Archive for the Richard Rorty category

Ethnoepistemology

Posted on October 18th, 2008 in African philosophy, Alvin Goldman, American Philosophy, Chinese Philosophy, Indian Philosophy, Native American philosophy, Richard Rorty, academia, anthropology, epistemology, ethnoepistemology, ethnophilosophy, globalization, identity politics, intellectual life, irrationalism, liberalism, multiculturalism, naturalized epistemology, orientalism, pluralism, postmodernism, reflexivity, relativism, truth.

Originally titled “Ethnoepistemology, my ass!”, written 2 August 2008. Excuse all the cuss words. I’ve cut out a few of the epithets, but I’m preserving the flavor of my diatribe. * * * * * Ethnoepistemology (James Maffie), The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. There are often lapses and biases in reference works in the humanities [...]

Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), Ames & Hall

Posted on October 18th, 2008 in Alfred North Whitehead, Chinese Philosophy, Richard Rorty, postmodernism, pragmatism, process philosophy.

In initiating a close reading of the Daoist (Taoist) classic the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) on the part of my discussion group the Washington Philosophy Circle, I discovered this new translation by Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, who, as it turns out, are major peddlers of ancient Chinese philosophy retooled for [...]

The Institution of Philosophy (3)

Posted on August 14th, 2008 in American Philosophy, Marcelo Dascal, Richard Rorty, academia, analytical philosophy, continental philosophy, historiography of philosophy, intellectual life, philosophers, postmodernism, semantics.

Cohen, Avner; Dascal, Marcelo; eds. The Institution of Philosophy: A Discipline in Crisis? La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989. Hilary Putnam, “Why Is a Philosopher?”, pp. 61-75. Putnam expresses his distemper with positivism and postmodernism, discusses the problem of language and the beloved philosopher’s problem of the brain-in-a-vat, and proposes his philosophy of internal realism. [...]

The Institution of Philosophy (1)

Posted on August 10th, 2008 in Collingwood, Descartes, Donald Davidson, Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Marcelo Dascal, Quentin Skinner, Quine, Richard Rorty, academia, analytical philosophy, continental philosophy, historiography of philosophy, intellectual life, irrationalism, modernity, philosophers, positivism, postmodernism, progress.

Cohen, Avner; Dascal, Marcelo; eds. The Institution of Philosophy: A Discipline in Crisis? La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989. When I first surveyed this anthology four years ago, the name Marcelo Dascal, whose work is currently under review, was unknown to me. My assessment of this book was . . . er . . . [...]

Dascal on disputation & the analytical-continental divide

Posted on August 6th, 2008 in Carnap, French philosophy, Habermas, Heidegger, J. L. Austin, Jacques Derrida, John Searle, Kant, Karl Popper, Marcelo Dascal, Richard Rorty, Thomas Kuhn, Yehoshua Bar-Hillel, analytical philosophy, argumentation, continental philosophy, historiography of philosophy, intellectual life, irrationalism, philosophers, philosophical style, positivism, postmodernism, progress.

Dascal, Marcello. How rational can a polemic across the analytic-continental ‘divide’ be?, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 9(3): 313-339, 2001. In order to specify controversy’s position within the large family of polemical dialogues, I propose to distinguish between three members of the subfamily to which controversies belong. I will call them ‘discussion’, ‘dispute’, and ‘controversy’. [...]

February-April 2007 reading review

Posted on June 28th, 2007 in Adorno, American Philosophy, Antonio Negri, Cornel West, Jewish Studies, Marcuse, Marxism, Ranciere, Richard Rorty, Roy Bhaskar, Wittgenstein, atheism, critical theory, irrationalism, naturalism, positivism, pragmatism, reading, religion, science, social theory.

I have long delayed summarizing the books I read in all or part from February through April 2007, partly in hope of writing extensive reviews of some of them. For now, I will just list the books and some other materials, and I can always return and delve into more detail at a future date. [...]

Rorty’s ideology: Achieving Our Country

Posted on May 23rd, 2007 in American Philosophy, Black Studies, James Baldwin, John Dewey, Marxism, Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty, Walt Whitman, academia, communitarianism, democracy, ideology, individualism, left, postmodernism, pragmatism, religion.

[Deepening Democracy in Global Contexts, Chapter One] Achieving Our Country, Achieving Our World: Baldwin, Rorty, and Social Hope Judith M. Green, Fordham University If anything shows up the ideological nature and ultimate uselessness of pragmatism, this review does, first, by exposing the selective attention, nostalgia, myth-making and wish-fulfillment upon which Rorty’s social vision rests, and [...]