Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature: Thirtieth-Anniversary Edition (Princeton Classics)

by Richard Rorty

To sharpen the issue a bit further, perhaps we may drop from consideration the Antipodean epiphenomenalists and the Terrestrial skeptics. The former’s problem about the neurology of pain reports seems insoluble; if they are to continue charitably to ascribe states to Earthmen which are unknown to Antipodeans they will have to swallow a whole dualistic system, irrefutable by further empirical inquiry, in order to explain our linguistic behavior. As for the Terran skeptic’s claim that the Antipodeans have no raw feels, this is based entirely on the a priori dictum that one cannot have a raw feel and lack a word for it. Neither intellectual position—the extreme charity of the Antipodean epiphenomenalist and the parochial distrust of the Terrestrial skeptic—is attractive. We are left with the Antipodean materialist saying “They think they have feelings but they don’t” on the one hand and Terrestrial philosophers saying “They have feelings but don’t know it” on the other hand. Is there a way out of this impasse, given that every empirical result (brain-switching, etc.) seems to weigh equally on both sides? Are there powerful philosophical methods which will cut through the problem and either settle it or offer some happy compromise?

September 18, 2020. Not bad yet. Page 88. The principle of charity.