Podcasts about Rorty

In the first of a three-part series on Richard Rorty's Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), Let Us Think About It delves into the concept of contingency. Host Ryder Richards guides listeners through Rorty's radical argument that language, selfhood, and liberal communities are not grounded in universal truths but are crafted through historical chance, like tools in a dynamic toolkit. Drawing on Chapter 1, Ryder explores how language, far from mirroring reality, builds truths through evolving vocabularies, with examples like the French Revolution and Donald Davidson's “passing theories.” Chapter 2 reveals the self as a contingent construction, sculpted through redescriptions, as seen in Freud and Proust. Chapter 3 examines liberal societies as experimental creations, sustained by imaginative solidarity rather than fixed foundations, referencing Isaiah Berlin and Judith Shklar. While admiring Rorty's vivid metaphors and provocative ideas, Ryder critiques his potentially reductive view, questioning whether freedom alone can ensure moral progress. Packed with direct quotes and punchy insights, this episode sets the stage for upcoming discussions on irony and solidarity. Tune in to rethink how we create our world with the tools of language!

Back after a year on hiatus! Noah Smith & Brad DeLong Record the Podcast They, at Least, Would Like to Listen to!; Aspirationally Bi-Weekly (Meaning Every Other Week); Aspirationally an hour...Sokrates: The people find some protector, whom they nurse into greatness… but then changes, as indicated in the old fable of the Temple of Zeus of the Wolf, of how he who tastes human flesh mixed up with the flesh of other sacrificial victims will turn into a wolf. Even so, the protector, once metaphorically tasting human blood, slaying some and exiling others, within or without the law, hinting at the cancellation of debts and the fair redistribution of lands, must then either perish or become a werewolf—that is, a tyrant…Key Insights:* We are back! After a year-long hiatus.* Hexapodia is a metaphor: a small, strange insight (like alien shrubs riding on six-wheeled carts as involuntary agents of the Great Evil) can provide key insight into useful and valuable Truth.* The Democratic Party is run by 27-year-old staffers, not geriatric figurehead politicians–this shapes messaging and internal dynamics.* The American progressive movement did not possess enough assibayah to keep from fracturing over Gaza War, especially among younger Democratic staffers influenced by social media discourse.* The left's adoption of “indigeneity” rhetoric undermined its ability to be a coalition in the face of tensions generated by the Hamas-Israel terrorism campaigns.* Trump's election with more popular votes than Harris destroyed Democratic belief that they had a right to oppose root-and-branch.* The belief that Democrats are the “natural majority” of the U.S. electorate is now false: nonvoters lean Trump, not so much Republican, and definitely not Democratic.* Trump's populism is not economic redistribution, but a claim to provide a redistribution of status and respect to those who feel culturally disrespected.* The Supreme Court's response to Trumpian overreach is likely to be very cautious—Barrett and Roberts are desperately eager to avoid any confrontation with Trump they might wind up losing, and Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Thomas will go the extra mile—they are Republicans who are judges, not judges who are Republicans, except in some extremis that may not even exist.* Trump's administration pursues selective repression through the state, rather than stochastic terrorism.* The economic consequence of the second Trump presidency look akin to another Brexit costing the U.S. ~10% of its prosperity, or more.* Social media, especially Twitter a status warfare machine–amplifying trolls and extremists, suppressing nuance.* People addicted to toxic media diets but lack the tools or education to curate better information environments.* SubStack and newsletters may become part of a healthier information ecosystem, a partial antidote to the toxic amplification of the Shouting Class on social media.* Human history is marked by information revolutions (e.g., printing press), each producing destructive upheaval before stabilization: destruction, that may or may not be creative.* As in the 1930s, we are entering a period where institutions–not mobs–become the threat, even as social unrest diminishes.* The dangers are real,and recognizing and adapting to new communication realities is key to preserving democracy.* Plato's Republic warned of democracy decaying into tyranny, especially when mob-like populism finds a strongman champion who then, having (metaphorically) fed on human flesh, becomes a (metaphorical) werewolf.* Enlightenment values relied more than we knew on print-based gatekeeping and slow communication; digital communication bypasses these safeguards.* The cycle of crisis and recovery is consistent through history: societies fall into holes they later dig out of, usually at great cost—or they don't.* &, as always, HEXAPODIA!References:* Brown, Chad P. 2025. “Trump's trade war timeline 2.0: An up-to-date guide”. PIIE. .* Center for Humane Technology. 2020. “The Social Dilemma”. .* Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, & John Jay. 1788. The Federalist Papers. .* Nowinski, Wally. 2024. “Democrats benefit from low turnout now”. Noahpinion. July 20. .* Platon of the Athenai. -375 [1871]. Politeia. .* Rorty, Richard. 1998. Achieving Our Country. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. * Rothpletz, Peter. 2024. “Economics 101 tells us there's no going back from Trumpism”. The Hill. September 24. .* Smith, Noah. 2021. “Wokeness as Respect Redistribution”. Noahpinion..* Smith, Noah. 2016. “How to actually redistribute respect”. Noahpinion. March 23. .* Smith, Noah. 2013. “Redistribute wealth? No, redistribute respect”. Noahpinion. December 27. .* SubStack. 2025. “Building a New Economic Engine for Culture”. .&* Vinge, Vernor. 1999. A Deepness in the Sky. New York: Tor Books. .If reading this gets you Value Above Replacement, then become a free subscriber to this newsletter. And forward it! And if your VAR from this newsletter is in the three digits or more each year, please become a paid subscriber! I am trying to make you readers—and myself—smarter. Please tell me if I succeed, or how I fail… Get full access to Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality at braddelong.substack.com/subscribe

Today I talked to Chris Voparil about What Can We Hope For?: Essays on Politics (Princeton UP, 2023), a book of Richard Rorty's writings he co-edited with W. P. Malecki. Richard Rorty, one of the most influential intellectuals of recent decades, is perhaps best known today as the philosopher who, almost two decades before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, warned of the rise of a Trumpian strongman in America. What Can We Hope For? Essays on Politics (Princeton University Press, 2023) gathers nineteen of Rorty's essays on American and global politics, including four previously unpublished and many lesser-known and hard-to-find pieces. In these provocative and compelling essays, Rorty confronts the critical challenges democracies face at home and abroad, including populism, growing economic inequality, and overpopulation and environmental devastation. In response, he offers optimistic and realistic ideas about how to address these crises. He outlines strategies for fostering social hope and building an inclusive global community of trust, and urges us to put our faith in trade unions, universities, bottom-up social campaigns, and bold political visions that thwart ideological pieties. Driven by Rorty's sense of emergency about our collective future, What Can We Hope For? is filled with striking diagnoses of today's political crises and creative proposals for solving them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Today I talked to Chris Voparil about What Can We Hope For?: Essays on Politics (Princeton UP, 2023), a book of Richard Rorty's writings he co-edited with W. P. Malecki. Richard Rorty, one of the most influential intellectuals of recent decades, is perhaps best known today as the philosopher who, almost two decades before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, warned of the rise of a Trumpian strongman in America. What Can We Hope For? Essays on Politics (Princeton University Press, 2023) gathers nineteen of Rorty's essays on American and global politics, including four previously unpublished and many lesser-known and hard-to-find pieces. In these provocative and compelling essays, Rorty confronts the critical challenges democracies face at home and abroad, including populism, growing economic inequality, and overpopulation and environmental devastation. In response, he offers optimistic and realistic ideas about how to address these crises. He outlines strategies for fostering social hope and building an inclusive global community of trust, and urges us to put our faith in trade unions, universities, bottom-up social campaigns, and bold political visions that thwart ideological pieties. Driven by Rorty's sense of emergency about our collective future, What Can We Hope For? is filled with striking diagnoses of today's political crises and creative proposals for solving them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

Today I talked to Chris Voparil about What Can We Hope For?: Essays on Politics (Princeton UP, 2023), a book of Richard Rorty's writings he co-edited with W. P. Malecki. Richard Rorty, one of the most influential intellectuals of recent decades, is perhaps best known today as the philosopher who, almost two decades before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, warned of the rise of a Trumpian strongman in America. What Can We Hope For? Essays on Politics (Princeton University Press, 2023) gathers nineteen of Rorty's essays on American and global politics, including four previously unpublished and many lesser-known and hard-to-find pieces. In these provocative and compelling essays, Rorty confronts the critical challenges democracies face at home and abroad, including populism, growing economic inequality, and overpopulation and environmental devastation. In response, he offers optimistic and realistic ideas about how to address these crises. He outlines strategies for fostering social hope and building an inclusive global community of trust, and urges us to put our faith in trade unions, universities, bottom-up social campaigns, and bold political visions that thwart ideological pieties. Driven by Rorty's sense of emergency about our collective future, What Can We Hope For? is filled with striking diagnoses of today's political crises and creative proposals for solving them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Today I talked to Chris Voparil about What Can We Hope For?: Essays on Politics (Princeton UP, 2023), a book of Richard Rorty's writings he co-edited with W. P. Malecki. Richard Rorty, one of the most influential intellectuals of recent decades, is perhaps best known today as the philosopher who, almost two decades before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, warned of the rise of a Trumpian strongman in America. What Can We Hope For? Essays on Politics (Princeton University Press, 2023) gathers nineteen of Rorty's essays on American and global politics, including four previously unpublished and many lesser-known and hard-to-find pieces. In these provocative and compelling essays, Rorty confronts the critical challenges democracies face at home and abroad, including populism, growing economic inequality, and overpopulation and environmental devastation. In response, he offers optimistic and realistic ideas about how to address these crises. He outlines strategies for fostering social hope and building an inclusive global community of trust, and urges us to put our faith in trade unions, universities, bottom-up social campaigns, and bold political visions that thwart ideological pieties. Driven by Rorty's sense of emergency about our collective future, What Can We Hope For? is filled with striking diagnoses of today's political crises and creative proposals for solving them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Today I talked to Chris Voparil about What Can We Hope For?: Essays on Politics (Princeton UP, 2023), a book of Richard Rorty's writings he co-edited with W. P. Malecki. Richard Rorty, one of the most influential intellectuals of recent decades, is perhaps best known today as the philosopher who, almost two decades before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, warned of the rise of a Trumpian strongman in America. What Can We Hope For? Essays on Politics (Princeton University Press, 2023) gathers nineteen of Rorty's essays on American and global politics, including four previously unpublished and many lesser-known and hard-to-find pieces. In these provocative and compelling essays, Rorty confronts the critical challenges democracies face at home and abroad, including populism, growing economic inequality, and overpopulation and environmental devastation. In response, he offers optimistic and realistic ideas about how to address these crises. He outlines strategies for fostering social hope and building an inclusive global community of trust, and urges us to put our faith in trade unions, universities, bottom-up social campaigns, and bold political visions that thwart ideological pieties. Driven by Rorty's sense of emergency about our collective future, What Can We Hope For? is filled with striking diagnoses of today's political crises and creative proposals for solving them.

Today I talked to Chris Voparil about What Can We Hope For?: Essays on Politics (Princeton UP, 2023), a book of Richard Rorty's writings he co-edited with W. P. Malecki. Richard Rorty, one of the most influential intellectuals of recent decades, is perhaps best known today as the philosopher who, almost two decades before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, warned of the rise of a Trumpian strongman in America. What Can We Hope For? Essays on Politics (Princeton University Press, 2023) gathers nineteen of Rorty's essays on American and global politics, including four previously unpublished and many lesser-known and hard-to-find pieces. In these provocative and compelling essays, Rorty confronts the critical challenges democracies face at home and abroad, including populism, growing economic inequality, and overpopulation and environmental devastation. In response, he offers optimistic and realistic ideas about how to address these crises. He outlines strategies for fostering social hope and building an inclusive global community of trust, and urges us to put our faith in trade unions, universities, bottom-up social campaigns, and bold political visions that thwart ideological pieties. Driven by Rorty's sense of emergency about our collective future, What Can We Hope For? is filled with striking diagnoses of today's political crises and creative proposals for solving them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

„Voliči seznají, že systém selhal, a začnou se rozhlížet po silném muži – po někom, kdo je ochoten je ujistit, že po jeho zvolení už nebudou rozhodovat samolibí úředníci, úskoční právníci, přeplacení prodejci dluhopisů a postmoderní profesoři,“ napsal americký filozof Richard Rorty roku 1998. Když byl poprvé zvolen Donald Trump prezidentem, mnozí měli za to, že jeho nástup předpověděl. Ale co když tradice, k níž patří Richard Rorty, Trumpa přímo vyprovokovala? Rorty je řazen mezi pragmatiky. To je filozofická tradice, která – stejně jako odpovídající světonázor – vychází z toho, že si člověk nemá příliš vymýšlet a spíše si hledět, aby se žilo. Taková filozofie není žádné teoretizování, ale snaha o projasnění jednání. Že pragmatismus vznikl právě v Americe, může být i historicky ovlivněné. Američané neměli čas na řecké teoretizování. Zatímco antičtí Řekové mohli opovrhovat prací, kterou za ně udělali otroci a oni se aristokraticky vypínali k pravdě samé, Američané budovali společnost, práci oslavovali a nacházeli v ní i pravdu. Pragmatismus však nezačíná s Richardem Rortym. Jedním ze zakládajících myslitelů této tradice je William James, který ani nebyl především filozof. Přesto tento psycholog a vystudovaný lékař způsobil gentlemanské filozofické tradici šok. Pravdivé je prý to, co funguje; to, co rozvíjí mou zkušenost. Tato koncepce byla podnětná a vlivná, ale má to také svou odvrácenou stránku. Není pak pravda skutečně volnou zábavou? Neodjela na dovolenou, jak říká – pochvalně – Richard Rorty? Asi ano, přikyvují pragmatisté. Ale co když pravda už holt taková je? Možná zrovna někde relaxuje – a i my se máme uvolnit. Kapitoly I. Americká filozofie: Žádná věda! Jen život. [začátek až 16:00] II. Svět? Improvizace hravého Boha [16:00 až 26:20] III. William James: Einstein psychologie? [26:20 až 43:05] IV. Výtečnost není jedinečný čin, ale zvyk. [43:05 až 52:45] V. Pravda? Relaxuje – uvolněte se i vy. [52:45 až závěr] Bibliografie Mark Edmundson, Truth Takes a Vacation. Trumpism and the American philosophical tradition, in: Harper's Magazin“, 1/2023, https://harpers.org/archive/2023/01/trumpism-and-the-american-philosophical-tradition/ William James, “The Conception of Truth,” in: Essays in Pragmatism, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948. William James, The Principles of Psychology, I, New York: Henry Holt, 1890. William James, “To H. G. Wells. September 1, 1906,” in The Letters of William James, Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1920. John Kaag, Sick Souls, Healthy Minds. How William James Can Save Your Life, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020. Richard Rorty, Achieving Our Country, Cambridge – London: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Ob am Familientisch, auf Social Media oder im Kino: Ironie ist allgegenwärtig und prägt unsere heutige Kommunikation. Sie kann ein scharfes Mittel sein, um gesellschaftliche Verhältnisse zu kritisieren und bietet eine Möglichkeit zur Distanz - eine Distanz, die erlaubt, eigenes und fremdes Verhalten infrage zu stellen, ohne es direkt anzuklagen. Doch ihr inflationärer Gebrauch birgt Risiken: Ironie kann Klarheit und verbindliche Positionen umgehen und damit eine Kultur der Verantwortungslosigkeit fördern. Das Nachdenken über Ironie führt uns außerdem zu einem philosophischen Kernbegriff: der Wahrheit. Ausgehend von unterschiedlichen Perspektiven diskutieren Denise M'Baye und Sebastian Friedrich das Verhältnis von Ironie und Wahrheit. Sie nehmen dabei Bezug auf den US-amerikanischen Philosophen Richard Rorty, der mit seiner Figur der "liberalen Ironikerin" und der radikalen Ablehnung eines fixen Wahrheitsbegriffs provoziert. Im Gespräch mit dem Sinologen Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer hinterfragen sie, ob der Abschied von der Wahrheit - wie ihn Rorty und andere Poststrukturalisten propagierten - verfrüht war und inwiefern Ironie helfen kann, kulturelle Distanzen zu einem Land wie China zu überwinden. Der Kabarettist Florian Hacke reflektiert, wie Ironie auf der Bühne sowohl zentrales Stilmittel als auch ein mutiges Spiel mit Erwartungen ist. Redaktion: Juliane Bergmann und Claudia Christophersen Wer Feedback, Anregungen und Ideen mitteilen möchte, erreicht die beiden Hosts per E-Mail unter teemitwarum@ndr.de. Literatur: Richard Rorty: Kontingenz, Ironie und Solidarität. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1989. Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer: Ironie und Wahrheit. Theorie einer weltoffenen Verständigung. Matthes und Seitz, Berlin 2024. Homepage von Florian Hacke: https://www.florianhacke.de Podcast-Tipp "Zufälle gibt‘s" https://www.ardaudiothek.de/sendung/zufaelle-gibt-s/13707983/

durée : 00:58:34 - Avec philosophie - par : Géraldine Muhlmann, Antoine Ravon - Richard Rorty remet le pragmatisme en avant lors des années 1960 et tente de l'adapter aux avancées récentes de la philosophie contemporaine. Quel rapport l'ironiste entretient-il à la vérité ? - réalisation : Nicolas Berger - invités : Olivier Tinland Professeur de philosophie à l'Université Paul Valéry de Montpellier; Iris Brouillaud-Velleret Normalienne, agrégée de philosophie, doctorante à l'Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Concluding on "Universality and Truth" from Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism. It it coherent to simply not have a theory of truth? Rorty claims that he's not a relativist; he's just avoiding some useless parts of philosophy that just cause problems, including inculcating the respect for a non-human absolute, and this attitude undermines democracy. Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and bonus content. Sponsor: Check out the Constant Wonder podcast.

