Richard Rorty Quotes

33 quotes in 547 categories

• The difference between people and ideas is... only superficial. Difference
• Academic disciplines are subject to being overtaken by attacks of "knowingness"- a state of mind and soul that prevents shudders of awe and makes one… Academic
• What sort of world can we prepare for our great grandchildren? Grandchildren
• My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which… Bound
• Philosophers get attention only when they appear to be doing something sinister--corrupting the youth, undermining the foundations of civilization, sneering at all we hold dear.… All
• Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by becoming more imaginative. Becoming
• Truth is simply a compliment paid to sentences seen to be paying their way. Compliment
• To abjure the notion of the truly human is to abjure the attempt to divinize the self as a replacement for a divinized world. Abjure
• My principal motive is the belief that we can still make admirable sense of our lives even if we cease to have... an ambition of… Admirable
• Truthfulness under oath is, by now, a matter of our civic religion, our relation to our fellow citizens rather than our relation to a nonhuman… Citizens
• If I had to lay bets, my bet would be that everything is going to go to hell, but, you know, what else have we… Bet
• The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Description
• What counts as rational argumentation is as historically determined and as context-dependent, as what counts as good French. Argumentation
• Open-mindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in… Always Win
• I illustrate with a quotation from the atheist philosopher Richard Rorty, who died recently and is, I suspect, now having a lengthy conversation with his… Argued
• There are credentials for admission to our democratic society [...]. You have to be educated in order to be a participant in our conversation So… Admission
• To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are… Age
• The most important advance that the West has yet made is to develop a secularist moral tradition Advance
• At 12, I knew that the point of being human was to spend one's life fighting social injustice. Fighting
• A talent for speaking differently, rather than for arguing well is the chief instrument of cultural change, Arguing

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