Annals of Mazeppism

Richard Rorty, friend of Harold Bloom and a man who, in my estimation, will be remembered as one of the most important voices in 20th century American philosophy, passed into the Great Beyond last week. He was 75. He will be missed.

While awaiting an obituary that might do him justice, here is something brief from the NYT:

"Rorty's landmark book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), rankled some of his peers by arguing that there is no distinction between objective and subjective realities, a theme he continued to develop throughout his career.

Rorty came to Stanford as a fellow at the Humanities Center in 1996 and then joined the faculty of the comparative literature department in 1998. His decision to teach comparative literature instead of philosophy reflected his belief that the two were essentially the same."

I am not certain that the first quoted paragraph is technically accurate; Rorty's position was that "truth" is a property of language, not of the world-out-there. The second paragraph is accurate and is one of the many reasons that I came to revere the man.

More, perhaps, after I have collected my thoughts.