On "Universality and Truth" and "Pan-Relationalism," which are lectures 3-5 in Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism. How do we justify democracy? Rorty says we don't have to refer to transcendent Truth or Good to do this. He also denies the disinction between essential and accidental properties, and in fact between substance and property: Everything is just described in terms of its relations to other things, and which relations are important are not intrinsic to the thing, but a matter of a speaker's purposes. Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and bonus content. If you like our podcast, try the Saga Thing podcast.

Continuing on Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism, ch. 1, "Pragmatism and Religion" and 2, "Pragmatism as Romantic Polytheism." Rorty evaluates past pragmatists' approaches to religion, arguing contra James that it can't be "privatized," that democratic social goals involve shared rationality, which means that all of our beliefs are open to the judgment of our peers. Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and bonus content. Sponsors: Apply for convenient term life insurance from Fabric by Gerber Life at meetfabric.com/PEL. Give online therapy a try at BetterHelp.com/partially and get 10% off your first month.

On Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism (1997), ch. 1-2 about religion. Should democracy be defended on absolutist grounds, e.g. by reference to God-given or natural rights, the nature of Man, or the dictates of Reason? Rorty says no! Democracy, ethics, and even truth itself are a matter for societies to decide for themselves. Monotheistic religion provides a negative model for ceding authority on these matters no something non-human. Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and bonus content. Sponsor: Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Conflict in Posthuman Literature, published by Martín Soto on April 9, 2024 on LessWrong. Grant Snider created this comic (which became a meme): Richard Ngo extended it into posthuman=transhumanist literature: That's cool, but I'd have gone for different categories myself.[1] Here they are together with their explanations. Top: Man vs Agency (Other names: Superintelligence, Singularity, Self-improving technology, Embodied consequentialism.) Because Nature creates Society creates Technology creates Agency. At each step Man becomes less in control, due to his increased computational boundedness relative to the other. Middle: Man vs Realities (Other names: Simulation, Partial existence, Solomonoff prior, Math.) Because Man vs Self is the result of dissolving holistic individualism (no subagents in conflict) from Man vs Man. Man vs Reality is the result of dissolving the Self boundary altogether from Man vs Self. Man vs Realities is the result of dissolving the binary boundary between existence and non-existence from Man vs Reality. Or equivalently, the boundary between different physical instantiations of you (noticing you are your mathematical algorithm). At each step a personal identity boundary previously perceived as sharp is dissolved.[2] Bottom: Man vs No Author (Other names: Dust theory, Groundlessness, Meaninglessness, Relativism, Extreme functionalism, Philosophical ill-definedness, Complete breakdown of abstractions and idealizations, .) Because Man vs God thinks "the existence of idealization (=Platonic realm=ultimate meaning=unstoppable force)" is True. This corresponds to philosophical idealism. Man vs No God notices "the existence of idealization" is False. And scorns Man vs God's wishful beliefs. This corresponds to philosophical materialism. Man vs Author notices "the existence of idealization" is not a well-defined question (doesn't have a truth value). And voices this realization, scorning the still-idealistic undertone of Man vs No God, by presenting itself as mock-idealization (Author) inside the shaky boundaries (breaking the fourth wall) of a non-idealized medium (literature, language). This corresponds to the Vienna circle, Quine's Web of Belief, Carnap's attempt at metaphysical collapse and absolute language, an absolute and pragmatic grounding for sensorial reality. Man vs No Author notices that the realization of Man vs Author cannot really be expressed in any language, cannot be voiced, and we must remain silent. It notices there never was any "noticing". One might hypothesize it would scorn Man vs Author if it could, but it has no voice to do so. It is cessation of conflict, breakdown of literature. This corresponds to early Wittgenstein, or Rorty's Pan-Relationalism. At each step the implicit philosophical presumptions of the previous paradigm are revealed untenable. The vertical gradient is also nice: The first row presents ever-more-advanced macroscopic events in reality, derived through physics as causal consequences. The second row presents ever-more-general realizations about our nature, derived through maths as acausal influence our actions have in reality.[3] The third row presents ever-more-destructive collapses of the implicit theoretical edifice we use to relate our nature with reality, derived through philosophy as different static impossibilities. ^ If I had to critique Richard's additions: Man vs Physics seems too literal (in sci-fi stories the only remaining obstacle is optimizing physics), and not a natural extension of the literary evolution in that row. Man vs Agency doesn't seem to me to capture the dance of boundaries that seems most interesting in that row. Man vs Simulator seems again a too literal translation of Man vs Author (changing the flavor of the setting rather than the underlying idea). ^ To see the Man vs Man t...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Conflict in Posthuman Literature, published by Martín Soto on April 9, 2024 on LessWrong. Grant Snider created this comic (which became a meme): Richard Ngo extended it into posthuman=transhumanist literature: That's cool, but I'd have gone for different categories myself.[1] Here they are together with their explanations. Top: Man vs Agency (Other names: Superintelligence, Singularity, Self-improving technology, Embodied consequentialism.) Because Nature creates Society creates Technology creates Agency. At each step Man becomes less in control, due to his increased computational boundedness relative to the other. Middle: Man vs Realities (Other names: Simulation, Partial existence, Solomonoff prior, Math.) Because Man vs Self is the result of dissolving holistic individualism (no subagents in conflict) from Man vs Man. Man vs Reality is the result of dissolving the Self boundary altogether from Man vs Self. Man vs Realities is the result of dissolving the binary boundary between existence and non-existence from Man vs Reality. Or equivalently, the boundary between different physical instantiations of you (noticing you are your mathematical algorithm). At each step a personal identity boundary previously perceived as sharp is dissolved.[2] Bottom: Man vs No Author (Other names: Dust theory, Groundlessness, Meaninglessness, Relativism, Extreme functionalism, Philosophical ill-definedness, Complete breakdown of abstractions and idealizations, .) Because Man vs God thinks "the existence of idealization (=Platonic realm=ultimate meaning=unstoppable force)" is True. This corresponds to philosophical idealism. Man vs No God notices "the existence of idealization" is False. And scorns Man vs God's wishful beliefs. This corresponds to philosophical materialism. Man vs Author notices "the existence of idealization" is not a well-defined question (doesn't have a truth value). And voices this realization, scorning the still-idealistic undertone of Man vs No God, by presenting itself as mock-idealization (Author) inside the shaky boundaries (breaking the fourth wall) of a non-idealized medium (literature, language). This corresponds to the Vienna circle, Quine's Web of Belief, Carnap's attempt at metaphysical collapse and absolute language, an absolute and pragmatic grounding for sensorial reality. Man vs No Author notices that the realization of Man vs Author cannot really be expressed in any language, cannot be voiced, and we must remain silent. It notices there never was any "noticing". One might hypothesize it would scorn Man vs Author if it could, but it has no voice to do so. It is cessation of conflict, breakdown of literature. This corresponds to early Wittgenstein, or Rorty's Pan-Relationalism. At each step the implicit philosophical presumptions of the previous paradigm are revealed untenable. The vertical gradient is also nice: The first row presents ever-more-advanced macroscopic events in reality, derived through physics as causal consequences. The second row presents ever-more-general realizations about our nature, derived through maths as acausal influence our actions have in reality.[3] The third row presents ever-more-destructive collapses of the implicit theoretical edifice we use to relate our nature with reality, derived through philosophy as different static impossibilities. ^ If I had to critique Richard's additions: Man vs Physics seems too literal (in sci-fi stories the only remaining obstacle is optimizing physics), and not a natural extension of the literary evolution in that row. Man vs Agency doesn't seem to me to capture the dance of boundaries that seems most interesting in that row. Man vs Simulator seems again a too literal translation of Man vs Author (changing the flavor of the setting rather than the underlying idea). ^ To see the Man vs Man t...

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristotle's ideas on what happiness means and how to live a good life. Aristotle (384-322BC) explored these almost two and a half thousand years ago in what became known as his Nicomachean Ethics. His audience then were the elite in Athens as, he argued, if they knew how to live their lives well then they could better rule the lives of others. While circumstances and values have changed across the centuries, Aristotle's approach to answering those questions has fascinated philosophers ever since and continues to do so.With Angie Hobbs Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of SheffieldRoger Crisp Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Tutor in Philosophy at St Anne's College, University of OxfordAnd Sophia Connell Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of LondonProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:J.L. Ackrill, Aristotle the Philosopher (Oxford University Press, 1981)Aristotle (ed. and trans. Roger Crisp), Nicomachean Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2000)Aristotle (trans. Terence Irwin), Nicomachean Ethics (Hackett Publishing Co., 2019) Aristotle (trans. H. Rackham), Nicomachean Ethics: Loeb Classical Library (William Heinemann Ltd, 1962)Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle: Past Masters series (Oxford University Press, 1982) Gerard J. Hughes, Routledge Guidebook to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Routledge, 2013)Richard Kraut (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2005)Michael Pakaluk, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2005)A. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle's Ethics (University of California Press, 1981) Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character: Aristotle's Theory of Virtue (Clarendon Press, 1989)J.O. Urmson, Aristotle's Ethics (John Wiley & Sons, 1988)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristotle's ideas on what happiness means and how to live a good life. Aristotle (384-322BC) explored these almost two and a half thousand years ago in what became known as his Nicomachean Ethics. His audience then were the elite in Athens as, he argued, if they knew how to live their lives well then they could better rule the lives of others. While circumstances and values have changed across the centuries, Aristotle's approach to answering those questions has fascinated philosophers ever since and continues to do so.With Angie Hobbs Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of SheffieldRoger Crisp Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Tutor in Philosophy at St Anne's College, University of OxfordAnd Sophia Connell Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of LondonProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list:J.L. Ackrill, Aristotle the Philosopher (Oxford University Press, 1981)Aristotle (ed. and trans. Roger Crisp), Nicomachean Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2000)Aristotle (trans. Terence Irwin), Nicomachean Ethics (Hackett Publishing Co., 2019) Aristotle (trans. H. Rackham), Nicomachean Ethics: Loeb Classical Library (William Heinemann Ltd, 1962)Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle: Past Masters series (Oxford University Press, 1982) Gerard J. Hughes, Routledge Guidebook to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Routledge, 2013)Richard Kraut (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2005)Michael Pakaluk, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2005)A. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle's Ethics (University of California Press, 1981) Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character: Aristotle's Theory of Virtue (Clarendon Press, 1989)J.O. Urmson, Aristotle's Ethics (John Wiley & Sons, 1988)

On this episode I talk with Chris Voparil from Union Institute & University about American philosopher Richard Rorty. We discuss Rorty's biography, his complicated relation with American Pragmatist philosophy and both analytic and continental philosophy, how Rorty dealt with accusations of relativism, his epistemological and moral pluralism, what Rorty has to say about solidarity and community building, how the academic left neglected economics  and forgot to talk about poor people, and what hope Rorty offers the  contemporary world. Christopher J. Voparil is the author of two books Richard Rorty: Politics and Vision, (2006) and Reconstructing Pragmatism: Richard Rorty and the Classical Pragmatists (2022). He is also co-editor of The Rorty Reader (2010), Richard Rorty: On Philosophy and Philosophers: Unpublished Papers, 1960–2000 (2020), What Can We Hope For?: Essays on Politics (2023). He is the founding President of the Richard Rorty Society. You can find out more about Chris here. If you would like to study with me you can find more information about our online education MAs in Philosophy here at Staffordshire University. You can find out more information on our MA in Continental Philosophy via this link. Or, join our MA in Philosophy of Nature, Information and Technology via this link. Find out more about me here.  September intakes F/T or January intakes P/T. You can listen to more free back content from the Thales' Well podcast on TuneIn Radio, Player Fm, Stitcher and Pod Bean. You can also download their apps to your smart phone and listen via there. You can also subscribe for free on iTunes. Please leave a nice review.

Ryder Richards builds on thinkers like Kant, Rorty, and Baudrillard in this podcast to argue that reality can filter problematic abstractions. He proposes reality as a net separating transcendental truths and superficial advertising. Without reality's grounding, these abstractions reinforce each other's weaknesses.Part 1 - Reality as a Net for AbstractionsRichards lays out the idea of reality as a net dividing two types of abstraction. On one side is a transcendental ideology or truth claim, such as religion or science. On the other is superficial simulacra like advertising. Usually, reality forces these to grapple with concrete pragmatism. But as reality's power fades, these abstractions intertwine dangerously.Richards relates this to Plato's cave - the shadows are lies, but the light of the exterior, truth itself, can also be an abstraction. Modern thinkers like Rorty argued truth and reality are separate. So, going from cave to light just shifts one abstraction for another.Part 2 - Disneyland as an ExampleRichards uses Baudrillard's concrete example of Disneyland as an abstraction slipping into dangerous territory. Disneyland pretends to be fiction but reveals a desire for moral truth. However, this yearning abstracted into blind faith leads to fanaticism and policing "outsiders." The virtues represented become ways to enforce arbitrary hierarchies. In this case, the morality play of virtuousness, combined with fictional advertising, exemplifies Hofstader's 'hyper system," or tangled hierarchy, without referencing reality. Part 3 - Lowering Abstractions' PowerTo counter abstraction's excesses, Richards offers two main methods:Way 1 - Communicative RationalityThe first way is Isiah Berlin's communicative rationality - agreeing on language, intent, and logic tied to reality. This raises the "net" by grounding thought in the concrete.Way 2 - MeditationThe second way is meditation, recognizing our physical body to quiet constant abstraction. This reduces reactivity and teaches us to filter manipulations.ConclusionIn sum, abstraction untethered from reality breeds instability and vulnerability to facile beliefs. Reality anchors us against these excesses. In future episodes, Richards will continue exploring pragmatism, AI, and the limits of language.

W tej serii poznajemy podstawy metaetyki – dziedziny filozofii, której celem jest wyjaśnienie podstaw moralności. Podczas gdy etyka stara się odpowiedzieć na pytanie CO jest moralne, metaetyka stara się odpowiedzieć na pytanie DLACZEGO (I CZY) coś w ogóle może być moralne. W cz. 3 omówimy teorie obiektywistyczne i uniwersalistyczne (zakładające istnienie obiektywnej lub uniwersalnej moralności): intuicjonizm metaetyczny, naturalizm metaetyczny, teorię Bożego rozkazu, oraz subiektywizm idealnego obserwatora. ---> DIAGRAM: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1e8rFNgn8KFkWp6IKPFtY8u2ZXldDU7GB 
---> Podcast możesz wesprzeć na: Patronite – https://patronite.pl/filozofiapoprostu/description Buy Coffee – https://buycoffee.to/filozofiapoprostu To niezwykle pomocne i motywujące – dziękuję! :) Zapraszam też na sociale :) ---> Instagram: @filozofia_po_prostu https://www.instagram.com/filozofia_po_prostu/?hl=en ---> Facebook: Filozofia Po Prostu https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068611986622 ---> kontakt: filozofia.po.prostu.podcast@gmail.com Podcast powstaje dzięki niesamowitym Patronom i Patronkom: Bartłomiej Wachacz, Anna Limanowska, Pola Weryszko, Adrian Sokołowski, Patryk Neumann, Michał Semczyszyn, Magda Juraszewska, Przemek Łukasiński, Anita Włosek, Ewa Kamińska, Sebastian Cychowski, Michał Bukała, Michał Kruszewicz, Kuba Dziadosz, Alicja Zielińska, Magdalena Rutkowska, Agnieszka Myszkowska, Ewa Glu, Michał Klatka, Beata Kupczyńska, Karol Ciba, Paweł Jastrzębski, Piotr Juszczyński, Stefan Basista, Barbara Skobiej, Ela Petruk, Katarzyna Ergang, Kinga Kasińska, Michał Grązka, Piotr Romanowski, Rob Ak, Marcin Kweczlich, Nicolina Majewska, Marcin Maśkiewicz, Szymon Zawierucha, Małgośka Radkiewicz, Maciej Ruciński, Hania Ślęk, Michał Wojciak, Michał Śliwiński, Rafał Myrcik, Katarzyna Kwietniewska, Cezary Spustek, Mikołaj Gala, Bartosz Szarowar, Aleksandra Franczyk, Natalia Pietrzak, Kamil Gucwa, Michał Felerski, Brądzylians Fąfalny, Witold Barycki, Karol Głowacki, Elo Mordo, Dawid Dziedzic, Maciej Foremski, Ewa Dąbrowska, Maja Smolarz, Andrzej Manoryk, Dorota Uniewska, Bartlomiej Mej, Marek Paszkowski, Marcin Gryszko, Antoni Kania, Piotr Żmudziński, Bartosz Kolasa, Paweł Doligalski, Werka G, Maria Matyka, oraz Patroni i Patronki anonimowi. Dziękuję!

