I've always been a big fan of David Hume and, in general, empiricism. It's nice to see that there is attention made to his point that a healthy human life consists of a 'mixed kind' between higher intellectual activities as well as common mundane activities.
Often times, at least in academia, his philosophical skepticism is presented as the main and only point. From my perspective, his skepticism is way of targeting those already reading philosophy (and thusly more likely to favor pursuing intellect over the body) in the hopes of persuading them into more healthy balance. Because of that tho, I almost never suggest reading him as a first introduction to Philosophy for new students. Instead, he seems a nice counter point to the works of philosophers who are better suited for introductory texts (Plato, Descartes, Aristotle, etc)
Totally agree. He was one of the few greats that really understood the importance of balancing intellectualism with real life.
Will also add that his skepticism (which I love about him) by nature requires understanding what it is that he is skeptical about. It's very dialectical in nature.
I'm always glad to see Articles about Pragmatist Philosophers and their works on HN. I'm also glad to see that this article at least touches on how James' work relates to contemporary politics and issues.
One of the defining features of American Pragmatism is it's optimism. I think it's fair to say that the currently widely held sentiment about the state of society is that we are on the decline. I find that reading James, and talking to others about the need to address the rising issues (immigration protection, environmental concerns, wealth distribution, etc), injects that same optimism. Things are bad, but we can DO things to change things for the better.
In "Philosophy and Social Hope" I think he addresses what you and probably a lot of people see as a contradiction.
He supports the Western views of democracy, the rights of individualism, etc and points to the success of the western world as having to do with the result of these ideas being whiled embraced. Yet, you're right, his views are also very Nietzschean. So he can't say that the success of these ideas is because of something "innate" or "universally metaphysical" behind them. They simply were tools that were used to yield certain historical results.
It's been a while since I've read any Rorty, but I'm nearly certain that when he is talking about this he uses some language about "fate" vs "luck". Where we like to think that it was the fate of these western values to produce great societies, when really it could be, from an epistemic viewpoint, just luck.
Let me say a bit about where I am coming from. I see Rorty as an example of what I call a "pseudo-anti-foundationalist" Authentic anti-foundationalism holds there is a real independent reality, and we can say a great deal definite about it, we just can never describe it entirely or with a single set of concepts.
Rorty's Nietzschean pseudo-anti-foundationalism holds there is nothing definite out there and so we are free to make our descriptions as we wish. Many people like this idea because of the common claim that different cultures think of reality entirely differently, but that is not true. In fact there are enormous commonalities, and this is because there are real, independent realities that we all have to deal with to survive, like the necessity to eat, and what counts as food.
As for liberal democracy, I see it as based on a more authentic practical anti-foundationalism that was developed before academic philosophy got there. So for instance, if you can't capture all of reality with a single set of precise concepts, then you need to have lots of different people working on understanding it and contributing to making decisions, which is why you need free speech and various other characteristics of liberal democracy. Which is what Dewey, a much more sincere anti-foundationalist, said.
>It's been a while since I've read any Rorty, but I'm nearly certain that when he is talking about this he uses some language about "fate" vs "luck". Where we like to think that it was the fate of these western values to produce great societies, when really it could be, from an epistemic viewpoint, just luck.
This is probably a naive question, but the only use case I've come across of needing a flat-install option was to use Polymer.js web components (which is why so much of the polymer project relies on bower).
Aside from that, what is the use case that flat installs solve?
Often times, at least in academia, his philosophical skepticism is presented as the main and only point. From my perspective, his skepticism is way of targeting those already reading philosophy (and thusly more likely to favor pursuing intellect over the body) in the hopes of persuading them into more healthy balance. Because of that tho, I almost never suggest reading him as a first introduction to Philosophy for new students. Instead, he seems a nice counter point to the works of philosophers who are better suited for introductory texts (Plato, Descartes, Aristotle, etc)