonstrates is that one can only play Rorty's game so far. Eventually one has to ask why one should accept his view over another. Try as one might to postpone the moment, at some point one must critically evaluate his view. For if he is wrong, then it is possible to rationally evaluate views, and a refusal to do this would amount to an abdication of one's responsibility as a ra- tional agent in the world. The consequences of this are serious, unlike a decision to give up chess in favour of Trivial Pursuit. Moreover, any critical evaluation must take place according to the standards afforded by the principles outlined by Hatcher, that is the view must be clear, must avoid con- tradiction, must accord with the evidence, and must allow reciprocity with respect to argumentative moves, even if what consti- tutes compliance to these principles can only be determined within specific con- texts. A rational evaluation of the Rortyian view reveals numerous problems in ad- dition to the ones pointed out by Hatcher. One is that despite his recognition that engaging in argumentation would under- cut his view, Rorty does argue. In some cases he does so explicitly. Note, for ex- ample, the following: "Only if we do that [accept the Wittgensteinian approach to language] can we fully accept the argu- ment I offered earlier the argument that since truth is a property of sentences, since sentences are dependent for their 212 Sharon Bailin existence upon vocabularies, and since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are truths." (Rorty 1989, p.2l). In some cases, the appeal to reasons is implicit, as when he talks about old vocabularies as a nuisance or unfruitful and new vocabular- ies as more attractive and promising, thus implying some grounds for comparison. Thus, despite disclaimers (e.g., Rorty 1989, p.9 cited previously), he does argue for his view. Indeed he must if he wants us to take it seriously in the first place. Another problem is that his view pre- supposes a radical discontinuity between contexts/vocabularies. Experience and rea- son cast serious doubt on this claim, how- ever. Numerous philosophers have demon- strated the problems inherent in the Kuhnian notion that scientific paradigms are incommensurable (Scheffler 1982, Siegel 1980) and continuities between suc- cessive paradigms are evident in all do- mains (Bailin 1992). Such continuity pro- vides one basis for rational discussion be- tween contexts. The Rortyian view also seems to be based on a view of language as self-con- tained and unconnected with the world. Yet this is highly implausible. Even Rorty con- cedes that some vocabularies are "better tools for dealing with the world for one or another purpose" (Rorty 1989, p.21). But why would this be the case unless the vo- cabulary were connected in some manner with the world, even if we do not want to see this connection as one of representation? Finally, the Rortyian view does not seem to allow for critical discussion of justifica- tory procedures used in particular practices, of the relative merits of various practices, nor of purposes themselves. Yet we do en- gage in a meaningful way in these types of discussions, and indeed, they are central to inquiry. Rorty would doubtless object that one is always speaking from the point of view of one's particular context in such discussions, and so the belief that there are objective, non context-dependent standards for the adjudication of such debates is an illusion. Objectivity need not, however, be construed as implying independence from any context. Rather, offering a claim as objective implies that, despite the fact that it emanates from a particular point of view, it is being proposed as a candidate for uni- versal acknowledgement, that the grounds for accepting it are not merely subjective. Robertson puts the point thus: "To put forth a claim as objective is to imply that it is rational for others to accept it. It is not to suppose that the claim can be supported by reasons which are independent of all con- ceptual schemes or that judging what is rational to believe is an algorithmic proc- ess." (Robertson 1992, p.I77). She states, further, that in claiming objectivity for our claims. "we invite others to reveal to us the ways in which our viewpoint is partial" and that this opens up the possibility of more inclusive points of view and an enlarged vision. The Rortyian position seems to deny this effort at objectivity between perspec- tives, since the notion of good reasons no longer has any purchase outside particular contexts. He leaves us with only rhetoric as a source of cultural change. This is a result which seems totally in opposition to our purposes as inquirers. Poetry, even of the strongest sort, may be diverting, provocative, and enriching. When faced with serious choices regard- ing belief and action, however, we must, in the end, engage in rational evaluation, and such evaluation entails the principles outlined by Hatcher. The alternative strikes me as decidedly unattractive. I A Response to Hatcher 213 Notes I I would like to thank David Hammond for ex- tremely helpful discussion regarding Rorty's position. A version of this paper was pre- sen ted at the Western Division, American Philosophical Association meeting, Portland, Oregon, March 1992. References Bailin, S. (1994) Achieving Extraordinary Ends: An Essay on Creativity. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex. Robertson, E. (1992) Reason and education. In M. Buchmann & R. Floden (Eds.), Philoso- phy of Education 1991. Normal, II.: Philoso- phy of Education Society. Rorty, R. (1991) Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, R. (1989) Contingency, Irony, and Soli- darity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scheffler, I. (1982) Science and Subjectivity. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Siegel, H. (1980) Objectivity, rationality, incom- mensurability and more. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 31, 4. SHARON BAlLIN FACULTY OF EDUCATION SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY BURNABY, BRITISH COLUMBIA V5A lS6 o