W tej serii poznajemy podstawy metaetyki – dziedziny filozofii, której celem jest wyjaśnienie podstaw moralności. Podczas gdy etyka stara się odpowiedzieć na pytanie CO jest moralne, metaetyka stara się odpowiedzieć na pytanie DLACZEGO (I CZY) coś w ogóle może być moralne. W cz. 2 omawiamy teorie anty-obiektywistyczne (odmawiające istnienia obiektywnej moralności): emotywizm, preskryptywizm, teorię błędu, relatywizm mówiącego, relatywizm jednostki, relatywizm kulturowy - a także przy okazji takie zagadnienia jak ewolucjonizm metaetyczny i quasi-realism. ---> DIAGRAM: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1e8rFNgn8KFkWp6IKPFtY8u2ZXldDU7GB ---> Podcast możesz wesprzeć na: Patronite – https://patronite.pl/filozofiapoprostu/description Buy Coffee – https://buycoffee.to/filozofiapoprostu To niezwykle pomocne i motywujące – dziękuję! :) Zapraszam też na sociale: ---> Instagram: @filozofia_po_prostu https://www.instagram.com/filozofia_po_prostu/?hl=en ---> Facebook: Filozofia Po Prostu https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068611986622 ---> kontakt: filozofia.po.prostu.podcast@gmail.com Podcast powstaje dzięki niesamowitym Patronom i Patronkom: Bartłomiej Wachacz, Anna Limanowska, Pola Weryszko, Adrian Sokołowski, Patryk Neumann, Michał Semczyszyn, Magda Juraszewska, Przemek Łukasiński, Anita Włosek, Ewa Kamińska, Sebastian Cychowski, Michał Bukała, Michał Kruszewicz, Kuba Dziadosz, Alicja Zielińska, Magdalena Rutkowska, Agnieszka Myszkowska, Ewa Glu, Michał Klatka, Beata Kupczyńska, Karol Ciba, Paweł Jastrzębski, Piotr Juszczyński, Stefan Basista, Barbara Skobiej, Ela Petruk, Katarzyna Ergang, Kinga Kasińska, Michał Grązka, Piotr Romanowski, Rob Ak, Marcin Kweczlich, Nicolina Majewska, Marcin Maśkiewicz, Szymon Zawierucha, Małgośka Radkiewicz, Maciej Ruciński, Hania Ślęk, Michał Wojciak, Michał Śliwiński, Rafał Myrcik, Katarzyna Kwietniewska, Cezary Spustek, Mikołaj Gala, Bartosz Szarowar, Aleksandra Franczyk, Natalia Pietrzak, Kamil Gucwa, Michał Felerski, Brądzylians Fąfalny, Witold Barycki, Karol Głowacki, Elo Mordo, Dawid Dziedzic, Maciej Foremski, Ewa Dąbrowska, Maja Smolarz, Andrzej Manoryk, Dorota Uniewska, Bartlomiej Mej, Marek Paszkowski, Marcin Gryszko, Antoni Kania, Piotr Żmudziński, Bartosz Kolasa, Paweł Doligalski, oraz Patroni i Patronki anonimowi. Dziękuję! OPRACOWANIA: Fisher, A. 2014. Metaethics: an introduction. Routledge. Miller, A. 2014. Contemporary metaethics: an introduction. John Wiley & Sons. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, online 2023: https://plato.stanford.edu/, hasła z dziedziny metaetyki. WYBRANE TEKSTY ŹRÓDŁOWE: Ayer, A. J., 1946. “A Critique of Ethics”, in Language, Truth and Logic, London: Gollanz, 102–114. Blackburn, S., 1993. Essays in Quasi-Realism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blackburn, S., 1998. Ruling Passions, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Boyd, R., 1988. “How to Be a Moral Realist,” in Essays on Moral Realism, G. Sayre-McCord (ed.), 181–228. Firth, R., 1952, “Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 12: 317–345. Foot, P., 1958, “Moral Beliefs”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 59: 83–104. Hare, R. M., 1952. The Language of Morals, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hume, D., 1739. Treatise Concerning Human Nature, L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1888. Joyce, R., 2001. The Myth of Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mackie, J. L., 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, London: Penguin Books. Moore, G. E., 1903. Principia Ethica, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rawls, J. 2001. Justice as fairness: A restatement. Harvard University Press. Rorty, R. 2013. Pragmatism, relativism, and irrationalism. The American Philosophical Association Centennial Series, 653-666. Singer, P. 1981. The expanding circle. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ​​Stevenson, C., 1937. “The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms”, Mind, 46: 14–31.

W tym odcinku poznajemy podstawy metaetyki –dziedziny filozofii, której celem jest wyjaśnienie podstaw moralności. Podczas gdy etyka stara się odpowiedzieć na pytanie CO jest moralne, metaetyka stara się odpowiedzieć na pytanie DLACZEGO (I CZY) coś w ogóle może być moralne. Odcinek ten jest publikowany w częściach: w cz. 1. omawiamy podstawowe problemy i terminy dotyczące podstaw moralności (wstęp do teorii ;). ---> Podcast możesz wesprzeć na Patronite – o tutaj: https://patronite.pl/filozofiapoprostu/description To niezwykle pomocne i motywujące – dziękuję! :) Zapraszam też na sociale: ---> Instagram: @filozofia_po_prostu https://www.instagram.com/filozofia_po_prostu/?hl=en ---> Facebook: Filozofia Po Prostu https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068611986622 ---> kontakt: filozofia.po.prostu.podcast@gmail.com Podcast powstaje dzięki niesamowitym Patronom i Patronkom: Bartłomiej Wachacz, Anna Limanowska, Pola Weryszko, Adrian Sokołowski, Patryk Neumann, Michał Semczyszyn, Magda Juraszewska, Przemek Łukasiński, Anita Włosek, Ewa Kamińska, Sebastian Cychowski, Michał Bukała, Michał Kruszewicz, Kuba Dziadosz, Alicja Zielińska, Magdalena Rutkowska, Agnieszka Myszkowska, Ewa Glu, Michał Klatka, Beata Kupczyńska, Karol Ciba, Paweł Jastrzębski, Piotr Juszczyński, Stefan Basista, Barbara Skobiej, Ela Petruk, Katarzyna Ergang, Kinga Kasińska, Michał Grązka, Piotr Romanowski, Rob Ak, Marcin Kweczlich, Nicolina Majewska, Marcin Maśkiewicz, Szymon Zawierucha, Małgośka Radkiewicz, Maciej Ruciński, Hania Ślęk, Michał Wojciak, Michał Śliwiński, Rafał Myrcik, Katarzyna Kwietniewska, Cezary Spustek, Mikołaj Gala, Bartosz Szarowar, Aleksandra Franczyk, Natalia Pietrzak, Kamil Gucwa, Michał Felerski, Brądzylians Fąfalny, Witold Barycki, Karol Głowacki, Elo Mordo, Dawid Dziedzic, Maciej Foremski, Ewa Dąbrowska, Maja Smolarz, Andrzej Manoryk, Dorota Uniewska, Bartlomiej Mej, Marek Paszkowski, Marcin Gryszko, Antoni Kania, oraz Patroni i Patronki anonimowi. Dziękuję!

In the sixth installment of our John Dewey Series, we delve into the final chapter of "The Public and Its Problems," titled 'The Problem of Method.' This episode explores the reconciliation of atomistic individualism with shared moral narratives, a key aspect of our quest for the good life. We scrutinize the challenges posed by Enlightenment thinking and its influence on our perception of society and the individual. The importance of face-to-face interactions in community building is discussed, exemplified by a case against drive-throughs to underscore the value of fostering direct dialogue. Further, we navigate the revitalization of local communal life, drawing insights from Dewey and Rorty, with a particular emphasis on the call for empathetic dialogue. As we conclude this episode, we reflect on our journey through Dewey's work, expressing hope for a society that is not only alive and flexible but also stable, responsive, and enriching.Topics: Reconciliation of Atomistic Individualism and Shared Moral Narratives Critique of Enlightenment Thinking and its Impact on Society The Role of Face-to-Face Interactions in Community Building The Case Against Drive-Throughs as a Means to Foster Direct Dialogue Revitalization of Local Communal Life The Importance of Empathetic Dialogue in Community Building The Role of Education and Community Engagement in Healthcare Reform The Concept of Intelligence in Dewey's Philosophy The Importance of Ethics in Society The Hope for a Society that is Alive, Flexible, Stable, Responsive, and Enriching.Book Recommendations: "How Private Equity Is Swallowing Up Health Care—And What to Do About It"by Dana Brown "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" by Richard Rorty "Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity" by Charles Taylor The Book: The Public and its Problems Twitter: https://twitter.com/Reviving_Virtue Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/RevivingVirtue Substack: https://revivingvirtue.substack.com/ Contact: revivingvirtue@gmail.com Music by Jeffrey Anthony: https://open.spotify.com/album/1Q9wJCeuUa3wrHrKKtsTFW?si=NeyPJ-dzRBeWfHhYDPgvvw

Dr. Susan Dieleman is the newly appointed and inaugural Jarislowsky Chair in Trust and Political Leadership at the University of Lethbridge. Dr. Dieleman is a renowned authority on the philosophy of Richard Rorty, the American pragmatist whose approach to understanding society through language and solidarity has been so instrumental in the work of many scholars in the humanities. Hosted and produced by Cameron Graham, Professor of Accounting at York University. Visit our website at podcastorperish.ca for show notes, transcripts, and links to our guests' work.

Richard Rorty als Vertreter der amerikanischen Postmoderne mischt liberale,pragmatische und erkenntnistheoretische Ansätze zu einer situativ-perspektivisch angelegten Gesellschaftskritik. Dabei rückt das ironische Konzept mit den Schlüsselbegriffen Solidarität und Kontingenz in den Fokus. Der Podcast zeichnet Rortys Weg von den Anfängen der Sprachtheorie (LinguisticTurn),Erkenntnistheorie ( Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) über seine mittlere Periode des Pragmatismus (Consequennce of Pragmatism) bis zu seinem vermeintlichen Hauptwerk "Contingency,Irony and Solidarity" nach.

