Richard Rorty | |
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Born | Richard McKay Rorty October 4, 1931 New York City, New York, U.S. |
Died | June 8, 2007 Palo Alto, California, U.S. | (aged 75)
Alma mater | |
Era | 20th-century philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Neopragmatism[1] |
Institutions | |
Doctoral advisor | Paul Weiss |
Doctoral students | Robert Brandom, Michael Williams |
Main interests | |
Notable ideas |
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Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher. Educated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, Rorty's academic career included appointments as the Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, the Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and as a professor of comparative literature at Stanford University. Among his most influential books are Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Consequences of Pragmatism (1982), and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989).
Rorty rejected the long-held idea that correct internal representations of objects in the outside world are a necessary prerequisite for knowledge. Rorty argued instead that knowledge is an internal and linguistic affair; knowledge relates only to our own language.[3][4] Rorty argues that language is made up of vocabularies that are temporary and historical,[5] and concludes that "since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are truths".[6] The acceptance of the preceding arguments leads to what Rorty calls "ironism"; a state of mind where people are completely aware that their knowledge is dependent on their time and place in history, and are therefore somewhat detached from their own beliefs.[7] However, Rorty also argues that "a belief can still regulate action, can still be thought worth dying for, among people who are quite aware that this belief is caused by nothing deeper than contingent historical circumstance".[8]
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The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do that. [...] [S]ince truth is a property of sentences, since sentences are dependent for their existence upon vocabularies, and since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are truths.
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