Why people are so blind to his thought? More broadly, why are people so blind to pragmatist philosophy?
I mean, this philosophy is the most useful and in tune with contemporary intellectual debates an societal stakes. But it never got the attention it deserves, was always put in the margins.
The case of Rorty is critical. After Trump’s election, Americans discovered he had predicted the rise of a "strong man" to compensate the cultural leftists’ disregard of a lot of people’s pain. Did leftists, and especially in universities, changed their behaviors? I don’t think so.
I’m French and in my country we still should be affraid of this "strong man" after the last presidential election. When I try to warn leftist thinkers about this threat, it’s like I’m talking to a wall. They keep repeating the same good ol’ theories which make them more and more sectarians...
This is frightening, giving me the impression of living a horror story! Do you have an advice about why people are so blind to pragmatist philosophy, and especially Rorty’s ideas?
Why are people so blind to Rorty’s philosophy
OP here, not asking for an advice but for an opinion.
The Frankfurts did it first.
Anyway though, it's mostly because leftists by and large don't exist en mass anymore. All you ever get are thin skinned liberals.
/leftypol/ likes Rorty iirc
People don't like the idea that viewpoints contrary to what they "know" to be "objective" could be called true.
It's soulless
I can’t see how Frankfurts would have done pragmatism before pragmatists, as it came after it and took part of its inspirations from it. In Rorty’s case, he is criticized a lot Marxism and Enlightment, and he is very hardly associable with sociological theories.
We don’t live in the same world, i.e. don’t meet the same people and don’t read the same newspapers. Because in mines, leftists DO exist en mass. They just fight against each other to know who is more leftist than the other.
I would like to know where are the /leftypol/ you’re talking about.
I'm a rightist and Rorty is one of the few leftoids I have any respect for.
>Do you have an advice about why people are so blind to pragmatist philosophy, and especially Rorty’s ideas?
Because not only did he scold leftists, part of Rorty's philosophy is anti-academic, anti-grad school. So he triggers most of his potential audience.
But if you're french you should know Clouscard did this already in 73. One of the first critics of Deleuze and Guattari, may 68 and showed how that ethos would lead to something like dumb strong man politics.
>Rorty's philosophy is anti-academic
/thread
why would the french of all people even listen to this guy or anybody even remotely connected to US pragmatism
>Frenchie
>Against Le Pen
leftypol's on (4+4)chan
>Rorty's philosophy is anti-academic, anti-grad school
100% untrue, is whole thought is filled with academic references and a profound respect for scientific work
I agree that he wasn't the most easy to handle debater, as he tended to apply ironism to himself and his colleagues (who didn't want to do that), so much academia hated him. But I don't think this is related to a somehow "anti-academic" caracteristic of his philosophy.
I didn't knew Clousard. From what I've just read, he did not the same thing as Rorty. His work is oriented toward modelling societies, using sociological theories, while Rorty's didn't. Who is more into solidarity.
First because there currently is a tendency in academic research which goes more and more into practices, and french people love what is concrete and grounded in "real life"
Then because we love to fight each other, a lot of people are dumb with english, and not everybody has time to read every authors, so that reading and using them gives a competitive advantage
I wrote my bachelor's thesis on Rorty and American pragmatism. I was lucky my advisor was a big John Dewey scholar, pragmatism, and epistemology guy.
My school had a lot of more conti-KIDS so they weren't into Rorty or Witgi but I could usually turn a few on to pragmatic theories of truth, as well as some of Rorty's commentary with other philosophers in his height.
I love him, but I hit a philosophical dead end with him. So now as I'm in law school I debate whether I should go for a PhD in a more traditional epistemological scheme or for 20th cent analytical history.
But yes, Rorty like Dewey falls on the correct side of history, always.
he's not trendy....and he's not a/lit/ meme.
also, he's pre-yootoobers.......so his influence on the young 'uns living in the post guttenberg wordl will be minimal
They're similar in that they analyze the failures of leftism and forewarn the same conclusion. And, yes, part of taking Rorty seriously, I think, entails reading less philosophy. He's not scared to say he wishes he read less philosophy and had more friends and maybe Nietzsche just needed to get laid. This is what pisses academia off to no end.
>Rorty
You mean Rick and Morty?
>useful
Not a valid reason.
Pragmatism began before Rorty you stupid STEMsperg
'LOL UR JUST A VIRGIN XDDDD' is the epitome of cop-out piss-in-the-ass garbage. It's referred to as 'anti-academic' because it's the same shit I can read on Tumblr.
>Rorty
They share a fanbase
There was a good thread about Rorty and conservatism a few months ago
MUH WHITE CIVILIZASHUN
MERIKUH SUCCESSOR OF ROME
DEUS VULT!111!!!
MORTY, I TURNED MYSELF INTO A PRAGMATIST
I'M RORTY RIIIIIICK
From a pragmatist standpoint, usefulness is the only valid reason for philosophy. James explained why very well.
better than the shithole vision you offer, which is either utopian deathcamps ruled over by hiv-riddled bugmen, or a borderless worldwide favela where the height of pop culture are minstrels for streetgangs
Yeah OK, I can relate to that cause of academia's disgust of Rorty. B-b-but, don't you think it's somehow ironic that academics' disgust induce them to dismiss ideas that can help them to improve society, which is what most of them aspire to do?
Thanks for sharing your experience of the academia. I myself was also able to look at and use pragmatists ideas thanks to the open mindedness of my advisors. Pretty sure I would not have been able to do so with other ones.