Global Policy Watch: Bailout Pe Bailout Pe BailoutInsights on global policy issues relevant to India— RSJWhere do I start this week? Maybe with a spot of self-promotion. Pranay and I were guests on the popular Hindi podcast Puliyaabazi. I have been a long-time fan, so it was nice to be a guest there. Pranay usually co-hosts this with Saurabh and Khyati, but this time, he was on the other side. I felt a bit like Uday Chopra, who is only in the film because he is the producer's brother. Anyway, I think a good time was had by all as we covered a wide variety of topics - Enlightenment and why it didn't happen in India (short answer: there wasn't any need, really), why we write this newsletter (majboori) and the usual quota of Bastiat, Smith and Rorty (showing off). Do listen if you have time (of course, you do).Moving on. Here is a quick run-through of what's gone on since my last post. Another US regional bank, Signature Bank, stared into the abyss with depositors making a run to withdraw their money as analysts looked around for large unrealised losses sitting on banks' balance sheets. Fed officials spent their weekend hawking the other failed bank, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), to potential buyers. But who in their right mind will buy out a troubled bank in these times? More so after all the trouble that the likes of JP Morgan Chase had buying out such banks during the financial crisis of 2009. Running out of options, the Fed, the Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced an unprecedented bailout of all depositors of SVB and any other bank that will be in a similar hole in future. Simply put, FDIC will guarantee all deposits and not just those below $250,000 for which there's insurance. To be sure, the equity shareholders and those holding unsecured corporate bonds won't be bailed out. They will lose their shirts. So, this isn't a repeat of the 2009 bailouts. The Fed then went a step further to address the root cause of the problem. Banks are sitting on huge held-to-maturity (HTM) losses on the securities they hold because the interest rates have moved too far up too quickly. And they have a liquidity issue if there are continued withdrawals from the depositors. If they sell their securities today to meet their commitments to give depositors their money when they ask for it, they will have to sell them at a loss. This substantial loss will mean they will need to raise capital from shareholders to keep themselves solvent as per Fed requirements. But who will give them money in this market? Uninsured depositors who play out this game-theory scenario in their minds will therefore withdraw more of their money. Ideally, if they play the scenario right as a collective, they shouldn't. But as individuals, they will make a run on the bank. Soon, the bank will be in a death spiral, and this is what happened at SVB and Signature Banks. The last-minute solution devised by Fed was the creation of what's termed the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP). Here's how Fed sees BTFP:“The additional funding will be made available through the creation of a new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), offering loans of up to one year in length to banks, savings associations, credit unions, and other eligible depository institutions pledging U.S. Treasuries, agency debt and mortgage-backed securities, and other qualifying assets as collateral. These assets will be valued at par. The BTFP will be an additional source of liquidity against high-quality securities, eliminating an institution's need to quickly sell those securities in times of stress.With approval of the Treasury Secretary, the Department of the Treasury will make available up to $25 billion from the Exchange Stabilization Fund as a backstop for the BTFP. The Federal Reserve does not anticipate that it will be necessary to draw on these backstop funds.”If you didn't have any background to this situation and just read the above note from the Fed, you'd be forgiven if you thought here was a central bank of a developing world economy figuring out a short-term jugaad to solve a crisis at hand. But the Fed didn't just stop here. After all, like the Queen in Through The Looking Glass, it can believe in six impossible things before breakfast. Leaving their struggles to find a buyer for Signature Bank behind, they put together a unique Barjatya style “hum saath saath hain” deal and nudged a number of banks to do their bit to shore up confidence in the banking system: (as CNBC reports)“A group of financial institutions has agreed to deposit $30 billion in First Republic in what's meant to be a sign of confidence in the banking system, the banks announced Thursday afternoon.Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase will contribute about $5 billion apiece, while Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will deposit around $2.5 billion, the banks said in a news release. Truist, PNC, U.S. Bancorp, State Street and Bank of New York Mellon will deposit about $1 billion each.“This action by America's largest banks reflects their confidence in First Republic and in banks of all sizes, and it demonstrates their overall commitment to helping banks serve their customers and communities,” the group said in a statement.“This show of support by a group of large banks is most welcome, and demonstrates the resilience of the banking system,” The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said in a joint statement.”Remind me now, sometime in the past, I have accused Indian policymakers of what's called isomorphic mimicry. It is a concept developed by Lant Pritchett et al to explain the tendency of governments to mimic other governments' successes, replicating processes, systems, and even products of the “best practice” examples without actually developing the functionality of the institutions they are imitating. Policymaking in developing countries often falls prey to this. A good example of this is imitating the green energy policies implemented in Sweden (a $60,000 per capita economy) in India (a $2000 per capita economy) which has neither the state capacity to implement nor the public readiness to accept such policies. Why am I bringing up isomorphic mimicry here? Well, because I never imagined a day shall dawn when the US policymakers take a leaf out of what India did when faced with a crisis. What the Fed did to save Signature Bank is isomorphic mimicry flowing the other way. To refresh your memory, here's a Business Standard report (Mar 13, 2020) on what the Finance Ministry and RBI did to save Yes Bank in 2020:“Hours after the Cabinet approved reconstruction scheme for YES Bank, private lenders ICICI Bank, HDFC, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Axis Bank came to the cash-strapped bank's rescue. While the SBI had earlier announced its decision to purchase 49 per cent shares, both ICICI Bank and HDFC are set to invest Rs 1000 crore each with Axis Bank pouring Rs 600 crore to pick up 60 crore shares of the troubled lender and Kotak Mahindra infusing an equity capital of Rs 500 crore under the RBI's bailout plan.The developments took place soon after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that other investors were also being invited.”I guess one way to look at this is if you let fiscal dominance become the central canon of how you manage your economic policy, you will eventually reach the same place as other economies (mostly developing) that have indulged in the same for years. The monetary authorities in the U.S. have been accommodating the fiscal profligacy of the treasury for years. This was accentuated during the pandemic. Trillions of dollars were pumped in to save the economy. I'm not sure how much the economy needed saving then. But that bill has come now. First in the shape of inflation, followed by rapid, unprecedented rate hikes and the inevitable accidents that are showing up now. Almost certainly, a recession will follow. Isomorphic mimicry of Latin American monetary policy indeed. Anyway, that was not the only bailout of the week. We also had Credit Suisse almost going under in a bad case of deja vu to those who have seen 2009. Here's CNBC on this:“Credit Suisse announced it will be borrowing up to 50 billion Swiss francs ($53.68 billion) from the Swiss National Bank under a covered loan facility and a short-term liquidity facility.The decision comes shortly after shares of the lender fell sharply Wednesday, hitting an all-time low for a second consecutive day after its top investor Saudi National Bank was quoted as saying it won't be able to provide further assistance. The latest steps will “support Credit Suisse's core businesses and clients as Credit Suisse takes the necessary steps to create a simpler and more focused bank built around client needs,” the company said in an announcement.In addition, the bank is making a cash tender offer in relation to ten U.S. dollar denominated senior debt securities for an aggregate consideration of up to $2.5 billion – as well as a separate offer to four Euro denominated senior debt securities for up to an aggregate 500 million euros, the company said.”What's that word that starts with C and was used a lot during the pandemic? Well, that C word is knocking at the doors of global finance right now. It is not a contagion yet. But the odds of it happening have significantly gone up in the past week.I will close this by covering the two discussion themes emerging from these events. First, what happens to the hawkish stance the Fed had taken a couple of weeks back on more rapid rate hikes in the light of inflation being sticky and inflation expectations being anchored? This, as I have written earlier, is of real interest to India and its policymaking stance. The Fed is in an absolute bind now before its meeting on Wednesday to take a call on rates. A rate hike in the current environment will make the weak banks look even more vulnerable despite the deposit backstop and the additional liquidity available from BTFP. And who knows what other accidents are lurking that will show up as the rates go higher? Does the Fed want to risk financial instability? On the other hand, inflation is real, and it is an election year. Runaway inflation will mean the eventual taming of it, and the recession that will follow will be hard and long. Who wants to preside over that? I see almost zero chance of a rate hike in this cycle. The Fed might wait till May to resume raising rates after it has weathered this risk of banking contagion and waiting for the April inflation data. But even then, the core problem remains. Further rate hikes will expose weak players, and that will mean we will have accidents. So long as they are small and contained, it is worth the risk of raising rates. But who can predict the nature of the accidents?Second, there's some kind of war that's broken out on social media on who is responsible for the collapse of SVB and Signature. There are those who believe it is the Fed whose actions over the past three years are solely responsible for the situation we are in now. The crux of the argument is that the Fed forecasts the interest rate and then it sets the rate. Banks take bets on long-term securities based on these forecasts. This is called duration risk. If the Fed then sets the rate that's so far removed from their own forecasts, what do poor treasury folks in Banks do? Plus, it is the Fed that has been making the rules since the GFC to direct a whole lot of bank liquidity into the purchase of long-term government bonds. The whole system is rigged by the Fed, and when things go wrong, it cannot pontificate on the risk management practices of banks. The counter to this is that the Fed only puts out an interest forecast based on the data (esp on inflation) that's available. When the incoming data changes, its forecast changes. This deviation is in a narrow band in usual times. In unusual times like what we've been through in the past two years, you may have a bigger variance. Banks have multiple ways to hedge duration risks. Instead of looking at the Fed to apportion blame, one should look at how conveniently the depositors of SVB - the VCs, startups and other cool people - jumped ship at the first sign of trouble when they know such a collective deposit withdrawal will make the situation worse. It is incredibly stupid of this deposit base that prides itself on its ability to see further, take long-term bets and dimension risks better than others, that it could not have the patience to stand by a bank that has served them well. The problem of SVB bank, according to this lot, is they were over-reliant on a lopsided deposit base, and that deposit base acted most stupidly. I think both these debates are going to rage on for some time. The Fed has slipped down the path where it has allowed fiscal dominance to overrule prudent policymaking. It is quite difficult to retrieve ground from there unless you have a Fed Chair with the intellectual heft and drive to restore balance. Equally, asset liability matching (ALM) is a core responsibility of banks. They are supposed to diversify their base of customers, monitor duration risks, and stress-test their balance sheet. All the strutting around as a cool disruptive bank or hanging out with your clients should not distract you from that fundamental truth. You take your eye off it, you veer off the road.    Advertisement: Admissions to Takshashila's Post-graduate Programme in Public Policy (PGP) are now open. This is a fantastic opportunity if you want to dive deep into public policy while pursuing your work responsibilities.India Policy Watch: Milking Consumers and Producers, All at OnceInsights on burning policy issues in India— Pranay KotasthaneWe harp on Hayek's paper, The Use of Knowledge in Society, in this newsletter. Price is a vital signal, a decentralised coordination mechanism between producers and consumers. And so, when governments prohibit its functioning, bizarre things happen. Let's analyse the consequences of price distortion using an ongoing situation — the milk shortage in Karnataka. A bit of background to set things up. Milk is an ‘essential' commodity. Its essentiality is not just a matter of fact or reason but also a carte blanche for Indian governments to regulate the production, supply, and distribution of any commodity that is classified as essential under the Essential Commodities Act (ECA), 1955. In practical terms, it means that the government fixes procurement prices, caps consumer prices, and often owns and runs everything that lies between these the producer and the consumer.So is the case with milk in most states, including Karnataka. The Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) is a dairy cooperative under the Department of Cooperation, Government of Karnataka. It procures nearly 50 per cent of all the milk that is produced in the state. It sells products under the brand name Nandini. Nearly 50 per cent of its consumption happens in the capital, Bengaluru. Government ownership complicates and comicalises the situation in a way that can only be equalled by a Priyadarshan comic flick. See, for instance, what has happened due to a milk supply chain disruption over the last few weeks. As the summer began early this year, the demand for milk rose sharply. A glass of majjige (buttermilk) or lassi is a wonderful refresher in the heat. Simultaneously, the supply drops in the summer months. Natural adaptation dictates that animals produce less milk than usual in the heat. A bout of lumpy skin disease has further exacerbated the gap between demand and supply this year. For an ordinary product, a rise in prices would iron out this demand-supply gap quickly. With an increase in prices, consumers will rationalise consumption, while the producers will work harder to increase the supply. But when governments own the supply chain, price rises are defenestrated, and a chain of bizarre events emerges.First, electoral concerns circle over pricing decisions like vultures. In this particular case, the government will not touch the price caps with a barge pole because the Karnataka elections are due in May. So the government tries to increase prices in a roundabout way: increase the maximum retail price (MRP) but offer a reduced quantity of milk for the same packet price.Second, shortages abound. Since the administered price rises have not done enough to make the demand-supply gap go away, milk shortages have emerged. The rich can well afford to buy premium milk at higher prices from other suppliers. But for the poor, the milk packets disappear. Instead of paying a slightly higher price until the supply rises again, the less-privileged consumers are left only with an empty glass.Third, the government resorts to blaming private businesses. Someone has to be blamed, and as so often happens in India, businesses get the flak. See this report in The Hindu, which casually places the blame on private players who are now willing to offer higher prices to the dairies and farmers. The report says:“Private players purchasing milk from the retail market to sustain their businesses in milk products is said to be causing a disruption…“He also said private dairies were procuring milk directly from farmers in rural areas by offering a higher price, thus reducing the union's procurement.”We should have been celebrating private players that are offering a better deal to farmers, given the scarcity. Instead, they have become villains. And fourth, a quotidian issue becomes a front for inter-state tensions. The Karnataka government blames dairies in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu for offering higher prices to farmers within Karnataka, while the Tamil Nadu government is blaming private companies from Andhra Pradesh!Funny, the kinds of things that happen when the government enters and obstructs a control system called “prices”.Even as this satire unfolds, the root cause of the milk shortages isn't even being talked about. The Bangalore Milk Union president admitted that “many small milk producers have given up on rearing cows as it has become unsustainable”. Though he doesn't mention the underlying reason for this change, the bans on cow slaughter and recent attacks on people transporting cattle surely have reduced the incentives for farmers from stepping into this minefield called milk production. HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters* [Newsletter] Economic Forces is a must-read newsletter for all public policy enthusiasts.* [Paper] This paper on the effect of a landmark policyWTF called the Freight Equalisation Scheme explains how good intentions can sometimes produce terrible policies. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit publicpolicy.substack.com

Links from the show:* Michael Millerman Website* Inside "Putin's Brain": The Political Philosophy of Alexander Dugin* Learn from Michael* Connect with Michael on Twitter* Public Opinion by Walter Lippman* Support the showAbout my guest:Michael Millerman is an award-winning political philosophy scholar and teacher. He earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto in 2018 for his work on Heidegger and political theory. His first book, Beginning with Heidegger: Strauss, Rorty, Derrida, Dugin and The Philosophical Constitution of the Political, has been called “an essential guide to passionate thinking.”Today he is one of the foremost experts on Alexander Dugin, “the most dangerous philosopher in the world,” several of whose books he has translated.At his online school (MillermanSchool.com), Michael offers courses on Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Strauss, Dugin, and others. He also co-founded VisionXForm (VisionXForm.com), an applied philosophy program for entrepreneurs.He lives in Montreal with his wife and three children. Get full access to Dispatches from the War Room at dispatchesfromthewarroom.substack.com/subscribe

Marx, Dewey, Jaspers, Carnap, Wittgenstein, Marcuse, Arendt, Adorno, Rorty, de Beauvoir, Barthes, Fanon, Irigaray, Cixous, Schlegel, Douglas-Klotz --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/mmmdbymy/support

This resembles one of our FIGHT NIGHT episodes, except the whole of it is mediated by another philosopher, Richard Rorty. We give a bit of background to philosophical pragmatism before trying to get a read on what philosophy is for according to each of these three authors. Is it for self-help? Can it solve 'real' problems? Or is philosophy just cope?   Find the public link on our patreon page https://www.patreon.com/plasticpills

We welcome Sam Harris back to the show for a deep dive into Stanley Kubrick's confounding 1968 masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey." How long is the Dawn of Man? What does the second monolith do exactly? Why are the humans so banal and expressionless? What are HAL'S motivations? Has he planned his mutiny from the start, or does the Council's deception make him manlfunction? Or something else? Who is the Council anyway? Was HAL meant to go through the stargate? What is the final leap forward in consciousness? The hotel room, the starchild, all the rectangles, rectangles everywhere, the music – what does it all mean???? Plus Sam has some thoughts about our Rorty episode and David tries to rile Tamler up about Kanye's antisemitism. note: there's a bit of an abrupt transition between our brief opening and Sam telling a story about Rorty in around the 9 minute mark... couldn't be helped. Special Guest: Sam Harris.

Whether it's theology, philosophy, politics, or science, it is not uncommon for people to believe their particular worldview has greater authority over others. This authoritarian approach to ideas implies that one person's representation of truth more closely and certainly reflects reality—they have the truth and we must submit to it.   Alternatively, pragmatists believe this abstract certitude leads to religious fundamentalism, philosophical dogmatism, political absoluteness, and rigid scientism.   For thinkers like the late-twentieth century philosopher Richard Rorty, language is an instrument for coordinating our efforts in addressing concrete issues we face in our lived environments.   He doesn't believe theology, politics, philosophy, or even science are about acquiring an accurate representation of reality. In fact, he rejects the notion that the nature of truth is one of language mirroring reality. Instead, he views language as a dynamic tool, not something that reproduces truth.   Often credited with rehabilitating pragmatism, Rorty encourages us to abandon these authoritarian approaches for what he calls a literary culture. While he holds that none of these disciplines have an epistemically privileged position from which they can determine which truth claims more closely represent reality, they each still play important roles in society.   In other words, each provides us with particular vocabularies with different uses. Their vitality resides in the way they empower us to describe and redescribe experiences in continually novel and fruitful ways.   Elin Danielsen Huckerby is a research fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, associated with an EU-funded project on Inclusive Science and European Democracies. She recently graduated with a PhD from the University of Cambridge, where she worked on Rorty's uses of literature in his philosophical work.   She believes Rorty's literary attitude gives us more productive ways to move culture, science, and politics forward.     A few questions to ponder.   What is the role of literature in liberal democracies? What is moral progress for Rorty? How can liberal democracies benefit from embracing a more literary rather than scientistic culture? And, how worried should we be about Rorty's rejection of objective truth?   Show Notes Richard Rorty  The Takeover by Literary Culture: Richard Rorty's Philosophy of Literature by Elin Danielsen Huckerby (2021) "Rortian Liberalism and the Problem of Truth" by Adrian Rutt (2021) S1E20 Can Pragmatism Help Us Live Well? w/ John Stuhr (2021) S1E14 A Tool for a Pluralistic World w/ Justin Marshall (2021) S1E12 Philosophers Need to Care About the Poor w/ Jacob Goodson (2021) S1E07 Charles Peirce and Inquiry as an Act of Love w/ David O'Hara (2021) S1E06 Levinas and James: A Pragmatic Phenomenology w/ Megan Craig (2020) S1E01 Richard Rorty and Achieving Our Country w/ Adrian Rutt (2020) “The Power of One Idea” by Jeffrey Howard (2020) “The Pragmatic Truth of Existentialism” by Donovan Irven (2020) Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher by Neil Gross (2008) "Trotsky and the Wild Orchids" by Richard Rorty (1992) Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty (1989) Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature by Richard Rorty (1979)

William Kaiser is a sociologist, a pupil of Peter Berger, a student of the philosophy of Wittgenstein, and an autodidact in all things Freud, Nietzsche & Kaufmann. His dissertation on the topic of Wittgenstein was entitled, "A Wittgensteinian Critique of Realism in Social Science Methodology", and to this day, Kaiser maintains his skepticism towards what he characterizes as "naive realism". He expresses the common thread he sees in many philosophers, from Nietzsche, to Rorty, to Wittgenstein himself: rejection of the idea of obtaining some sort of objective knowledge and the re-centering of our philosophical orientation on the human psyche. All these figures cut through abstruse confusions to reach concrete insights about history and the human condition. Central to this project for Wittgenstein (especially Later Wittgenstein, aka "Wittgenstein II", who was Kaiser's focus in his work) is the way in which language shapes human thought. Through this conversation, we discuss the commonality between Nietzsche's ideas and Wittgensteins, on the issues of language, on memory and forgetting, self-identity, and what it means to learn and live an enriching life. We also spend some time discussing Freud and the influence Nietzsche had on the famous Viennese psychoanalyst. 

“Solidariteit wordt niet bereikt door onderzoek, maar door verbeelding. De verbeeldingskracht om vreemden te zien als mensen die eveneens lijden. Solidariteit wordt niet ontdekt door reflectie, maar gecreëerd.” Op deze manier drukte de Amerikaanse filosoof Richard Rorty uit dat je dat wat rechtvaardig is, niet absoluut kunt funderen, maar mensen wel kunt verleiden tot solidariteit. Waarom ging Rorty over van de analytische traditie over naar het pragmatisme? Welke rol spelen wilde orchideeën, vogels en Nabokov in zijn filosofie En kan hij voorkomen dat zijn contingente pragmatisme vervalt tot plat relativisme? Te gast is Dirk-Jan van Vliet De denker die centraal staat is Rorty

Per chi voglia approfondire, alcuni punti di partenza accessibili a tutti. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox#:~:text=The%20sorites%20paradox%20(%2Fso%CA%8A,which%20grains%20are%20removed%20individually. https://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=sorites Per un'introduzione alla critica di Rorty partite da qui: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v27/n02/richard-rorty/how-many-grains-make-a-heap ============================================================== Art by Susanna Panfili https://www.youtube.com/c/SusannaPanfili Liberi Oltre le Illusioni: http://www.youtube.com/c/liberioltre.

