Hmmm... What's with this "I know you're not a philosopher...crap?" I read that and saw you smirking... (and smoking) I don't know about this, John. Granted, I haven't read every single thing Rorty has written, but I've read a fair amount, and it seems pretty clear to me that Rorty has a few different things going on, and these things don't necessarly fit together in any coherent whole. Sure, Rorty likes what Derrida is doing to _philosophy_, but we're not talking philosophy right now, we're talking politics. And I am far from convinced that Rorty has any affinities for the political implications. Looking through Rorty's paper "Ironism and theory," Rorty is clearly only interested in Derrida's ability to _privatize_ his theorizing. That is, Derrida's theoirizng has nothing to do with anything outside his own theorizing. He doesn't even take into account the history of philosophy, much less the political implications and quietistic stance that might come out of taking his work seriously as a political tool.
I know that you have Rorty's new book, so you should have known better than to make such a claim, but I'll go ahead and quote. Once again, this is from _Achieving Our Country_:
But I have argued that insofar as these antimetaphysical, anti-Cartesian philosophers (such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida) offer a quasi-religious form of spiritual pathos, they should be relegated to private life and not taken as guides to political deliberation. The notion of infinite responsiblity, formulated by Levinas and sometimes deployed by Derrida--may be useful to some of us in our individual quests for private perfection. When we take up our public responsibilities, however, the infinite and the unrepresentable are merely nuisances.(p. 96)
Cheers, Frances who would not pick on John if she were not fond of him.
On Sun, 24 May 1998, John St. Clair
wrote: >
> Doug, I know you're not a philosopher, but have you *read* Rorty? I mean, if
> you're making the claim that he's *against* Derrida, I couldn't agree with
> you. Take a look at, for example:
>