Taking Time Seriously: Richard Rorty on Philosophy (1994) 

“Truth is eternal and enduring, but its hard to be sure you’ve got it.” Great quote.

Rorty was more like a sage of our times. Great guy

best voice in philosophy

A passionate cook will become better and better at his or her task through experience. Similarly, a dedicated teacher becomes better and better at the task of educating as time goes by. A passionate politician who strives to play the role of mediator between his or her constituency and the powers above becomes better and better at his or her role in time. A philosopher dedicated to the search for Truth becomes better and better at his or her task of having a deeper understanding of reality through this never ending search. That said, I can't imagine any tyrant having the power to put an end to this natural progress of the Good.

“Only a society without politics, a society run by a tyrant who prevents social and cultural change to occur would not require philosophy. In societies where there is no politics philosophers can only be priests in the service of a state religion ...” This even can be true in respect of one individual’s attitude ...

Excellent lecture.

This was great and well worked out speech

Masterpiece.

Great, thanks

Some very nice words by Rorty on reconciliation of past philosophical traditions with the present (at least Rorty present) philosophical rhetoric. However, he offers no advice on how one could reconcile traditional thinkers (Aristotle...Kant) who thought there were eternal essential necessary truths with pragmatists and postmodern thinkers who rely on temporal particular contingent vocabularies and who drop the notion of truth altogether. Reconciliation may be for Rorty a fifth genre of the historiography of philosophy but it will require some very, very strong misreadings somewhere. Reconciliation?

Interesting talk from the vantage point of 2023….

A global society. A democracy at that. How many centuries from now? Social progress is slow, uneven. Democracy is not likely to survive. Power is humanity's greatest pleasure

What3ver happened to the old Channel?

does he discuss this topic in print?

He says seriously in such an affected British accent

He's clearly a pragmatist.

Not really sure what he was getting at here. So, rhetoric is good?

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