Are you just gonna sit around and mope all day or are you going to join us and our guest Alexis Quasarano as we jump into talking about the last NeoGeo movie, Hideaki Anno in general, and winding down from writing on Mick and Rorty! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thedarkweeb/support

And here I was wondering if anything could beat justification for being a great idea hidden behind a lousy word. Well, pragmatism, you win. Dad renders this unpromising term lively and insightful, shows how its approach avoids the extremes of both rationalism and empiricism, and can prove to be a helpful handmaiden to theology (but, of course, not a foundation. Heavens no). Also, how to cope with the hell of the irrevocable. Support us on Patreon! Notes: 1. West, Prophecy Deliverance! 2. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature 3. Niebuhr, The Irony of American History 4. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience 5. Thiemann, Revelation and Theology 6. Peirce, How to Make Our Ideas Clear 7. Royce, The Problem of Christianity 8. Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests 9. Hinlicky, Luther and the Beloved Community and Beloved Community More about us on sarahhinlickywilson.com and paulhinlicky.com!

¿Y quién nos dijo que podíamos poseer a las personas? Bibliografía esencial del capítulo: - El capítulo “Jealous thoughts” escrito por Jerome Neu para el libro Explaining Emotions (1980), de Amélie Rorty. - El capítulo “Psychosocial Aspects of Jealousy: A Transactional Model” escrito por Robert Bringle para el libro The Psychology of Jealousy and Envy (1991), de Peter Salovey. - El capítulo “Modes of Response to Jealousy-Evoking Situations” escrito por Jeff Bryson para el libro The Psychology of Jealousy and Envy (1991), de Peter Salovey. - El capítulo “The Organization of Jealousy Knowledge: Romantic Jealousy as a Blended Emotion” escrito por Don Sharpsteen para el libro The Psychology of Jealousy and Envy (1991), de Peter Salovey. Conducción: Mariana Beatriz Noé (@insomniosaticos en Twitter)
 Producción: Ezequiel Vila 
Música: Christian de Simone
 Ilustración: Bernardita Un podcast de Nuclear www.nuclear.com.ar

Hangin' with Brad is like watching a stellar documentary on the History channel. I always leave having learned SO much while being richly entertained in the process.   . From mystery cults in Ancient Egypt to Socrates' famous last words;  from Saint Teresa of Avilla to the keys of Stevie Wonder's piano, philosopher, musician, professor and author, Dr. Brad Elliott Stone takes us through space and time in order to teach us how to induce inspiration when we feel the furthest thing from inspired. If you are in the process of creating anything like a book, a song, homeschool curriculum or a treehouse for your kids, you're gonna want to hang out with Brad for a bit. Trust me, your creative process will be *greatly* enhanced. Read below for more on Brad, and keep readin' for a sneak-peek into the show.  . Brad Elliott Stone is Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean of the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts at Loyola Marymount University. His research areas are contemporary continental philosophy (especially Heidegger and Foucault), American philosophy, and contemporary Spanish philosophy. He is co-author (with Jacob Goodson) of Introducing Prophetic Pragmatism (Lexington). He is the co-editor (with Jacob Goodson) of Rorty and the Religious (Cascade) and Rorty and the Prophetic (Lexington), and has authored numerous articles and book chapters. . [SNEAK-PEEK OF SHOW] Is there more than one right way to write a book? How does his way differ greatly from his writing partner, and mutual friend, Dr. Jacob Goodson?  . How did Saint Teresa of Avila change Brad's mind in a sanctuary in Spain? . What does Beethoven teach us about transmuting our pain into art that serves our own healing journey and the journeys of others?  . Do all philosophers break their glasses in mosh pits at Fishbone concerts?  . How can writers get to writing when they don't feel inspired?  . What is his pet peeve to hear back from editors of his books and articles?   . Why does the title of a book or article have to come first before he writes anything else? . Does 'Bridge Under Troubled Water" and ‘I Believe I Can Fly' belong in sanctuaries?  . What can all of us, regardless of race, learn from Cornell West's teachings on the ‘tragic, comic hope' of the black church? . What does the show ‘Ancient Aliens' have to offer us in the realm of philosophy and geometry? (Seriously.) . What is possible when we realize that we are more imaginative than we once thought? . [LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE] . FOLLOW BRAD ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/drbradstone?lang=en  FOLLOW BRAD ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/brad.e.stone BUY BRAD's BOOKS: https://www.amazon.com/Rorty-Religious-Jacob-L-Goodson/dp/1498214258  . FOLLOW MEG ON THE SOCIALS: FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/meggie.calvin/ THE INSTA: https://www.instagram.com/meggielee_calvin/  GET THE AMAZON BESTSELLER that's helping recovering people-pleasers take back their power over their lives from others by tapping into the Divine within: Bit.ly/iamos .  

Recebemos o filósofo Paulo Eduardo Arantes para uma conversa que foi dividida em duas partes. No episódio de hoje temos a segunda parte, em que o tema foi o livro Formação e Desconstrução que Paulo Arantes acaba de lançar, com foco em seu diálogo com Rorty, metafilosofia etc. Leia mais → The post #125 – Conversa com Paulo Eduardo Arantes, parte 2: Formação e Desconstrução first appeared on Filosofia Pop.#125 – Conversa com Paulo Eduardo Arantes, parte 2: Formação e Desconstrução was first posted on maio 10, 2021 at 12:55 am.©2019 "Filosofia Pop". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at marcosclopes@gmail.com

We welcome back philosophers Brad Elliott Stone and Jacob L. Goodson to discuss their recent edited volume on Richard Rorty, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jewish prophetic traditions. The book, Rorty and the Prophetic: Jewish Engagements with a Secular Philosopher, is the culmination of more that twenty years of conversations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Political scientist Michael Millerman joins me to discuss the philosophy of Leo Strauss, esoteric writing, and Alexandr Dugin's 4th Political Theory. We talk about Leo Strauss, the tension between the philosopher and the city, why some of the best intellectual work is happening outside academia, the crisis of rationalism, the value of returning to the great works, esoteric writing, the necessity of subtlety, grounding our conceptions of the good, Alexandr Dugin and the 4th Political Theory. Michael Millerman received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto, lectures and tutors on matters of political philosophy, produced original English translations of Alexandr Dugin's books, and is the author of "Beginning with Heidegger: Strauss, Rorty, Derrida, Dugin and the Philosophical Constitution of the Political". Check out Michael Millerman's channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp19_tJlXTN8kXoHJx7mIXQ Learn more about Michael Millerman's work: https://MichaelMillerman.ca __ If you liked this interview and want to hear more, support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/agorapolitics Agora Politics is a podcast dedicated to making sense out of our outdated theories of politics. __ Follow us on: Twitter: twitter.com/agora_politics Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCSDjdhAe9Z7EatYg3OGLKug Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/agor…cs/id1496531814 Soundcloud: @agora_politics Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/5xfgHAlhswC…qASPWtxFnAqyLCbg Wherever you find your podcasts.

While some philosophers view their primary task as one of discovering the nature of reality and then describing it accurately for the rest of us, others have practiced philosophy as an edifying enterprise, asserting that it should be employed to help us better resolve social and political problems—to change the world. Although both of these approaches have been utilized throughout history, the philosopher John McCumber argues that this later movement in philosophy was mostly purged from academia in the United States starting during the Cold War. 1950s McCarthyism and the “Red Scare” made many American politicians and professors wary of becoming blacklisted or punished for expressing viewpoints associated with communism. These views included concerns for the poor and economically-disadvantaged, support for labor unions, and outcries regarding exploitative economic practices. In turn, this meant that many academics were pushed out of their positions at colleges and universities if they engaged in rhetoric or activities that were perceived as being too “red.”  This academic McCarthyism, according to McCumber, further enabled the ascent of analytic philosophy, a method that attempts to describe the world in the most linguistically precise way possible, leaning heavily toward a mathematical-like language to capture an accurate picture of reality. As a result, philosophy departments throughout the United States became less interested in engaging in edifying philosophy. Consequently, academic McCarthyism helped elevate subjects like mathematics, philosophy of science, and logic at the expense of political and social philosophy. In the later part of the twentieth century, Richard Rorty ushered in a new era of philosophy. Turning their own methods against them, Rorty argued that we ought to jettison analytic philosophy, instead focusing on the practical consequences of our ideas as they manifest in politics and society. Rejecting a representationalist approach, Rorty spent much of his career rallying philosophers around a more edifying position, suggesting that we’re better served by focusing on how ideas can advance society and improve social conditions for people—especially the poor and marginalized. In fact, Rorty went so far as to make several political predictions regarding the practical uses of philosophy and literature in the twenty-first century. On numerous occasions, he outlined how they would be applied throughout society to transform politics following what he imagines will be the darkest years in American history—from 2014 to 2044. Jeffrey Howard speaks with Jacob Goodson, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. Goodson believes that, despite some of Rorty’s philosophical shortcomings, we ought to embrace a more edifying orientation toward ideas. In his recent book, The Dark Years?: Philosophy, Politics, and the Problem of Predictions (2020), he considers Rorty’s political predictions and how they might help guide us toward a better future. Goodson examines which predictions have already been realized—including the election of a “strongman” in 2016—which ones might be coming to fruition now, and whether Rorty’s conception of an idealized future will unfold in the way the neopragmatist philosopher hopes it will.  A few questions to ponder. In what ways might analytic philosophy be inadequate for addressing social and political problems? Should philosophers focus on changing society or is their primary role to help us better understand the nature of reality? What does philosophy stand to lose by following Richard Rorty into his neopragmatist vision for the discipline? And where should we place our hope for the future? Show Notes The Dark Years?: Philosophy, Politics, and The Problem of Predictions by Jacob Goodson (2020) Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America by Richard Rorty (1997) Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty (1989) Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature by Richard Rorty (1979) Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in Its Place by Robert Talisse (2019) “Suspending Politics to Save Democracy” by Lawrence Torcello (2020) “We’re Overdoing Democracy. But Why?” by Kevin Vallier (2019) The Philosophy Scare: The Politics of Reason in the Early Cold War by John McCumber (2016) Time in a Ditch: American Philosophy and the McCarthy Era by John McCumber (2001) Philosophy and Social Hope by Richard Rorty (2000) Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher by Neil Gross (2008) Analytic Philosophy “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1841) Ep. 1 Richard Rorty and Achieving Our Country with Adrian Rutt (2020) The Future of Religion by Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo (2007) Walter Rauschenbusch Jeffrey Stout

