Loose ends

So many of them. Loose ends, that is. But more like sprouting root tips. Microscopic and underground. Invisible in more ways than one. But on to other things for the moment.

Do y'all remember Richard Rorty? Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature? How he used phrases like "the notion of alternative conceptual frameworks turns on the belief that...", or "the noumenal has no explanatory power - it turns but nothing turns with it"? He was a joy to read, in that his clear and compelling logic was a nice change from the other stuff I was reading at the time. Which is strange because I was reading philosophy almost exclusively at that time. But Rorty was extremely smart, a good writer, and knew his philosophical canon. I once talked briefly with a grad student who had worked with Rorty at the University of Virginia, and we agreed on the main outline of Rorty's arguments in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Here is a great, brief introduction to the man's work and an interview with the man himself.

Thank you, Richard Rorty (and to Ray Lanfear, one of his 'professors' at the University of Montana).