Comments on: No Obituaries for Rorty: Where’s the Mainstream Media?

By: Confused again

Confused again — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 23:35:56 +0000

Is that Patrick S. O’Donnell? It reads like Brian Leiter.

By: Patrick S. O'Donnell

Patrick S. O'Donnell — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 05:44:40 +0000

When I compared Rorty’s interest in bird-watching to Hartshorne’s ornithological expertise above, I did not know that Hartshorne was in fact one of Rorty’s teachers at the University of Chicago and supervised his MA thesis on Whitehead. All of this courtesy of the revised entry on Rorty in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rorty/

By: Not Confused About This

Not Confused About This — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:13:20 +0000

I read the post above, and it was ONE person who said he thought “PERHAPS the story of Rorty’s passing was in error,” and thus it was not the case that “MANY doubted he was in fact dead,” hence the request for evidence for your claim.

Sure, but he’s a smart guy, so if him, then possibly others. In any event, if you’re going to play around with logic, you should know that “many” = “some” = “at least one”. Like I said, you had the evidence right in front of your face.

By: Confused

Confused — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:10:02 +0000

Depends on what you mean by “can’t”.

Do you mean “others are incapable of understanding it because of some defect in their capacity for understanding”? Or do you mean “it cannot possibly be explained in terms that make sense to any well-functioning human brain”?

By: Confused

Confused — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:09:52 +0000

Depends on what you mean by “can’t”.

By: Confused

Confused — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:09:38 +0000

Depends on what you mean by “can’t”.

By: Patrick S. O'Donnell

Patrick S. O'Donnell — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:32:20 +0000

Well, if you can’t explain it to others, it has the unintelligibility of a “private language” or the practical effects of solipsism.

By: Rorty lives

Rorty lives — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:22:07 +0000

It had meaning for me.

By: Patrick S. O'Donnell

Patrick S. O'Donnell — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:23:33 +0000

No, your inferences need not be true, and several aren’t.

What was your point about the correspondence theory of truth above? Was it a gratuitous, meaningless remark?

By: Not Rorty

Not Rorty — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:56:45 +0000

I never doubted the correspondence theory of truth.

You need not see evidence for it to exist. But in this case, assuming you read the post above, you have: “The lack of one made me think that perhaps the story of Rorty’s passing was in error…”

“a rather strange inference to make”

Why, I’m recreating myself. My inferences need not be true.

By: Patrick S. O'Donnell

Patrick S. O'Donnell — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:28:27 +0000

“as if his meaning to you only matters if mainstream media organizations concur and numerous others are compelled to reflect on his passing”–Hardly, and a rather strange inference to make….

“not to mention that many doubted he was in fact dead if it wasn’t reported as fact in the press”–Really? I’ve seen no evidence of that proposition.

There are a number of virtues intrinsic to a correspondence theory of truth, as Michael P. Lynch, among others, would argue, and it remains a more than plausible theory of truth.

By: Nietzsche is dead

Nietzsche is dead — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 23:54:11 +0000

Maybe the newspapers had other things to do than to consider obscure academic events, like report the news. Or perhaps the mainstream media recognizes that we have the power to say what it means to be human and they didn’t find Rorty’s passing all that important to humanity. The irony, though, is the cry throughout the academic blogosphere that a great man was ignored, as if his meaning to you only matters if mainstream media organizations concur and numerous others are compelled to reflect on his passing, not to mention that many doubted he was in fact dead if it wasn’t reported as fact in the press, which sounds like the correspondence theory of truth to me.

By: Patrick S. O'Donnell

Patrick S. O'Donnell — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:18:05 +0000

I don’t see the irony, but perhaps I’m a dullard. There’s some evidence of contingency and solidarity however;…maybe that leads to a little irony.

By: William McGeveran

William McGeveran — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 19:10:55 +0000

The Times and Post undoubtedly had full obits pre-written for Rorty. They have many thousands of them filed away, revised on a schedule, and ready to go with only date and maybe cause of death inserted in a placeholder.

Many obits run some days after the person dies, for reasons as banal as space constraints or short summer staffing. No offense to Rorty, I’m sure.

By: Irony, anyone?

Irony, anyone? — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 18:16:48 +0000

Does no one see the irony here?

By: Frank

Frank — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 05:47:59 +0000

If anyone is interested in the pre-written obit business, James Wood’s Book Against God gives a droll fictionalized account of some such transactions.

I agree, Dan, the passing of Rorty is a big deal, and interpretive social science/philosophy has been dealt a heavy blow by his and Geertz’s deaths.

By: Patrick S. O'Donnell

Patrick S. O'Donnell — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 05:46:32 +0000

Thanks Marty.

Rorty’s travels “from Australia to the Brazilian rain forest to indulge an interest in bird-watching” brings to mind another quintessentially American philosopher and gentle soul, Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000), “a world-renowned ornithologist, whose book Born to Sing (1973) is a classic interpretation and world survey of bird song.”

By: Marty Lederman

Marty Lederman — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 05:26:08 +0000

The Times, too. This might simply be a case where the leading papers decided it was worth a substantial, substantive obit, they didn’t have one pre-written, and they didn’t feel the urgent news need to provide a short notice obit in their Sunday papers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/obituaries/11rorty.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

By: Marty Lederman

Marty Lederman — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 05:17:58 +0000

Washington Post has a long and extremely informative obit. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001268.html

By: John

John — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 05:13:54 +0000

Tomorrow’s Washington Post will have one:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001268.html