Monday, February 10, 2014

Noah Smith channels William James

Here.

Rorty of course makes a similar argument. When we were covering Marx last semester, I had my students read a small portion of one of Rorty's essays on whether and how we should read Marx, and he essentially gave the Jamesian argument on religion and specifically tied the New Testament to Capital. Do read Marx, Rorty said. Read and internalize what it behooves you to and no more. This was argued in contrast to some statements from Derrida on the modern relevance of Marx.

8 comments:

  1. Speaking of philosophy...have you read The Republic by Plato, Daniel?

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    1. Parts of it. The only philosophy class I ever took was on philosophy and human rights, so I picked up the classics here and there - not in any thorough cover-to-cover consideration.

      I count on osmoting my Plato through my Western cultural heritage :)

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    2. I see. Was that a Philosophy 101 course in the Department of Philosophy at the College of William and Mary?

      Aw, Daniel, I hoped that you would have gone back to the horse's mouth... :-P XD

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  2. Replies
    1. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0378.1995.tb00056.x/abstract

      "A Spectre is Haunting the Intellectuals".

      I'd have to dig up exactly what I had them look at. It was very short and it was more me developing the argument to them in the lecture. For the most part I just made sure they read Marx himself!

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    2. Awesome, I'm a philosophy graduate who loves Rorty but has so far not been that impressed by Marx so this should be a good read thanks.

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    3. Well I am a non-philosophy student who loves Rorty and is always a little worried he doesn't know enough about the field to warrant such a reaction.

      If you have any interest in laying out what's so great about Rorty and would be interest in guest posting here on it let me know.

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    4. That's a very kind offer, it's definitely something I'd be interested in writing. I imaging just painting a general picture of his philosophy, rather than focusing on too many specifics, so to give a general idea of his views and their importance and influence would be the best way to go. Being from the UK, not the states, I'm guessing you know more about pragmatism then me.

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