Alterman and Rorty (was "Re: Some of what Alterman said)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

John St. Clair wrote:
>I don't think you'll find very many readers of Derrida better than Rorty.
>You may not agree with his overall interpretation, or his version of
>pragmatism (i'm sure you wouldn't). In fact, Rorty got some of his
>reputation as a traitor to modern anglo-american analytic philosophy from a
>address he gave to the APA in the early 80s about the relevance of
>continental philosophy. I think Rorty's been a perceptive and willing
>recipient of Continental philosophy (he was planning to write a book on
>Heidegger in the late 70s), but his trouble with it, I think, can be
>summarized best from the title of another essay in his Philosophical Papers:
>
>"The priority of democracy to philosophy"

Rorty has done a good job of domesticating continental strains of
anti-humanism and mixing a resulting weak relativism with American
pragmatism (philosophically) and liberal pluralism (politically), which
nicely complements his nationalist-social democratic political agenda. A
boring philosophy to go with a fucked-up politics--nationalism in America
cannot but be reactionary.

Yoshie