Yesterday evening I scanned my bookshelves to pull something to read, selected Pilgrim's Way and the KJV, and noticed wedged between two books a monograph-looking thing, I didn't know what it was, it appeared to be old, it was yellowed although printed on sturdy stock. I removed it and noticed that its two staples were rusty.
"Wtf," to self. I put the two books down and flipped through the monograph to see wtf.
"Rorty signed," someone had written in pencil on the inside of the cover on the first page at top.
"Where?"
I flipped to the end, no signature, and then took all three and put them on my kang bed for reading Mao-style but then became engrossed in the ominous east wind blowing from Eighth Avenue Manhattan. I didn't peruse the Rorty monograph until this morning.
I associate Rorty with "fresh." When I think of him that is what comes to mind. He was refreshing to read, like a breath of fresh air. Didn't take himself too seriously. Was modest. "Keep the conversation going" was his idea. Could take criticism. Was ironic. Could be humorous. Optimistic. That is what I found so enchanting about Rorty at first, he was optimistic. One of America's greatest home-grown philosophers, Rorty was nominated for the Nobel Prize. Pragmatism was his philosophy. He was a follower and champion of John Dewey. I found Rorty as a philosopher refreshing in the main because the dude conversated optimistically about Big Stuff, practical, real-life stuff. There was not as much navel-contemplating as in the work of other philosophers, the eye-glazing dissection of some other philosopher's argument.
Have written a fair amount about Pragmatism and Rorty here, just last week on that foul puff that blew from Eighth Avenue. I went through a Rorty "phase." I think it was after reading Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club. Maybe not but maybe. No: it was during my art phase. Philosophy of art led to mirror-like representation led to painting with mirrors led to Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. I found Mirror refreshing. I don't think I read another of Rorty's books through but I have one or two others and some commentaries on Rorty. (I am aware that I am meandering.)
So, to meander back to the purpose of this post, following the breadcrumbs: Rorty "phase"-not navel-contemplating-this signed monograph, Ah! yes. I can only think that I bought this monograph on Ebay when I was in my enchantment with Rorty phase and wanted his autograph :( Really, I think that must have been it because I have no fucking idea why I would have wanted this monograph "Wittgenstein, Privileged access, and Incommunicability." The first paragraph:
In this paper, I wish to argue for the following theses:
(A) None of the arguments about the possibility of a private language or about the privacy of sensations and thoughts which Wittgenstein advances in the Philosophical Investigations provide good reason for doubting
(a) that words like "toothache" and "pain" are the names (in a nontrivial sense) of sensations which people sometimes experience, or
(b) that when I assert truly "I have a toothache" or "I am in pain," I am describing the state of my consciousness, or
(c) that when I assert of another person "He has a toothache" or "He is in pain" I claim that he is experiencing the same sort of sensation that I do when I have a toothache or am in pain
(B) None of these arguments give good reasons for rejecting as senseless the claim that "sensations are private"
(C) None of these arguments give good reasons for rejecting as senseless the claim that "I know that I am in pain because I feel it."
I haven't read past that.
After my enchantment phase I entered a disenchantment-with-Rorty phase. Words like "emptiness," "hollowed out" and "amorality" became the names (in a nontrivial sense) of sensations I experienced and came to associate (in a Pavlovian sense) with Rorty. And with Dewey, most especially with Holmes, and with all those other guys.
"That is the only home-grown American philosophy?" I gaped, disturbed. (It is.) Dewey and especially Holmes applied the philosophy of pragmatism to real-life Big Stuff. Yuk and double yuk. That contributed to my disenchantment with America. That and NSA and the changin' New York Times and Trump. And the Dec. of Ind. Disenchantment has a thousand fathers.
"Wtf," to self. I put the two books down and flipped through the monograph to see wtf.
"Rorty signed," someone had written in pencil on the inside of the cover on the first page at top.
"Where?"
I flipped to the end, no signature, and then took all three and put them on my kang bed for reading Mao-style but then became engrossed in the ominous east wind blowing from Eighth Avenue Manhattan. I didn't peruse the Rorty monograph until this morning.
I associate Rorty with "fresh." When I think of him that is what comes to mind. He was refreshing to read, like a breath of fresh air. Didn't take himself too seriously. Was modest. "Keep the conversation going" was his idea. Could take criticism. Was ironic. Could be humorous. Optimistic. That is what I found so enchanting about Rorty at first, he was optimistic. One of America's greatest home-grown philosophers, Rorty was nominated for the Nobel Prize. Pragmatism was his philosophy. He was a follower and champion of John Dewey. I found Rorty as a philosopher refreshing in the main because the dude conversated optimistically about Big Stuff, practical, real-life stuff. There was not as much navel-contemplating as in the work of other philosophers, the eye-glazing dissection of some other philosopher's argument.
Have written a fair amount about Pragmatism and Rorty here, just last week on that foul puff that blew from Eighth Avenue. I went through a Rorty "phase." I think it was after reading Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club. Maybe not but maybe. No: it was during my art phase. Philosophy of art led to mirror-like representation led to painting with mirrors led to Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. I found Mirror refreshing. I don't think I read another of Rorty's books through but I have one or two others and some commentaries on Rorty. (I am aware that I am meandering.)
So, to meander back to the purpose of this post, following the breadcrumbs: Rorty "phase"-not navel-contemplating-this signed monograph, Ah! yes. I can only think that I bought this monograph on Ebay when I was in my enchantment with Rorty phase and wanted his autograph :( Really, I think that must have been it because I have no fucking idea why I would have wanted this monograph "Wittgenstein, Privileged access, and Incommunicability." The first paragraph:
In this paper, I wish to argue for the following theses:
(A) None of the arguments about the possibility of a private language or about the privacy of sensations and thoughts which Wittgenstein advances in the Philosophical Investigations provide good reason for doubting
(a) that words like "toothache" and "pain" are the names (in a nontrivial sense) of sensations which people sometimes experience, or
(b) that when I assert truly "I have a toothache" or "I am in pain," I am describing the state of my consciousness, or
(c) that when I assert of another person "He has a toothache" or "He is in pain" I claim that he is experiencing the same sort of sensation that I do when I have a toothache or am in pain
(B) None of these arguments give good reasons for rejecting as senseless the claim that "sensations are private"
(C) None of these arguments give good reasons for rejecting as senseless the claim that "I know that I am in pain because I feel it."
I haven't read past that.
After my enchantment phase I entered a disenchantment-with-Rorty phase. Words like "emptiness," "hollowed out" and "amorality" became the names (in a nontrivial sense) of sensations I experienced and came to associate (in a Pavlovian sense) with Rorty. And with Dewey, most especially with Holmes, and with all those other guys.
"That is the only home-grown American philosophy?" I gaped, disturbed. (It is.) Dewey and especially Holmes applied the philosophy of pragmatism to real-life Big Stuff. Yuk and double yuk. That contributed to my disenchantment with America. That and NSA and the changin' New York Times and Trump. And the Dec. of Ind. Disenchantment has a thousand fathers.
