Richard Rorty died last week. On the trvial side, this kind of thing's a personal occasion to mourn roads not traveled - namely, that I never went for a Philosophy Ph.D. The debates in which Rorty was involved are, I think, an enviable place in which to live out one's mental life; and his positions in those debates were, I think, enlightened and worthy of admiration. Even if he was a little less hip to science than my own disposition might have it. (Daniel Dennett, who went back and forth with Rorty in this area, jestingly defined "rort" as "rort, n. m. (1) an incorrigible report; hence, rorty, adj. incorrigible.")
There's a promising but incomplete deathbed interview with Rorty in the current Progressive. Worth taking a look at. It opens with a discussion of his place in the western intellectual tradition, including a little farrago of name-drops that might not mean much to you unless you're somebody who almost went for a Ph.D. in Philosophy (Dewey, Gadamer, etc.): but the brunt of this (too-short) conversation is very general-audience-directed, like much of Rorty's writing was in the first place.
I was especially stirred to see Rorty point out this greatest concern he holds for the world's political future. I share it. But it's so fearsome a thought that I don't think a lot of folks ever bring themselves to contemplate it seriously:
The Bush administration has now been repudiated by US public opinion, and the Iraq debacle will make future European governments hesitant about following America’s lead. But I still think that the end of democracy is a likely consequence of nuclear terrorism, and I do not know how to guard against this danger. Sooner or later some terrorist group will repeat 9/11 on a much grander scale. I doubt that democratic institutions will be resilient enough to stand the strain. (ital. mine)
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