I agree, it is a very interesting book that anticipates the great insights of Global-de-gook by a half century.
Tragic, though, that Cassirer read Carlyle's parody Sartor Restartus (Spelling?) as a straight book, especially given the weight he puts on it. I cringed.
In message <6a5dd491.367da72d at aol.com>, JKSCHW at aol.com writes
> well, on why someone takes rorty seriously, as a theorist.
> >>
>
>Because he's smart and interesting is cukturally important? If I were you I'd
>look at Norman Geras Solidarity in the Conversation of Humankind, a very good
>critique of Rorty by a sharp as a razor leftist who doesn't suffer fools
>gladly, but doesn't treat Rorty as a fool and does think he was worth writing
>a book about.
There's a good critique of Rorty in the London Review of Books by Jonathan Ree (my old tutor).
But I agree with Justin that Rorty is important. He saved Anglo American philosophy from going down the pan. I read somewhere that Rorty organised a seminar on Lukacs that Cornel West took part in - no bad influence. Rorty is politically a Cold War Liberal of the Hook variety, but his interest in comparative intellectual developments is probably one of the major reasons that America was not completely closed off to European philosophy.
I find it hard to believe that Geras could ever write anything any good. His most recent 'morality-after-the-holocaust', the Compact of Mutual Indifference, is lame in its argument and loathsome in its conclusion.
-- Jim heartfield