On the podcast this week, Enlightenment's Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age by John Gray. Next time: Postjournalism and the death of newspapers. The media after Trump: manufacturing anger and polarization by Andrey Mir. Normally Jerry writes an ideological Turing test summary for the book we discuss, but it's impossible with this one as you'll hear us say. So here are some of Jerry's highlights from the book itself: If the Enlightenment myth of progress in ethics and politics continues to have a powerful hold, it is more from fear of the consequences of giving it up than from genuine conviction. the collapse of communism was a world-historic defeat for the Enlightenment project. Communism was not a type of oriental despotism, as generations of Western scholars maintained. It was an authentic continuation of a Western revolutionary tradition, and its downfall – after tens of millions of deaths were inflicted in the pursuit of its utopian goals – signalled the start of a process of de-Westernization. It is an inquiry into the right whose agenda is justice and whose content is given, not by any investigation of human beings as we find them in the world, with their diverse histories and communities, but by an abstract conception of the person that has been voided of any definite cultural identity or specific historical inheritance. Consider, in this regard, the central category of the intellectual tradition spawned by Rawls's work – the category of the person. In Rawls's work, as in that of his followers, this is a cipher, without history or ethnicity, denuded of the special attachments that in the real human world give us the particular identities we have. Emptied of the contingencies that in truth are essential to our identities, this cipher has in the Rawlsian schema only one concern – a concern for its own good, which is not the good of any actual human being, but the good we are all supposed to have in common, which it pursues subject to constraints of justice that are conceived to be those of impartiality. In this conception, the principles of justice are bound to be the same for all. The appearance of a plurality of ciphers in the Rawlsian original position must be delusive, since, having all of them the same beliefs and motives, they are indistinguishable. The subject matter of justice cannot, except indirectly, be found in the histories of peoples, and their often tragically conflicting claims; it must be always a matter of individual rights. It is obvious that this liberal position cannot address, save as an inconvenient datum of human psychology, the sense of injustice arising from belonging to an oppressed community that, in the shape of nationalism, is the strongest political force of our century. The task of political philosophy is conceived as one of deriving the ideal constitution – assumed, at least in principle, to be everywhere the same. This is so, whether its upshot be Rawls's basic liberties, Nozick's side-constraints, or Dworkin's rights-as-trumps. The presupposition is always that the bottom line in political morality is the claims of individuals, and that these are to be spelt out in terms of the demands of justice or rights. The consequence is that the diverse claims of historic communities, if they are ever admitted, are always overwhelmed by the supposed rights of individuals. The notion that different communities might legitimately have different legal regimes for abortion or pornography, for example, is hardly considered. If the theoretical goal of the new liberalism is the supplanting of politics by law, its practical result – especially in the United States, where rights discourse is already the only public discourse that retains any legitimacy – has been the emptying of political life of substantive argument and the political corruption of law. Issues, such as abortion, that in many other countries have been resolved by a legislative settlement that involves compromises and which is known to be politically renegotiable, are in the legalist culture of the United States matters of fundamental rights that are intractably contested and which threaten to become enemies of civil peace. Communitarian thought still harbours the aspiration expressed in those forms of the Enlightenment project, such as Marxism, that are most critical of liberalism – that of creating a form of communal life from which are absent the practices of exclusion and subordination that are constitutive of every community human beings have ever lived in. Old-fashioned toleration – the toleration defended by Milton, and by the older liberals, such as Locke – sprang from an acceptance of the imperfectibility of human beings, and from a belief in the importance of freedom in the constitution of the good life. Since we cannot be perfect, and since virtue cannot be forced on people but is rather a habit of life they must themselves strive to acquire, we were enjoined to tolerate the shortcomings of others, even as we struggled with our own. On this older view, toleration is a precondition of any stable modus vivendi among incorrigibly imperfect beings. If it has become unfashionable in our time, the reason is in part to be found in the resistance of a post-Christian age to the thought that we are flawed creatures whose lives will always contain evils. This is a thought subversive of the shallow optimistic creeds of our age, humanist or Pelagian, for which human evils are problems to be solved rather than sorrows to be coped with or endured. Toleration is unfashionable for another, more topical reason. It is unavoidably and inherently judgemental. The objects of toleration are what we judge to be evils. When we tolerate a practice, a belief or a character trait, we let something be that we judge to be undesirable, false or at least inferior; our toleration expresses the conviction that, despite its badness, the object of toleration should be left alone. we tolerate ersatz religions, such as Scientology, not because we think they may after all contain a grain of truth, but because the great good of freedom of belief necessarily encompasses the freedom to believe absurdities. Toleration is not, then, an expression of scepticism, of doubt about our ability to tell the good from the bad; it is evidence of our confidence that we have that ability. The idea of toleration goes against the grain of the age because the practice of toleration is grounded in strong moral convictions. Such judgements are alien to the dominant conventional wisdom according to which standards of belief and conduct are entirely subjective or relative in character, and one view of things is as good as any other. Indeed, when a society is tolerant, its tolerance expresses the conception of the good life that it has in common. In so far as a society comes to lack any such common conception – as is at least partly the case in Britain today – it ceases to be capable of toleration as it was traditionally understood. What the neutrality of radical equality mandates is nothing less than the legal disestablishment of morality. As a result, morality becomes in theory a private habit of behaviour rather than a common way of life. What a policy of toleration would not mandate is the wholesale reconstruction of institutional arrangements in Britain such that homosexuals acquire collective rights or are in every context treated precisely as heterosexuals. This is not to say that the current law of marriage is fixed for all time, any more than the rest of family law, such as the law on adoption, is so fixed. Further, it is to say that such extension of legal recognition would not be to homosexuals as a group but to individuals regardless of their sexual orientation. To make a political issue that is deeply morally contested a matter of basic rights is to make it non-negotiable, since rights – at least as they are understood in the dominant contemporary schools of Anglo-American jurisprudence – are unconditional entitlements, not susceptible to moderation In modern Western pluralist societies, policies which result in the creation of group rights are inevitably infected with arbitrariness and consequent inequity, since the groups selected for privileging are arbitrary, as is the determination of who belongs to which group. a stable liberal civil society cannot be radically multicultural but depends for its successful renewal across the generations on an undergirding culture that is held in common. This common culture need not encompass a shared religion and it certainly need not presuppose ethnic homogeneity, but it does demand widespread acceptance of certain norms and conventions of behaviour and, in our times, it typically expresses a shared sense of nationality. The example of the United States, which at least since the mid-1960s has been founded on the Enlightenment conviction that a common culture is not a necessary precondition of a liberal civil society, shows that the view that civil peace can be secured solely by adherence to abstract rules is merely an illusion. In so far as policy has been animated by it, the result has been further social division, including what amounts to low-intensity civil war between the races. As things stand, the likelihood in the United States is of a slow slide into ungovernability, as the remaining patrimony of a common cultural inheritance is frittered away by the fragmenting forces of multiculturalism. The kind of diversity that is incompatible with civil society in Britain is that which rejects the constitutive practices that give it its identity. Central among these are freedom of expression and its precondition, the rule of law. Cultural traditions that repudiate these practices cannot be objects of toleration for liberal civil society in Britain or anywhere else. The radical tolerance of indifference has application wherever there are conceptions of the good that are incommensurable. the claim that there may be, and are present among us, conceptions of the good that are rationally incommensurable is not one that supports any of the fashionable varieties of relativism and subjectivism, since it allows, and indeed presupposes, that some conceptions of the good are defective, and some forms of life simply bad. the radical tolerance of indifference is virtually the opposite of old-fashioned toleration in that its objects are not judged to be evils and may indeed be incommensurable goods. Woodrow Wilson's project of imposing a rationalist order conceived in the New World on the intractably quarrelsome nations of Europe. Like Marxism, this rationalist conception had its origins in the French Enlightenment's vision of a universal human civilization in which the claims of ethnicity and religion came long after those of common humanity. In the wake of Soviet communism, we find, not Homo Sovieticus or any other rationalist abstraction, but men and women whose identities are constituted by particular attachments and histories – Balts, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Russians and so on. Western opinion-formers and policy-makers are virtually unanimous in modelling the transition process of the post-communist states in terms which imply their reconstruction on Western models and their integration into a coherent international order based on Western power and institutions. Underlying this virtually universal model are assumptions that are anachronistic and radically flawed. It assumes that the system of Western-led institutions which assured global peace and world trade in the post-war period can survive, substantially unchanged or even strengthened, the world-wide reverberations of the Soviet collapse; the only issue is how the fledgling post-communist states are to gain admission into these institutions. This assumption neglects the dependency of these institutions on the strategic environment of the Cold War and their unravelling, before our eyes, as the post-war settlement disintegrates. The strategic consequence of the end of the Cold War has been the return to a pre-1914 world – with this difference, that the pre-1914 world was dominated by a single hegemonic power, Great Britain, whereas the return to nineteenth-century policies and modes of thinking in the United States leaves the world without any hegemonic power. the Soviet collapse has triggered a meltdown in the post-war world order, and in the domestic institutions of the major Western powers, which has yet to run its course. the crisis of Western transnational institutions is complemented by an ongoing meltdown of the various Western models of the nature and limits of market institutions in advanced industrial societies. The alienation of democratic electorates from established political elites is pervasive in Western societies, including the United States. Contrary to Hayek, who generalizes from the English experience to put forward a grandiose theory of the spontaneous emergence of market institutions that is reminiscent in its unhistorical generality of Herbert Spencer and Karl Marx at their most incautious, the English example is a singularity, not an exemplar of any long-run historical trend. The English experience is sui generis, not a paradigm for the development of market institutions, because the unique combination of circumstances which permitted it to occur as it did – immemorial individualism and parliamentary absolutism, for example – were replicated nowhere else. Where market institutions did develop elsewhere on English lines, as in North America and Australasia, it was in virtue of the fact that English cultural traditions and legal practice had been exported there more or less wholesale. Market institutions of the English variety failed to take root where, as in India, their legal and cultural matrix was not successfully transplanted. It is noteworthy that, until its collapse in 1991, the Swedish model performed well in respect of what was, perhaps, its principal achievement, an active labour policy that kept long-term unemployment very low, and so effectively prevented the growth of an estranged underclass of the multi-generationally unemployed. The German or Rhine model of market institutions, as it developed in the post-war period up to reunification, was not the result of the application of any consistent theory, but rather of a contingent political compromise between a diversity of theoretical frameworks, of which the most important were the Ordoliberalismus of the Eucken or Frankfurt School and Catholic social theology. It represented a political settlement, also, between the principal interest groups in post-war Germany, including the newly constituted trade unions. It would be false to imagine that China lacks ethnic conflict, or separatist movements. As a portent for the future, there appears to be an Islamic separatist movement in the far-western ‘autonomous region' of Xinjiang, which has borders with the new republics of Kyrgystan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, and with Afghanistan and Pakistan; and there are undoubtedly strong separatist movements in neighbouring Tibet and Mongolia. it would not be entirely surprising, but would in fact rather accord with long-term patterns in Chinese history, if the Chinese state were to fragment in the coming years, perhaps after the death of Deng Xiaoping; market institutions have as their matrices particular cultural traditions, without whose undergirding support the frameworks of law by which they are defined are powerless or empty. Scottish thinkers, such as Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson, who not unreasonably generalized from their own historical experience to such a connection, this result of their inquiries evoked anxiety as to the eventual fate of market institutions, since – like later thinkers such as Joseph Schumpeter – they feared that individualism would consume the cultural capital on which market institutions relied for their renewal across the generations. Our experience suggests that such fears as to the ultimately self-defeating effects of market institutions that are animated by individualist cultural traditions are far from groundless. The growth of lawlessness in Russia, the threat posed to social and business life by organized criminality, and the apparent powerlessness thus far of the Yeltsin government in the face of this threat, suggest that an authoritarian turn in Russian political life, whether by the Yeltsin government or by a successor, and whether or not the army has a decisive role in any subsequent authoritarian regime, would be in accord both with the exigencies of current circumstances and with Russian historical precedent. Authoritarian government is likely to emerge in Russia both in response to the dangers of fragmentation of the state and ensuing civil strife and as a response to growing criminal violence in everyday and business life. The Soviet collapse, far from enhancing the stability of Western institutions, has destabilized them by knocking away the strategic props on which they stood. The prospect of the orderly integration of the post-communist states into the economic and security arrangements of the Western world is a mirage, not only because of the unprecedentedly formidable difficulties each of them confronts in its domestic development, but also because the major Western transnational institutions and organizations are themselves in a flux, amounting sometimes to dissolution. The world-historical failure of the Enlightenment project – in political terms, the collapse and ruin, in the late twentieth century, of the secular, rationalist and universalist political movements, liberal as well as Marxist, that that project spawned, and the dominance in political life of ethnic, nationalist and fundamentalist forces – suggests the falsity of the philosophical anthropology upon which the Enlightenment project rested. On the alternative view that I shall develop, the propensity to cultural difference is a primordial attribute of the human species; human identities are plural and diverse in their very natures, as natural languages are plural and diverse, and they are always variations on particular forms of common life, never exemplars of universal humanity. The task for liberal theory, as I see it, is not vainly to resist the historical falsification of the universalist anthropology that sustained the Enlightenment philosophy of history, but to attempt to reconcile the demands of a liberal form of life with the particularistic character of human identities and allegiances – to retheorize liberalism as itself a particular form of common life. Agonistic liberalism is that species of liberalism that is grounded, not in rational choice, but in the limits of rational choice – limits imposed by the radical choices we are often constrained to make among goods that are both inherently rivalrous, and often constitutively uncombinable, and sometimes incommensurable, or rationally incomparable. Agonistic liberalism is an application in political philosophy of the moral theory of value-pluralism – the theory that there is an irreducible diversity of ultimate values (goods, excellences, options, reasons for action and so forth) and that when these values come into conflict or competition with one another there is no overarching standard or principle, no common currency or measure, whereby such conflicts can be arbitrated or resolved. Value-pluralism imposes limits on rational choice that are subversive of most standard moral theories, not merely of utilitarianism, and it has deeply subversive implications for all the traditional varieties of liberal theory. The thesis of the incommensurability of values is then not a version of relativism, of subjectivism or of moral scepticism, though it will infallibly be confused with one or other of these doctrines: it is a species of moral realism, which we shall call objective pluralism. Its distinguishing features are that it limits the scope of rational choice among goods, affirming that they are often constitutively uncombinable and sometimes rationally incommensurable. It is a fundamental contribution of Raz's political philosophy to have shown that a rights-based political morality is an impossibility. rights claims are never primordial or foundational but always conclusionary, provisional results of long chains of reasoning which unavoidably invoke contested judgements about human interests and well-being. If the truth of value-pluralism is assumed, such that there are no right answers in hard cases about the restraint of liberty, then it seems natural to treat questions of the restraint of liberty as political, and not as theoretical or jurisprudential questions. Despite its self-description as political liberalism, then, Rawls's is a liberalism that has been politically emasculated, in which nothing of importance is left to political decision, and in which political life itself has been substantially evacuated of content. The hollowing out of the political realm in Rawlsian liberalism is fatal to its self-description as a form of political liberalism and discloses its true character as a species of liberal legalism. The liberal legalism of Rawls and his followers is, perhaps, only an especially unambiguous example of the older liberal project, or illusion, of abolishing politics, or of so constraining it by legal and constitutional formulae that it no longer matters what are the outcomes of political deliberation. In Rawlsian liberal legalism, the anti-political nature of at least one of the dominant traditions of liberalism is fully realized. In historical practice, the effect of attempting to abolish or to marginalize political life has been – especially in the United States, where legalism is strongest – the politicization of law, as judicial institutions have become arenas of political struggle. The end-result of this process is not, however, the simple transposition of political life into legal contexts, but rather the corrosion of political life itself. The treatment of all important issues of restraint of liberty as questions of constitutional rights has the consequence that they cease to be issues that are politically negotiable and that can be resolved provisionally in a political settlement that encompasses a compromise among conflicting interests and ideals. In conflicts about basic constitutional rights, there can be no compromise solutions, only judgements which yield unconditional victory for one side and complete defeat for the other. Allegiance to a liberal state is, on this view, never primarily to principles which it may be thought to embody, and which are supposed to be compelling for all human beings; it is always to specific institutions, having a specific history, and to the common culture that animates them, which itself is a creature of historical contingency. On the view being developed here, allegiance to a liberal state is always allegiance to the common culture it embodies or expresses, and, in the late modern context in which we live, such a common culture is typically a national culture. the only things, on the account here defended, that can command allegiance. In our world they are nations, or the common forms of life which national cultures encompass and shelter. The point may be put in another, and perhaps a simpler way: there can be no form of allegiance that is purely political; political allegiance – at least when it is comparatively stable – presupposes a common cultural identity, which is reflected in the polity to which allegiance is given; political order, including that of a liberal state, rests upon a pre-political order of common culture. As Berlin has put his position: The fact that the values of one culture may be incompatible with those of another, or that they are in conflict within one culture or group or in a single human being at different times – or, for that matter, at one and the same time – does not entail relativism of values, only the notion of a plurality of values not structured hierarchically; which, of course, entails the permanent possibility of inescapable conflict between values, as well as incompatibility between the outlooks of different civilisations or of stages of the same civilisation. He sums up his view: ‘Relativism is not the only alternative to universalism … nor does incommensurability entail relativism'. Berlin's point, which is surely correct, is that there may be a specifiable minimum universal content to morality, and some forms of life may be condemned by it; but the items which make up the minimum content may, and sometimes do, come into conflict with one another, there being no rational procedure for resolving such conflicts. because the universal minimum in all of its variations underdetermines any liberal form of life, many of the regimes that meet the test of the universal minimum – probably the vast majority of such regimes to be found in human history – will not be liberal regimes. The likely prospect, on all current trends, is not only of the East Asian societies overtaking Western liberal individualist societies in the economic terms of growth, investment, savings and living standards; it is also of their doing so while preserving and enhancing common cultural forms which assure to their subjects personal security in their everyday lives and a public environment that is rich in choiceworthy options. By contrast, the prospect for the Western individualist societies is one of economic development that is weak and feeble in a context of cultural impoverishment in which the remnants of a common culture are hollowed out by individualism and legalism. The prospect for the Western liberal societies, and particularly for those in which individualism and legalism have by now virtually delegitimized the very idea of a common culture, is that of a steep and rapid decline in which civil peace is fractured and the remnants of a common culture on which liberal forms of life themselves depend are finally dissipated. The self-undermining of liberal individualism, which Joseph Schumpeter anticipated in the mid-1940s, is likely to proceed apace, now that the Soviet collapse has removed the legitimacy borrowed by Western institutions from the enmity of a ruinous alternative, and the East Asian societies are released from the constraints of the post-war settlement to pursue paths of development that owe ever less to the West. When our institutional inheritance – that precious and irreplaceable patrimony of mediating structures and autonomous professions – is thrown away in the pursuit of a managerialist Cultural Revolution seeking to refashion the entire national life on the impoverished model of contract and market exchange, it is clear that the task of conserving and renewing a culture is no longer understood by contemporary conservatives. In the context of such a Maoism of the Right, it is the permanent revolution of unfettered market processes, not the conservation of traditional institutions and professions, having each of them a distinctive ethos, that has become the ruling project of contemporary conservatism. At the same time, neo-liberalism itself can now be seen as a self-undermining political project. Its political success depended upon cultural traditions, and constellations of interests, that neo-liberal policy was bound to dissipate. liberal civilization itself may be imperilled, in so far as its legitimacy has been linked with the utopia of perpetual growth powered by unregulated market processes, and the inevitable failure of this utopia spawns illiberal political movements. Indeed, unconstrained market institutions are bound to undermine social and political stability, particularly as they impose on the population unprecedented levels of economic insecurity with all the resultant dislocations of life in families and communities. A central test of the readiness to think fresh thoughts is the way we think about market institutions. On the view defended here they are not ends in themselves but means or tools whose end is human well-being. Indeed, among us, market liberalism is in its workings ineluctably subversive of tradition and community. This may not have been the case in Edmund Burke's day, in which the maintenance of the traditions of whig England could coexist with a policy of economic individualism, but in our age a belief in any such harmony is a snare and a delusion. Among us, unlike the men and women of Burke's day, markets are global, and also, in the case of capital markets, nearly instantaneous; free trade, if it too is global, operates among communities that are vastly more uneven in development than any that traded with one another in Burke's time; and our lives are pervaded by mass media that transform tastes, and revolutionize daily habits, in ways that could be only dimly glimpsed by the Scottish political economists whom Burke so revered. The social and cultural effects of market liberalism are, virtually without exception, inimical to the values that traditional conservatives hold dear. Communities are scattered to the winds by the gale of creative destruction. Endless ‘downsizing' and ‘flattening' of enterprises fosters ubiquitous insecurity and makes loyalty to the company a cruel joke. The celebration of consumer choice, as the only undisputed value in market societies, devalues commitment and stability in personal relationships and encourages the view of marriage and the family as vehicles of self-realization. The dynamism of market processes dissolves social hierarchies and overturns established expectations. Status is ephemeral, trust frail and contract sovereign. The dissolution of communities promoted by market-driven labour mobility weakens, where it does not entirely destroy, the informal social monitoring of behaviour which is the most effective preventive measure against crime. Classical liberalism, or what I have termed market fundamentalism, is, like Marxism, a variation on the Enlightenment project, which is the project of transcending the contingencies of history and cultural difference and founding a universal civilization that is qualitatively different from any that has ever before existed. In this paleo-liberal or libertarian view, the erosion of distinctive cultures by market processes is, if anything, to be welcomed as a sign of progress toward a universal rational civilization. Here paleo-liberalism shows its affinities not with European conservatism but with the Old Left project of doing away with, or marginalizing politically, the human inheritance of cultural difference. That this perspective is a hallucinatory and utopian one is clear if we consider its neglect of the sources not only of political allegiance but also of social order in common cultural forms. Market liberalism, like other Enlightenment ideologies, treats cultural difference as a politically marginal phenomenon whose appropriate sphere is in private life. It does not comprehend, or repudiates as irrationality, the role of a common culture in sustaining political order and in legitimizing market institutions. Market liberalism is at its most utopian, however, in its conception of a global market society, in which goods, and perhaps people, move freely between economies having radically different stages of development and harbouring very different cultures. Human beings need, more than they need the freedom of consumer choice, a cultural and economic environment that offers them an acceptable level of security and in which they feel at home. The conservative idea of the primacy of cultural forms is meant to displace not only standard liberal conceptions of the autonomous human subject but also ideas of the autonomy of market institutions that liberal thought has been applied – or misapplied – to support. It is not meant to support nostalgist and reactionary conceptions of organic or integral community which have no application in our historical circumstances and which, if they were implemented politically, could end only in tragedy or – more likely in Britain – black comedy. The idea of a seamless community – the noumenal community, as we may call it, of communitarianism – is as much of a fiction as the autonomous subject of liberal theory. We all of us belong to many communities, we mostly inherit diverse ethnicities, and our world-views are fractured and provisional whether or not we know it or admit it. We harbour a deep diversity of views and values as to sexuality and the worth of human life, our relations with the natural environment and the special place, if any, of the human species in the scheme of things. The reactionary project of rolling back this diversity of values and world-views in the pursuit of a lost cultural unity overlooks the character of our cultural inheritance as a palimpsest, having ever deeper layers of complexity. It is clear only that, for us at any rate, a common culture cannot mean a common world-view, religious or secular. It is an implication of all that I have said, however, that we have no option but to struggle to make our inheritance of liberal traditions work. At present, the principal obstacle we face in the struggle to renew our inheritance of liberal practice is the burden on thought and policy of market liberal dogma. The central difficulty is that the enlargement of leisure that Mill, by contrast with the gloomier classical economists, expected to come from stability in population and output against a background of improvement in the industrial arts is occurring in the form of ever higher levels of involuntary unemployment. It may be that proposals for a basic or citizen's income, where that is to be distinguished from the neo-liberal idea of a negative income tax, and for a better distribution of capital among the citizenry, need reconsideration – despite all their difficulties – as elements in a policy aiming to reconcile the human need for economic security with the destabilizing dynamism of market institutions. Almost as significant in disclosing the Americocentric character of the new liberalism was its anaemic and impoverished conception of pluralism and cultural diversity. The incommensurability of values affirmed in doctrines of objective ethical pluralism was understood as arising in the formulation of personal plans of life rather than in conflicts among whole ways of life. And cultural diversity was conceived in the denatured form of a cornucopia of chosen lifestyles, each with its elective identity, rather than in the form in which it is found in the longer and larger experience of humankind – as the exfoliation of exclusionary forms of life, spanning the generations, membership of which is typically unchosen, and which tend to individuate themselves by their conflicts and by their historical memories of enmity. The core project of the Enlightenment was the displacement of local, customary or traditional moralities, and of all forms of transcendental faith, by a critical or rational morality, which was projected as the basis of a universal civilization. This is the project that animated Marxism and liberalism in all their varieties, which underpins both the new liberalism and neo-conservatism, and to which every significant body of opinion in the United States continues to subscribe. That liberal individuality is, in practice, invariably a prescription for abject conformity to prevailing bien-pensant opinion is, on the view being presented here, not the chief objection to it. The most disabling feature of these and other constitutive elements of the new liberalism is what they all betoken – namely, a rejection of the political enterprise itself, and of its animating value of peace. For the pluralist, the practice of politics is a noble engagement, precisely on account of the almost desperate humility of its purposes – which are to moderate the enmity of agonistic identities, and to generate conventions of peace among warring communities. The pluralist embrace of politics is, for these reasons, merely a recognition of the reality of political life, itself conceived as an abatement of war. from the truth of a plurality of incommensurable values the priority of one of them – liberty, autonomy or choice-making, say – cannot follow. Value-pluralism cannot entail, or ground, liberalism in any general, still less universal way. Pluralists reject this Old Right project for the same reason that they reject the Enlightenment project. Both seek to roll back the reality of cultural diversity for the sake of an imaginary condition of cultural unity – whether that be found in a lost past or in a supposed future condition of the species in which cultural difference has been marginalized in a universal civilization. Both perspectives are alien to that of the pluralist, which takes the reality of cultural difference as a datum of political order. A pluralist political order may nevertheless deviate from the central institutions of a liberal civil society at crucial points. It need not, and often will not possess an individualist legal order in which persons are the primary rights-bearers. The principal bearers of rights (and duties) in a pluralist political order will be communities, or ways of life, not individuals. The pluralist standard of assessment of any regime is whether it enables its subjects to coexist in a Hobbesian peace while renewing their distinctive forms of common life. … By this standard, the current regime in China might well be criticized for its policies in Tibet; but such a criticism would invoke the intrinsic value of the communities and cultural forms now being destroyed in Tibet, not universalist conceptions of human rights or democracy. Here I think Raz has grasped a point of fundamental importance, perceived by Mill but not by Rawls – that a liberal state cannot be neutral with regard to illiberal forms of life coming within its jurisdiction. Or, to put the matter still more shortly, Raz is entirely correct in seeing liberalism itself as a whole way of life, and not merely a set of political principles or institutions. The trouble is that, if value-pluralism is true at the level of whole ways of life, then the liberal form of life can have no special or universal claim on reason. In the late modern period in which we live, the Enlightenment project is affirmed chiefly for fear of the consequences of abandoning it. (The United States is, as ever, an exception in this regard, since in it both fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist affirmations of the Enlightenment project remain strong. The collapse of these fundamentalisms in the United States, however, were it to occur, would likely be accompanied by an outbreak of nihilism of a violence and intensity unknown in other Western countries; such an outcome is prefigured in much contemporary North American art, literature and popular entertainment.) There can, in my view, be no rolling back the central project of modernity, which is the Enlightenment project, with all its consequences in terms of disenchantment and ultimate groundlessness. … the thought of Nietzsche, especially but not exclusively his thinking about morality, is unavoidably and rightly the starting-point of serious reflection for us, at the close of the modern age which the Enlightenment project, in all its diversity, inaugurated. the political forms which may arise in truly post-Enlightenment cultures will be those that shelter and express diversity – that enable different cultures, some but by no means all or even most of which are dominated by liberal forms of life, different world-views and ways of life, to coexist in peace and harmony. For this development to be a real historical possibility, however, certain conceptions and commitments that have been constitutive, not merely of the Enlightenment and so of modernity, but also, and more fundamentally, of the central traditions of Western civilization, must be amended, or abandoned. Certain conceptions, not only of morality but also of science, that are central elements in Enlightenment cultures must be given up. Certain understandings of religion, long established in Western traditions, not as a vessel for a particular way of life but rather as the bearer of truths possessing universal authority, must be relinquished. The most fundamental Western commitment, the humanist conception of humankind as a privileged site of truth, which is expressed in Socratic inquiry and in Christian revelation, and which re-emerges in secular and naturalistic form in the Enlightenment project of human self-emancipation through the growth of knowledge, must be given up. Further, and perhaps decisively, once liberal practice is released from the hallucinatory perspective of liberal theory, it will be seen for what it always was – not a seamless garment, but a patchwork quilt, stitched together and restitched in response to the flux of circumstance. … If, as I believe, liberal practice is best conceived as a miscellany of ad-hoc improvisations, made over the generations in the pursuit of a modus vivendi, then no part of it can be regarded as sacrosanct; it can, and should, be rewoven, or unravelled, as circumstances and changing human needs dictate. The conception of the natural world as an object of human exploitation, and of humankind as the master of nature, which informs Bacon's writings, is one of the most vital and enduring elements of the modern world-view, and the one which Westernization has most lastingly and destructively transmitted to non-Western cultures. In this last period of modernity, Western instrumental reason becomes globalized at just the historic moment when its groundlessness is manifest. The embodiment of instrumental reason in modern technology acquires a planetary reach precisely when the animating humanist project which guided it is overthrown. Nothing remains of this project but the expansion of human productive powers through the technological domination of the earth. It is this conjunction of the global spread of the Western humanist project with the self-undermining of its most powerful modern embodiment in the Enlightenment that warrants the claim that we find ourselves now at the close of the modern age. In truth, the likelihood is that, now that the imperatives of the Cold War period are over, the European countries and the United States will increasingly decouple, not only strategically and economically, but also culturally, so that their cultural and political differences will become more, not less, decisive. It is difficult to believe that the forms of liberal culture will not diverge greatly, as a result of this likely decoupling, between the United States and the various European nations. Indeed, even as things stand now, Rorty's post-modern liberalism is an expression of American hopes, which are far from being shared by other liberal cultures, such as those in Europe. For liberalism to become merely one form of life among others would involve as profound a cultural metamorphosis as Christianity's ceasing to make any claim to unique and universal truth. The surrender of the will to power has its most important application in our relations with other forms of life, and with the earth. The project of subjecting the earth and its other life-forms to human will through technological domination is Western humanism in its final form.

