Before we can rid ourselves of ontology, we shall have to give up the picture of the human mind as divided into a good part that puts us in touch with the really real and a bad part that engages in self-stimulation and autosuggestion.
Phil as Poetry p.4
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Ontology
![21. Another way of putting this point is to say that intelligibility is cheap: you can get it just by training people to talk in a certain way. That a view is intuitive, or a phrase intelligible, shows very little about the utility of either. By way of contrast, consider McDowell’s claim that “the sheer intelligibility of the idea [of openness to facts] is enough” for his purposes (of finding a middle way between bald naturalism and the renunciation of empiricism) (McDowell, Mind and World, 113). He thinks that the idea of our being open to facts has an advantage in “intelligibility” over that of “the fact itself impressing itself on a perceiver.” But any greater plausibility of metaphors of transparency over metaphors of impression is entirely a function of the rhetoric to which one has previously been exposed.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:zvfnqdge3swhntuzcjx3gndx/bafkreihsfqirnry57ppg2yheaqziew2exgwxrjxxzd2c7bxbehlzmd5ymm)
![21. Another way of putting this point is to say that intelligibility is cheap: you can get it just by training people to talk in a certain way. That a view is intuitive, or a phrase intelligible, shows very little about the utility of either. By way of contrast, consider McDowell’s claim that “the sheer intelligibility of the idea [of openness to facts] is enough” for his purposes (of finding a middle way between bald naturalism and the renunciation of empiricism) (McDowell, Mind and World, 113). He thinks that the idea of our being open to facts has an advantage in “intelligibility” over that of “the fact itself impressing itself on a perceiver.” But any greater plausibility of metaphors of transparency over metaphors of impression is entirely a function of the rhetoric to which one has previously been exposed.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:zvfnqdge3swhntuzcjx3gndx/bafkreifrebxgqh5btv7vsr7flegcbikr3dym4kza7epltwaqol2v2uwtmm)
