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PREVIEWS-Eps 192-193 Allan Bloom & Liberal Education Follow-Ups

July 6, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

A few highlights from recent supplementary discussions on Allan Bloom (his takes on Nietzsche and Freud among other topics) and two new readings originally meant for ep. 193: Leo Strauss's "Mass Education and Democracy" (1967) and Richard Rorty's "Democracy and Philosophy" (2007). Plus, you can help determine the future of PEL audioplays! Become a PEL Citizen or $5 Patreon  Continue Reading …

Ep. 193 Follow-Up: Strauss and Rorty on Liberal Education and Democracy (Citizens Only)

July 1, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

Wes and Dylan discuss two articles selected but later rejected for ep. 193: Leo Strauss's "Mass Education and Democracy" (1967) and Richard Rorty's "Democracy and Philosophy" (2007). Must philosophical training, or liberal education more generally, necessarily be restricted a privileged minority? Thanks for being a PEL Citizen and supporting this extra discussion!  Continue Reading …

Episode 157: Richard Rorty on Politics for the Left (Part Two)

February 6, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 74 Comments

Continuing on Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in 20th Century America (1998). We talk more about Rorty's description of the conflict between the "reformist left" and the "cultural left." Do political-comedy shows serve a a positive political purpose? Can an enlightened political viewpoint really be a mass movement at all? Is it better to pursue specific political  Continue Reading …

Episode 157: Richard Rorty on Politics for the Left (Part One)

January 30, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 54 Comments

On Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in 20th Century America (1998). What makes for efficacious progressive politics? Rorty has been cited much recently as predicting the rise of Trump. In this book, he gives us a history of the political left, and draws a dividing line between old-time reformist leftist intellectuals like Upton Sinclair who worked for real change and  Continue Reading …

Ep. 157: Richard Rorty on Politics for the Left (Citizen Edition)

January 29, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 16 Comments

On Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in 20th Century America (1998). What makes for efficacious progressive politics? Rorty has been cited much recently as predicting the rise of Trump. In this book, he gives us a history of the political left, and draws a dividing line between old-time reformist leftist intellectuals like Upton Sinclair who worked for real change and  Continue Reading …

Episode 155: Richard Rorty Against Epistemology

January 2, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 14 Comments

On Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Part II: "Mirroring" (Ch. 3–4). Is a "theory of knowledge" possible? Rorty says that while of course psychology has interesting things to say, any specifically philosophical effort is doomed. Why? Because there is no fixed point outside of the "knowledge language game" that provides an ultimate grounding. Rorty draws on  Continue Reading …

Ep. 155: Richard Rorty Against Epistemology (Citizen Edition)

January 1, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Part II: "Mirroring" (Ch. 3–4). Is a "theory of knowledge" possible? Rorty says that while of course psychology has interesting things to say, any specifically philosophical effort is doomed. Why? Because there is no fixed point outside of the "knowledge language game" that provides an ultimate grounding. Rorty draws on  Continue Reading …

Richard Rorty and the Origins of Post-Truth

December 30, 2016 by Ana Sandoiu 36 Comments

In the chaotic flurry of consternation, excitement, and viral postmortems that followed the US election, two notions stood out to me as slightly contradictory yet strangely connected: the dreaded concept of “post-truth,” and the prescience of a philosopher who supposedly predicted Trump 18 years ago. “Post-truth” describes the blatant disregard for facts that has been  Continue Reading …

Episode 153: Richard Rorty: There Is No Mind-Body Problem

December 5, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer 11 Comments

On Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Part I: "Our Glassy Essence" (mostly Ch. 1). "The mind" seems to be an unavoidable part of our basic conceptual vocabulary, but Rorty thinks not, and he wants to use the history of philosophy as a kind of therapy to show that many of our seemingly insoluble problems like the relation between mind and body are a result of  Continue Reading …

Ep. 153: Richard Rorty: There Is No Mind-Body Problem (Citizen Edition)

December 4, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

On Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Part I: "Our Glassy Essence" (mostly Ch. 1). "The mind" seems to be an unavoidable part of our basic conceptual vocabulary, but Rorty thinks not, and he wants to use the history of philosophy as a kind of therapy to show that many of our seemingly insoluble problems like the relation between mind and body are a result of  Continue Reading …

Not School Groups In December

December 4, 2014 by Daniel David Leave a Comment

The annual holiday frenzy has begun, but our Not School groups will still be soldiering on through December. Most groups have decided to carry November's readings over, so anyone interested in riveting philosophical conversation has another shot at joining up with them. There are also proposals up in the Citizens' Forum to read on some other juicy philosophical topics. Not  Continue Reading …

Pirsig as an American Pragmatist

February 22, 2012 by David Buchanan 26 Comments

Philosophology is to philosophy as art history is to painting, Pirsig says. He uses that ridiculous-sounding word to draw a distinction between comparative analysis and original thought, between critical examination and creative production. In the tradition of Emerson's famous 1837 speech, "The American Scholar", Pirsig is calling for creativity and originality. This is not to  Continue Reading …

Lawrence Cahoone on Rorty: Bridging Analytic and Continental Philosophy

April 12, 2011 by Tom McDonald 4 Comments

Richard Rorty: A friend of Dan Dennett (and his dreaded scientism : ). A neo-pragmatist. An analytic philosopher who began teaching around the mid-20th-century, he eventually turned against its scientism. Rorty felt that 20th-century analytic thought was going down the wrong track by taking up the same sort of epistemological foundationalist project as Descartes. Rorty saw the  Continue Reading …

Later Pragmatists: Rorty on truth

July 22, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Maybe the most famous current pragmatist is Richard Rorty. He doesn't like William James's redefinition of the word "truth," but he thinks that virtually everything James said about it could be better applied to the word "justification." Plus, you get to see subtitles in (I think) Dutch!  Continue Reading …

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