What has happened to the political left since the 1960s? What distinguishes the reformist left from the cultural left? What does it mean for a leftist to have "national pride"? Are metaphysicians more prone to violence? In the very first episode of Damn the Absolute!, Jeffrey Howard speaks with Adrian Rutt, a philosophy professor in Cleveland, Ohio. He is president of the Western Reserve Philosophical Society, a local group that engages the larger community in important conversations across philosophy and politics. Adrian is also an editor for Liberal Currents, an online publication defending liberal principles and institutions. We explore the political thought of the iconoclastic philosopher Richard Rorty. And specifically, we look at his 1998 book, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America. Produced by Erraticus.   Show Notes: "Rorty on Religion and Politics" by Jeffrey Stout in The Philosophy of Richard Rorty (2010) "Post-ontological Philosophy of Mind: Rorty versus Davidson" by Bjorn Ramberg in Rorty and His Critics (2000) Defending Rorty: Pragmatism and Liberal Virtue by William Curtis (2015) Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America by Richard Rorty (1998) Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty (1989) “Lessons for the Left: Achieving Our Country Revisited” by Adrian Rutt (2020) “America Needs a Conservative Labor Movement” by Oren Cass (2020) Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature by Richard Rorty (1979) Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher by Neil Gross (2008)  Pragmatic Liberalism and the Critique of Modernity by Gary Gutting (1999)

Sostieni il mio lavoro ➤➤➤ https://www.patreon.com/rickdufer Lo Smithsonian pubblica una infografica secondo cui la scienza (insieme ad altro) sarebbe un presupposto della "cultura bianca". A me questa cosa sembra aberrante e ho voluto parlarne con Michele! Il link per lo Smithsonian: https://s.si.edu/2OFGfxj Newsletter ➤➤➤ http://eepurl.com/c-LKfz Elogio dell'idiozia ➤➤➤ https://amzn.to/2J9WwKZ LEGGI "SPINOZA&POPCORN" ➤➤➤ https://amzn.to/32LY9DK (versione ebook: https://amzn.to/2xSsoOD) Youtube: http://bit.ly/rickdufer Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rickdufer/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rickdalferro/ Il meglio di Daily Cogito (per nuovi ascoltatori): http://bit.ly/bestofDC Daily Cogito: ogni mattina alle 7. L'unica dipendenza che ti rende indipendente. Daily Cogito è ascoltabile e scaricabile dalle seguenti fonti:Canale Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/dailycogito Spotify: http://bit.ly/DailySpoty

The thigh-ly anticipated second half of the Richard Rorty Dawdle.  Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Part II!  

Can't we all just get along and get awards for attendance? Or not? Your science is not better than my poetry! This week we talk about Richard Rorty's “Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature”. In Part 1 of this topic (WHAT!?) there are plenty of misgivings, mischaracterizations, and misunderstandings along the way. But we keep retuning to this framework of ours: the modes of inquiry (E3: Triamond Joy!). These include overseeing, truth seeking, and game playing (and engineering but Harland has yet to come around to it). Rorty wants to scrap much of it. Por qua? Let's play some games! -Dawds

Neste episódio, discutimos, especialmente, o capítulo "Ironia Privada e Esperança Liberal", do livro "Contingência, Ironia e Solidariedade", de Richard Rorty. Qual o sentido do termo "vocabulário final" no texto? De que forma Rorty se aproxima do pensamento sofístico, ao buscar, antes, um argumento bem justificado, antes de uma verdade demonstrada? Como se relaciona, as respostas dadas sobre a "fundamentação" da moral desse continuador de John Dewey (segundo o próprio Rorty), e a busca do "melhor", e não do "verdadeiro" empreendida pelos sofistas?

Rorty ve Pragmatizm Pragmatizm görüşünün yakın zamanlardaki en etkili düşünürünün Richard Rorty (1931-2007) olduğu genelde kabul edilir. Rorty yalnızca Peirce, James ve Dewey gibi geleneksel pragmatistlerden etkilenmekle kalmamış, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Davidson gibi düşünürlerin perspektiflerini de belli noktalarda felsefesi içine taşıyarak metafizik, epistemoloji, zihin felsefesi ve meta-felsefe konularında etkili ve hâlâ tartışılmaya devam eden iddialara imza atmıştır. Rorty'nin doğruluk ve gerçeklik gibi konulardaki tezleri ve bu tezlerin politik alanda verebileceği sonuçlar felsefeciler için ilginç bir irdeleme konusu oluşturmaktadır.

"He is a nemesis to many, and is claimed as a friend by only very few," wrote Eduardo Mendieta about Richard Rorty, the most quoted, most criticized, and most widely read of recent U.S. philosophers. Rorty died in 2007, but a passionate crew of 'Rortyans' now devote themselves to keeping his name alive, challenging what they see as the many misinterpretations of his work. Thanks to Rorty's politically centrist views, his praise for patriotism, and his disdain for talk of 'objective truth,' he succeeded in enraging progressives and conservatives alike. But his friends and fans believe the rage is largely misplaced. The real Rorty was a subtle, empathetic, moral thinker whose ideas could be the most useful contribution U.S. philosophy has to offer today's polarized and fractured democracies. To find out why, IDEAS goes to Pennsylvania for the second-ever meeting of the Richard Rorty Society.

Episode 16 - Join Brekkie & Russell for a wide reaching discussion on Bitcoin and the impact of Corona Virus. Highlights include: A fun intro from Mick and Rorty along with some terrible Walter Cronkite/Richard Nixon impressions Link to the comedian mentioned A discussion of the US Stimulus package Corporate bailouts: What they are, why they matter, and why nothing ever changes… Thank you to Travis Kling for summing up Bitcoin so eloquently and providing the basis for our discussion! — “Bitcoin is a non-sovereign, hardcapped supply, global, immutable, decentralized, digital store of value. It is an insurance policy against monetary and fiscal policy irresponsibility from central banks and governments globally.” PornHub free premium subscriptions & Tantric Sex? Yep. This comes up in conversation. You’ll have to listen to the full episode to understand why… To subscribe and listen to more episodes of Tantra Talks, click HERE. To learn more about our offerings, click HERE --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/tantra-talks/message

