Apart from the question of “Who has the rights to the lands of Palestine?” little can be more contentious than the question, “What counts as philosophy?” What are the bounds of this discipline of ours? I like to think that there aren’t any clear and proper boundaries but that there is a roughly common approach… Continue reading What Counts as Philosophy?
Category: pragmatism
Rorty and the way things “really are”
The New York Times book review ran a very nice essay by James Ryerson on the recently departed philosopher Richard Rorty. It largely confirmed much of what I wrote in a recent post commenting on Rorty’s reputation as the “bad boy” of philosophy, the one who dared to call into question so many of the… Continue reading Rorty and the way things “really are”
David Brooks on Interconnectedness
The New York Times columnist David Brooks today sounds a little Hegelian. Commenting on Douglas Hofstadter’s account (in his recent book, I Am A Strange Loop) of his connection to his late wife Carol, Brooks is taken by the interconnection that Hofstadter continues to feel with her. Looking at a picture of Carol, Hofstadter recounts,… Continue reading David Brooks on Interconnectedness
The Bad Boy of Philosophy
Last Friday, at age 75, Richard Rorty died. Yesterday both the New York Times and the Washington Post ran nice obituaries, highlighting his youth in a socialist family and his adulthood as a renegade philosopher who’d splashily divorced analytic philosophy in order to embrace American pragmatism. The break-up began in the 60s. “He was a… Continue reading The Bad Boy of Philosophy
Karl Rove’s Links
Full disclosure: I have two immediate links to Karl Rove. First, I sat next to him at a meeting in Austin, Texas, in the late 1990s when he was the political mastermind behind Dubya’s governership of Texas. There were about eight people in the room. I don’t remember saying anything but “hello” to him. Second,… Continue reading Karl Rove’s Links
Discovered the Mad Melancholic Feminista
Roundaboutly I discovered that an old friend is a blogger, and, small world, she just blogged about a panel I was on the other day, on ressentiment and pragmatism, but not about my talk, about my dear friend John Stuhr’s. Really, honestly, I don’t mind. No, no, not at all. Check it out.
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