[MD] Rorty's Relativism

[Matt Kundert]

Yeah, (the specifically) inimitable Nietzsche loved to make 
fun of pretensions of all kinds.  He's a great read.  You 
should check out E.M. Cioran, another superb aphorist who, 
like Nietzsche, won't be read as a philosopher until he finds 
his hero-worshiper (by which I mean, a heroic-sized 
philosopher who comes to worship a predecessor, and by 
virtue of his own status, raises the previous guy up to his 
own level, i.e. Heidegger in Nietzsche's case).  Find Cioran's 
A Short History of Decay--just marvelous stuff.

I think a well-written, though very (very) scholarly book is 
Brain Vickers's In Defense of Rhetoric.  It might give you a 
broader historical canvas of the fates of the Sophists on 
which to think.  Skip the first part (which is all technical 
rhetoric stuff--fascinating for me, though not for everyone), 
and dive right into Vickers' trashing of Plato in the Gorgias 
and Protagoras.  He spends a _gigantic_ chapter going almost 
line by line, beating the tar out of Plato's treatment of the 
Sophists and rhetoric.  To me, it eventually gets tedious, but 
it is all astute and well-argued and gives you a good sense of 
where the bias came from and how to directly confront it at 
the source (he blasts him on every level, philosophical, moral, 
political).  And then the later chapters continue the historical 
tale of rhetoric's fate (which is tied to the Sophists, though 
less and less directly about them).

And just when you think you couldn't hate Plato more, try 
reading the first half of Alexander Nehamas' The Art of Living.  
It is the most beautiful (his most recent book is about beauty 
and art, in fact), penetrating and _dense_, though 
lucidly written book on Socrates/Plato, though it's not just 
about Socrates.  It was the Sather Classical lectures from 
some years ago, which are like the primo honor for classicists 
to give, and Nehamas is a philosopher, not a classicist.  So 
the first part of the book gives an amazingly close reading of 
irony and Socrates (and Plato), and the second half of the 
book gives a chapter each to _the symbol of Socrates_ in 
Montainge, Nietzsche, and Foucault.  Just an amazing 
book--changed my life.

Nehamas has the distinctive honor of being the premier 
American philosophical-scholar of _both_ Nietzsche and of 
Socrates.  He was taught at Princeton by the neglected 
Walter Kaufmann (the earlier King of Nietzsche Scholarship, 
whose translations were for almost 50 years the only ones 
you could find) and the venerated Gregory Vlastos (the 
earlier King of Socrates Scholarship, who was chairman of 
the Princeton Philosophy Department for years and, oddly 
enough, was the guy who hired Richard Rorty to his first 
important professor-post, to--of all things--teach Greek 
philosophy).

> From: valkyr at att.net
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:17:14 -0400
> Subject: Re: [MD] Rorty's Relativism
> 
> 
> Yes, way!  And I loved the book.  I like calling myself a Relativist, I like
> reclaiming words.  I call myself a witch too.  Like Werner Heisenberg has
> said "There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about
> them."  (But I'm not joking.)  I've read Kant, Hume, Descartes, etc., lordy
> they inspire a need for some humor. Nietzsche was cool!  I would like to
> learn more about Paul Feyerabend, from what little I know he is a very
> interesting character. -  Because of reading 'Rereading the Sophists' I have
> more respect for the Protagoras and Gorgias, and more distain for Plato and
> Aristotle and their rationalism, and huge amounts of increased good cheer
> (if that's even possible) for our modern-day and greatest Sophist, Robert M.
> Pirsig.  If 'Protagoras and the Challenge of Relativism' is even half as
> interesting, I will be pleased.
> 
> Thanks for writing Matt.  I like sharing an interest in the sophists with
> you, and the reading of a great book.
> 
> 
> Marsha
> 
> p.s. Senator Russ Feingold is a good man.    

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