Spooky stream w deadflip reaction

This time we have some actual breaking news on the podcast! After discussing the Pelosi/Squad dispute (TNR article here) and the Mueller testimony today (NR article here), we turn to Senator Josh Hawley's (R-Mo.) speech at the National Conservative Conference a few days ago. We discuss the deeply anti-Semitic overtones of singling out 3 Jewish academics (out of 4 mentioned) to blame for "cosmopolitan elites" who despise patriotism, have no national roots or identity, and sell out the working class to international business. But then we actually looked up the quotes of the academics he mentioned, and discovered that he had wildly mischaracterized all but one of them. Indeed, one said basically the opposite of what Hawley accused him of. The discussion of Hawley's deception starts at 40:15, but we'll also include the details below the fold. You can listen to our previous episode about patriotism here.----more---- In his speech, Hawley said the following: According to the cosmopolitan consensus, globalization is a moral imperative. That’s because our elites distrust patriotism and dislike the common culture left to us by our forbearers. The nation’s leading academics will gladly say this for the record. MIT Professor Emeritus Leo Marx has said that the “planet would be a better place to live if more people gave [their] primary allegiance ‘to the community of human beings in the entire world.’” NYU’s Richard Sennett has denounced what he called “the evil of shared national identity.” The late Lloyd Rudolph of the University of Chicago said patriotism “excludes difference and speaks the language of hate and violence.” And then there’s Martha Nussbaum, who wrote that it is wrong and morally dangerous to teach students that they are “above all, citizens of the United States.” Instead, they should be educated for “world citizenship.” You get the idea. The cosmopolitan elite look down on the common affections that once bound this nation together: things like place and national feeling and religious faith. In reality, Sennett was the only one whose writing actually fully fits this description (in a 1994 New York Times op-ed). Here's more context from the Nussbaum quote (in a 1994 Boston Review article): As students here grow up, is it sufficient for them to learn that they are above all citizens of the United States, but that they ought to respect the basic human rights of citizens of India, Bolivia, Nigeria, and Norway? Or should they—as I think—in addition to giving special attention to the history and current situation of their own nation, learn a good deal more than is frequently the case about the rest of the world in which they live, about India and Bolivia and Nigeria and Norway and their histories, problems, and comparative successes? [...] Once again, that does not mean that one may not permissibly give one’s own sphere a special degree of concern. Politics, like child care, will be poorly done if each thinks herself equally responsible for all, rather than giving the immediate surroundings special attention and care. Nussbaum is against nationalism and patriotism in general, but not to the sneering extent that Hawley says, and indeed allows that people can take special care for their own surroundings and communities. Nowhere does she disparage place or religious faith as such. Leo Marx's quote comes from a roundtable response to Nussbaum's article. The quote above comes from the introduction -- but the entire remainder of his piece is dedicated to questioning the quote's premise: It is one thing to establish the rational and moral superiority of cosmopolitanism, but quite another to get it adopted. If most people really chose their beliefs according to those criteria, nationalism would have disappeared long ago. Professor Nussbaum's case for cosmopolitanism would be a lot stronger if she acknowledged, and somehow dealt with, the deep non- or extra- or ir-rational roots of its triumphant rival, nationalism. As a result of the history of the two concepts of over some three millenia, cosmopolitanism has been -- still is -- associated with urban sophistication, learning, privilege, high status, and a quasi-aristocratic intellectuality and aestheticism; on the other hand, nationalism has been -- still is -- identified with the relatively straightforward, passionate, anti-elitist programs of land-oriented, populist mass movements. When we consider the roles the two actually have played in cultural history, choosing between them becomes a far more intractable problem than Professor Nussbaum suggests. It is bound to generate a deep, discomfitting ambivalence in left-wing intellectuals. He then goes on to defend the better side of American identity in particular: Her neglect of historical particularities also mars Professor Nussbaum's views of the American case. She seems to regard American nationhood as indistinguishable from other routine embodiments of nationalism. But the originating concept of the American republic was exceptional in at least two respects. First, unlike virtually all other nations, the United States was founded on precisely defined political principles; and second, those principles, as set forth by Jefferson and his committee, were not selected for their particular local, ethnic, racial, cultural, or geographic relevance, but rather for their putatively universal moral and rational validity. Whatever the record of actual American practices since 1776, the fact is that this nation initially was -- and in principle remains -- dedicated to an Enlightenment brand of cosmopolitanism. When Professor Nussbaum asks why we should think differently of Chinese people when they become Americans, the answer that the founders would have given is clear: these people of Chinese origin are different because they ostensibly have sworn allegiance to the universal principles of American republicanism. Unlike adherents of most forms of nationalism, we Americans have endorsed an exacting set of standards by which we would have our national behavior judged. (Those standards embodied in our founding documents and institutions, incidentally, provide a useful basis for repudiating the cruder, more jingoistic expressions of American patriotism of our constitution.) It is odd that Professor Nussbaum should ignore her own country's unique commitment to the kind of cosmopolitan, supra-nationalistic and eminently rational principles she would have humanity embrace. One might quibble with that argument, but Hawley's representation of Marx here is simply rank dishonesty. Worst of all is the treatment given to Lloyd Rudolph. His quote (from the same roundtable as Marx) straight-up does not say what Hawley says it does. On the contrary, Rudolph defends a certain notion of patriotism: Patriotism is not always and everywhere the same. It lives in different histories and different narratives. Martha Nussbaum seems to neglect these differences: she detests patriotism and admires cosmopolitanism. Richard Rorty and Sheldon Hackney, she says, affirm patriotism. Patriotism for her is aggressive, exclusive, intolerant nationalism; it can lead to the kind of hatred and violence toward the other practiced by Hitler in his time and Slobodan Milosevic in ours. This is not how I read the Rorty and Hackney effort to recover a common American language, a language that can transcend and inform recognition of and respect for difference in America. Martin Luther King articulated and affirmed American patriotism in his inclusivist, non-violent pursuit of civil rights for African Americans. Today, his legacy helps gays and lesbians, single mothers, and new immigrants to claim civil rights and contributes to the discourse and practice of human rights in world arenas. Hawley's quote from Randolph is specifically not referring to patriotism as such, but instead bigoted, violent, or criminal versions thereof: Instead of going after Rorty and Hackney, who share many of her concerns, Martha Nussbaum might do better to go after the scoundrel patriots of our time, the Oliver Norths, Pat Buchanans, Pat Robertsons, and Jerry Falwells. Their patriotism excludes difference and speaks the language of hate and violence. Emphasis mine. Randolph says patriotism can be a good thing if developed properly, just that it can also have some downsides. But admitting that would jam up Hawley's narrative about the conspiracy of all-powerful (((academics))) bent on destroying Jesus, baseball, apple pies, and America itself. What an abject liar.

D66 wordt wel eens een pragmatische partij genoemd. Maar wat is pragmatisme eigenlijk? Welke consequenties heeft het aanvaarden van pragmatisme voor het politiek denken? En hoe kunnen antwoorden op deze vragen van betekenis zijn in het hedendaagse politieke debat? Die vragen behandelen we aan de hand van het denken van één van de grondleggers van het pragmatisme: de filosoof en uitgesproken pragmatist Richard Rorty geboren in 1931 en overleden in 2007. Aan tafel zitten Bert van den Brink, decaan van de University College Roosevelt en professor politieke en sociale filosofie aan de Universiteit Utrecht en kenner van Rorty’s politieke filosofie, Victor Gijsbers, Universitair Docent aan de Universiteit Leiden en kenner van Rorty’s theoretische filosofie, en Dirk-Jan van Vliet, medewerker van de Mr. Hans van Mierlo Stichting, Rorty kenner en expert op het gebied van het sociaal-liberalisme.

------------------Support the channel------------ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter ------------------Follow me on--------------------- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT Dr. Stephen Hicks teaches at Rockford University, where he also directs the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship. He is the author of books like Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault, and Nietzsche and the Nazis. Additionally, he has published articles and essays on a range of subjects, including entrepreneurism, free speech in academia, the history and development of modern art, Ayn Rand's Objectivism, business ethics and the philosophy of education, including a series of YouTube lectures. Here, we talk about the differences between modernism and postmodernism; the influences of Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx and Heidegger on postmodernism; the role the Frankfurt School played on promoting Marxist ideas; the differences between Marxism and Postmodernism; the philosophy of Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida, and Rorty; the current state of political and academic affairs and its relation to the several waves of postmodernism; and the relationship between existentialism and postmodernism. -- O Dr. Stephen Hicks dá aulas na Rockford University, onde também dirige o Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship. É autor de livros como Explicando o Pós-modernismo: Ceticismo e socialismo - de Rousseau a Foucault, e Nietzsche and the Nazis. Para além disso, tem artigos e ensaios publicados sobre uma panóplia de temas, incluindo empreendedorismo, liberdade de expressão na academia, a história e desenvolvimento da arte moderna, Objetivismo de Ayn Rand, business ethics e a filosofia da educação, incluindo uma série de aulas no YouTube. Aqui, falamos sobre as diferenças entre modernismo e pós-modernismo; as influências de Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx e Heidegger no pós-modernismo; o papel da Escola de Frankfurt na promoção de ideias marxistas; as diferenças entre marxismo e pós-modernismo; a filosofia de Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida e Rorty; o atual estado político e académico e a sua relação com as diversas correntes pós-modernas; e a relação entre existencialismo e pós-modernismo. -- Please, check out Dr. Hicks' work His Website: http://www.stephenhicks.org/ His book, Explaining Postmodernism: https://www.amazon.com/Explaining-Postmodernism-Skepticism-Socialism-Rousseau/dp/0983258406 ; Em Português: https://www.amazon.com/Explicando-P%C3%B3s-modernismo-Ceticismo-socialismo-Portuguese-ebook/dp/B00B4FCGM0/ And follow him on Twitter: @SRCHicks ; and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Stephen.R.C.Hicks -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, JUNOS, SCIMED, PER HELGE HAAKSTD LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, RUI BELEZA, MIGUEL ESTRADA, ANTÓNIO CUNHA, CHANTEL GELINAS, JIM FRANK, JERRY MULLER, FRANCIS FORD, AND HANS FREDRIK SUNDE! I also leave you with the link to a recent montage video I did with the interviews I have released until the end of June 2018: https://youtu.be/efdb18WdZUo And check out my playlists on: PSYCHOLOGY: https://tinyurl.com/ybalf8km PHILOSOPHY: https://tinyurl.com/yb6a7d3p ANTHROPOLOGY: https://tinyurl.com/y8b42r7g

Is religious language incompatible with democratic politics, as philosopher Richard Rorty believed? Not in the Philippines, where religion and democracy are working together as close allies—with troubling implications for justice and human rights.

Richard M. Rorty and our Current Political Crisis with David McClean Richard M. Rorty was one of the most interesting American philosophers of modern times. In his book, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America (1998), Rorty warned that the time might soon come when “something will crack,” and disaffected Americans, those left behind by “the bond salesmen” and “postmodern professors,” will elect a champion to press their interests. This presentation will explore Rorty’s warning, what might have been done to prevent the outcome about which he forewarned the country, and how the left might rethink its mission so that the truly marginalized do not need to resort in desperation to extreme political solutions and demagogues. David McClean is a member of All Souls, an ordained minister, and has been active with the Adult Education Committee and the Racial Justice Initiative of this congregation. He is a graduate of Hunter College (B.A. in Religious Studies), NYU (M.A. in Liberal Studies), and the New School (Ph.D. in Philosophy), where he wrote his dissertation on American philosopher, Richard Rorty. He is the founder and Director of DMA Consulting Group that has provided consulting services to financial institutions since 1992, and teaches Philosophy and Ethics & Business at Rutgers University.

A conversation with William Curtis about his recent book, Defending Rorty: Pragmatism and Liberal Virtue.

Pour sa cinquième émission, Philodio reçoit Pascal Engel! Christian Nadeau, pour la cinquième émission de Philodio, s’est entretenu avec Pascal Engel, directeur d’études à l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales. Pascal Engel a été reçu le jeudi le 19 octobre 2017 au département de philosophie de l’Université de Montréal dans le cadre des célébrations du cinquantième anniversaire du département. La cinquième émission de Philodio revient donc sur la conférence donnée en octobre dernier par Pascal Engel, conférence qui s’intitulait « La raison fait de la résistance », ainsi que sur les intérêts de recherche de ce philosophe. Pascal Engel est directeur d’études à l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales et est professeur honoraire à l’Université de Genève. Ses travaux ont porté sur la philosophie de la logique et du langage, en particulier sur Davidson, et sur la philosophie de l’esprit et de la connaissance. Cette dernière au centre de ses intérêts de recherche actuels, qui portent sur la vérité, les normes épistémiques et la nature de la croyance. Il est l’auteur notamment de La norme du vrai (1989), Davidson et la philosophie du langage (1994), Introduction à la philosophie de l’esprit (1994) Philosophie et psychologie (1996), La dispute (1997), Truth (2002), Ramsey , Truth and Success (avec Jérôme Dokic, 2002) , A quoi bon la vérité ? (avec R. Rorty, 2005) et Va savoir! (2007). Créée par la revue Philosophiques et animée par son directeur, Christian Nadeau, l’émission Philodio a pour mission d’exposer et de vulgariser certains enjeux philosophiques traités dans les récents numéros de la revue. Elle ne fait la promotion d’aucune école, doctrine ou méthodologie particulière et a pour seul souci de contribuer à stimuler la recherche philosophique et à démocratiser le savoir philosophique auprès du public francophone. Les émissions, d’une durée de 15 à 30 minutes chacune, sont lancées à une fréquence prévue d’une ou deux par mois. Se voulant accessibles, elles sont disponibles gratuitement en baladodiffusion sur Soundcloud et Itunes. Veuillez prendre note que l’extrait musical utilisé par Philodio est une création de Kevin Macloud et peut être écouté au lien suivant : http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/Jazz_Sampler/I_Knew_a_Guy_1821 Sur ce, bonne écoute! Pour écouter l’émission sur Itunes : https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/philodio/id1289019138 Pour visiter le site web de Philodio : http://laspq.org/philosophiques/philodio Pour suivre Philodio sur Twitter : https://twitter.com/philodio

El día de hoy gracias a Trotta tenemos el gusto de poder invitar a la lectura de una interesantísima obra publicada por esta editorial, "Cuidar la Libertad" es un conjunto de entrevistas editadas por el Dr. Eduardo Mendieta, estas entrevistas nos permiten conocer a detalle aspectos de la obra de Rorty que podrían haber sido vistas de manera muy general.

In this episode Ray and Andrew discuss Rorty's political theory as well as the Nancy MacLean book Democracy in Chains. 

Rickle Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick hates Mick and Rorty fans. This week on FI we attempt to turn Dan from a Meatloaf into a Rocky, Nick discovers Paradise under the Parking Lot Lights, and Sam helps settle the score. Big topics this week, including the Boy Scout’s and their new policy on Girls. (They can join!) Penguins: 2 Darwin: 31,998 Going live SATURDAY this week with Justin, tune in 8PM 10/21/2017 on Facebook or Youtube LIVE!   Download this episode now!Read More →

Chris Voparil, former president of Richard Rorty Society talks about his book the "Achieving our Country," and how Rorty had warned the Left of someone like Donald Trump rising to power. Eric Sawyer and Angel Soto of GMHC talk about being arrested and why we need to fight the repeal of ACA.

Continuing on Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in 20th Century America (1998). We talk more about Rorty's description of the conflict between the "reformist left" and the "cultural left." Do political-comedy shows serve a a positive political purpose? Can an enlightened political viewpoint really be a mass movement at all? Is it better to pursue specific political campaigns or be part of a "movement?" Can Rorty's diagnosis cure Seth's malaise? End song: "Wake Up, Sleepyhead," by Jill Sobule, as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #11.

On Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in 20th Century America (1998). What makes for efficacious progressivism? Rorty argues that reformism went out of fashion in the '60s in favor of a "cultural left" that merely critiques and spectates, leaving a void that a right-wing demagogue could exploit to sweep in, claiming to be a champion of regular working people. Sound familiar?

On Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Part II: "Mirroring." Is a "theory of knowledge" possible? Rorty thinks that any such account will be a fruitless search for foundations. Knowledge is really just a matter of social agreement, and beliefs must be justified from other beliefs, not from any alleged relationship to reality. End song: "The Ghosts Are Alright" from The Bye-Bye Blackbirds (Houses and Homes, 2008), as discussed on Nakedly Examined Music #32. Please support PEL!

On Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Part I: "Our Glassy Essence." "The mind" seems to be an unavoidable part of our basic conceptual vocabulary, but Rorty thinks not, and he wants to use the history of philosophy as a kind of therapy to show that many of our seemingly insoluble problems like the relation between mind and body are a result philosophical mistakes by Descartes, Locke, and Kant. With guest Stephen Metcalf of Slate's Culture Gabfest podcast. End song: "Wall of Nothingness" from Sky Cries Mary from This Timeless Turning (1994). Listen to Mark's interview with the band's frontman, Roderick Romero, in Nakedly Examined Music ep. 9. Please support PEL!

The boys are once again joined by Joy, and they discuss a variety of topics, including the Japanese education system, where we got the name for our podcast, Billy's supposed resemblance to Kevin Love, Adorno's presence in a department store, Fidel Castro, and Peter Thiel. We discuss Laurie Rojas' piece "The New Culture War?" (http://www.caesuraonline.com/caesura-online/2016/11/22/the-new-culture-war). Song Credits: LCD Soundsystem: Dance Yrself Clean Daft Punk: Voyager Franco Battiato: Cuccurucucu Closing Song- Television: Venus Thanks for listening!!

  Welcome to Your True Gender Radio. What is the value of gender diversity in organizations, politics and society? Educating about Gender Diversity increases the awareness and understanding of the wide range of gender variations in children, adolescents, and adults spanning family support, building community, increasing societal awareness, and improving the well-being for people of all gender identities and expressions.  Your True Gender is an organization dedicated to educating those in our community in order to make the world a more welcoming place for Trans* individuals, as well as anyone who has ever felt out of place. Your True Gender, a nonprofit organization which strives to provide resources to Trans* individuals on California’s Central Coast, as well as education for people all over the country. Our first program is with Max Rorty whom is an authority on best practices for health providers working with transgender and gender non-normative people. Max facilitates trainings for large and small groups of professionals eager to provide transgender sensitive care. Trainings include best practices for intake forms, demographic collection and infrastructure for trans clients. She is the author of Transgender Patients and Their Families, and co-author of Trans-Safe Employee Space. She has an upcoming presentation called “Transgender Patient Care” on February 17th at Cottage hospital- All you wanted to know, but you were afraid to ask. For more info visit www.maxrorty.com

My guest was Kevin Decker, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Washington University. We discussed atheism, Richard Rorty, and whether or not compassion is possible without a belief in God? This program originally aired on 5/28/12. Contact Information: http://www.ewu.edu/CALE/Programs/Philosophy.xml  

I det här avsnittet av Idésherpa står pragmatismen i fokus. Kan pragmatismen verkligen vara en ideologi? Och har den något med liberalism att göra? För att närma sig svaren på dessa frågor behöver man undersöka tänkare som Nietzsche, Dewey och Rorty. Alexander Bard, författare, musiker och producent, hjälper oss att göra just detta.

Entlang der Lektüre von Handkes "Niemandsbucht" entwickelt die Arbeit auf der Basis phänomenologischer Theorie eine eigene Formulierung "ironisch-offenen" Denkens (in Anlehnung an R. Rorty), das Werden und Veränderung als die Grundmodi von Sein ansieht, und erörtert anhand dessen die in diesem Denken liegenden Auffassungen von Wirklichkeit und Authentizität.