> I guess it's largely a taste thing. Heidegger doesn't argue, he
> describes (which is what phenomenology is about). I think Sein und
> Zeit is brilliant.
Well, you could call it a difference in "philosophical tastes," but I would call it different concepts of what philosophy is. (One characteristic of philosophy, compared with some other cultural territories, is that it never makes up its mind about what it is. :-) )
I was once quite interested in phenomenology, but after studying some proponents of that approach, I came to the conclusion that it was too arbitrary to serve as a viable philosophical method. That is, one phenomenologist might describe something as X, but the next one would describe it as Y, and there didn't seem to be any clear criteria for deciding which description was right. That's fine for literature, poetry, graphic art, etc., but I don't think philosophy should be that loosey-goosey.
Some parts of Sein und Zeit seemed very penetrating to me, but others just filling up paper. (Similar to Kant in that and other respects.)
> Rorty -- talk about somebody who doesn't argue (in his current
> incarnation anyway)! He strikes me as being so goddamn smug.
Well, he certainly believes in what he is saying. Is that being smug? True, his writing is not so rigorous now as it was in his _Mirror of Nature_ stage. And I'm not too sure about his stance that there aren't, at the end of the day, any convincing philosophical arguments -- the best you can do is persuade someone you are disagreeing with to try seeing things your way by stating your position in the most attractive ways. But sometimes I have a sneaking suspicion that he may be right about that.
> What's the beef with the Aristotelians? They're as rationalist as you
> can get.
By "Aristotelians," I assume you mean "Thomists." The problem I see in them is that, while they loudly celebrate their patron saint's acute reasonings, they swallow, for example, his "proofs for the existence of God" whole, which makes me very dubious about their ability to evaluate philosophical arguments for their soundness :-) .
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit, 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live the more fool am I. -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)