>Rorty like Dewey falls on the correct side of history, always
I wonder, while reading this, is that not tautological? I mean I agree with that, and this is why I love those two authors. But at the same time, tautology is a serious accusation in academic discussions. May their ideas be labeled as tautological from the fact that they always fall on the correct side of history? I personally don't know how I could answer that.
And I should care, why?
Pretty much yeah.
Because a philosophy that doesn't clarify its use is trying to convert its readers.
Descartes pushed people to think by themselves, escaping influence of religious organizations. He wasn't able to say "you know, these things about god are bullshits" because he would have been dead. Thus he didn't unfold the fact that syllogism is in itself a way to establish one's authority, and not a way to escape authorities (persons, organizations).
In our time, thinking by thyself is essentially about finding uses out of syllogisms. Don't doing that by laziness or by falling to the "this-doesn't-have-to-be-useful" meme is just making a puppet out of you, like populace in middle ages with religions.
Nice strawman there.
this attempt at humour
I think anyone who takes the term "strong man" and uses it to mean something negative or undesirable is a giant weenie and no one should care a thing about what they say.
Well seeing as user separated them from liberals I'd assume he is talking about people who want to seriously overthrow the system rather than try to work within it. If you are American then I understand your view. Though the current wave of leftism there is probably the biggest since the early 20th century, it will probably die down after you get universal healthcare and other socdem stuff passed.
Rorty is the most conty analytic though.
>Because a philosophy that doesn't clarify its use is trying to convert its readers.
Why is this a bad thing?
As I wrote, in France leftists are fighting each other to know who is the most leftist. They very often use the argument that their opponent is more radical or conservative than them. But the fact is both care as much of real problems and pains of real people : very little. user is no exception in this fight of leftist theories.
I don't think you understand tautology. What I mean is not by virtue of what has happened is inherently correct and predicted by Dewey and Rorty. What I mean is their ideas are what lead to typically desired results in societies.
I don't know what's worse, the emergence of a far right or the success of today's progressives in placating people just long enough to implement their plans.
>deleuze and glouscard
These ideas are as old as the hills
Mick and Rorty
To better know that, we need to know what are the "plans" of "progressives" you’re referring to. Because the ones of far right are quite known, and they don’t imply an improvement of democracy, justice or freedom.
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rorty.
This.
But even more importantly, people are STILL, IN THE CURRENT FUCKING YEAR, mistaking their thoughts and beliefs for their identity, and so to accept the instability of beliefs is to accept an attack on their sense of self, and They have no tolerance for that because most of the adults walking about are fucking children in suits.
Love these Veeky Forums jokes. Never change.
progressives want to overturn all old values and replace them with ambiguous new ones
this isn't a bad idea in principle but in practice most people lack the self-knowledge necessary to consciously overturn their own preconceptions without replaceing them with something retarded. the internet is really good for seeing what this is about, most of the retards ont he internet begging you to treat them like human beings are already in the process of dehumanizing themselves; hair dye, body piercings, tattoos, all scream out 'i am not what i am.' this si the refrain of contemporary society. trannies want to be something that they say they already are. a pereson who voluntarily undergoes dick removal surery or has a penis implanted where their vagina was is someone who wants to lose their humanity, the ingetration of nerves and flesh, hormones and organs that allows for the proper ands mooth functioning of the human reproductive system.. that which produces more huans, that is.
again,, the idea of replacing flawed traditions and values with superior ones is good in principle--but nietzsche foresaw the coming of the overman as the overcoming of the masses, not their transusbtantioatin. the masses cannot have their values reshaped bbeccaue they are too retarded to even know that they have calues. people who cannot take account fo their own customs are in no position ot rewrite the customs fot ehir contryumen. something as simple as the urabn/rural divide brings this out: there is a valley separating the town and the country, and nobody fromt eiher locale knows their own well enough to bring the two together.o
>tfw never read Atomised
>tfw shitposting and shit-posting have no distinctive cultural differences
>mfw all goes according to plan, that random inevitability that arises out sets of indeterminancy
vapid, boring, pretentious
yikes! you’re very wrong!
damn, now i want to read Atomised
>better than [my fetish-fantasy of the postcolonial other dominating me]
If societies' values are about to change, how is it coherent to judge trials and errors necessary to build new ones with former values?
rorty is close-to-worthless
>liking Rick Rorty
where are you in this pic?
I never said anything about trial and error
Well, I say the things you clearly value as "bad" here are in fact trials and errors which necessarily happen in a society whose values are changing.
What?
Those things you disapprove, they're normal.
Blindness due to too much vidya and computah!
>because the ones i disagree with are ebil xD
Nice input!
Was Nietzsche the first pragmatist? Think about it...
No. Pragmatism is uniquely American and draws inspiration from all over the map.
There is no such thing as 'normal'
>implying democracy is something we should aspire to improve
>throwing around complex, hotly debated, and ultimately subjective concepts of freedom and democracy as absolutes
If this is bait, 10/10.
>you see, goyim, you should accept everything i want, literally everything, it's pragmatic science!
Rorty, Dworkin, Rawls, these guys are frauds who appropriate the prestige of science to cover their own tribal interests and will to power.
THE POSTMODERN NEOMARXISTS
>nobody "appropriate the prestige of science to cover their own tribal interests and will to power"
Nice joke
Nothing is normal by essence, sure. Anyway some things are recurring, they tend to be observed frequently and are thus predictable.