From Heidegger to Pomos

Rob Schaap rws at comserver.canberra.edu.au
Mon Dec 21 10:10:55 PST 1998


G'day Ange,

You write:


>i read some of rorty and felt like screaming. do i think he is a
>fool? not at all; i think he's a sinister fellow actually.

Ah, we're back to agreein'.


>i was asking not for a character reference on rorty, but for
>someone to explain to me the attraction of his theories.

I reckon it's simply that he's not a bad writer, as anti-representationalist pragmatists go, anyway. I also think he's better at critiquing other thinkers than he is at substantiating his own take.


>i am baffled
>that some people would regard rorty as anything more than a
>(US/academic) supremacist.

Oh, and that's pretty attractive, too.


>if there is more to him than this, i would really like to know.

He does some nice stuff on Habermas, I think - I'd not consider myself competent enough to pass judgement on what he has to say about others, but I do suspect him of being a good interpreter and critic.

Cheers, Rob.



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