The Rorty Discussion with Donald Davidson - Part 4 of 6

An interesting discussion between two great philosophers of the latter half of the 20th century, exploring topics such as truth, meaning and reference. I apologize for the audio sync. It was a problem with the original file (not that it matters much, the video is simply two old men talking).

Richard Rorty (1931-2007) developed a distinctive and controversial brand of pragmatism that expressed itself along two main axes. One is negative—a critical diagnosis of what Rorty takes to be defining projects of modern philosophy. The other is positive—an attempt to show what intellectual culture might look like, once we free ourselves from the governing metaphors of mind and knowledge in which the traditional problems of epistemology and metaphysics (and indeed, in Rorty's view, the self-conception of modern philosophy) are rooted.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rorty/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rorty#Biography

Donald Davidson (1917-2003) was one of the most important philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century. His ideas, presented in a series of essays from the 1960's onwards, have been influential across a range of areas from semantic theory through to epistemology and ethics. Davidson's work exhibits a breadth of approach, as well as a unitary and systematic character, which is unusual within twentieth century analytic philosophy.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/davidson/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Davidson_(philosopher)

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Richard
• Rorty
• Donald
• Davidson
• Quine
• Sellars
• Tarsky
• Dewey
• James
• philosophy
• pragmatism
• truth
• meaning
• reference
• discussion
• realism
• anti-realism
• relativism
• science

[queenkyoko]

i think rorty's philosophy is more easily expressed in a situation like this

while davidson's may require more"contexts"

just a thinking

[Israe5l]

Still, Davidson's silence was interesting. Or maybe it was just contempt of Rorty. I wonder what Davidson had under his sleeves.

[mightyafrowhitey]

this is kind of interesting, even though I really don't have much for either the logical positivists of the analytic philosophers. still kinda interesting nonetheless

[mightyafrowhitey]

@manwaring it's mind-blowing to me why anyone would even accuse rorty of being a marxist. marx used materialism as a stepping stone for his political philosophy. is this really that difficult for people to understand?!?!?  I'm not that familiar with rorty, I have to admit, but from what I get out of this video it doesn't even seem like his very interested in political philosophy.

[manwaring]

@Questfortruth86

Read the 'Communist Manifesto'.

Read 'Contingency, Irony And Solidarity' by Rorty.

Compare.

Normally I don't bother to defend philosophers on youtube, but the sheer amount of stupid comments people make about Rorty is really mind blowing. It's part of our current positivistic culture, that anytime something smells like relativism people reach for danger words at random. In your case, extremely random, given Rorty is about as Marxist as George W. Bush.

[overmanhasreturned]

He is not a Marxist as far as I can tell. Materialism, historical is Marxism. It is a basic grounding in reality. Figure it out>

[hyperseauton]

"you've gotta respect the endevour of something like the Tractatus or the Principia." of course and still do. My second comment must have been trolling when I re-read what I have written.

[manwaring]

I don't know, I'm sure the ad-hominem is entirely justified. It must have been really exciting to live in a time when people thought Frege's new language was actually going to solve philosophical problems. I don't think there's some sexist longing behind Davidson's ideas.

While I obviously don't agree with the ideas presented back then, you've gotta respect the endevour of something like the Tractatus or the Principia.

[hyperseauton]

"Let Frege re-Kantianize us"

hits the nail on its head. Davidson is somewhat skeptical that what is essential still the Kantian plan of the philosophical project does still steer analytical philosophy but I think this is a wounding blow to Davidson at this point.