Philosophy Makes Progress Not By Becoming More

I Illustrate With A Quotation From The Atheist Philosopher Richard Rorty, Who Died Recently And Is, I Suspect, Now Having A Lengthy Conversation With His Maker. Rorty Argued That Secular Professors Ought “to Arrange Things So That Students Who Enter As Bigoted, Homophobic Religious Fundamentalists Will Leave College With Views More Like Our Own.

All Human Relations Untouched By Love Take Place In The Dark

Well, What There Ought To Be Is An International Labor Organization, A Confederation Of The Trade Unions Of All The Countries Speaking For The Workers Who Are Competing With One Another, And Talking About The Difference In Wage Levels Between, Say, Europe And Indonesia.

As Long As We Try To Project From The Relative And Conditioned To The Absolute And Unconditioned, We Shall Keep The Pendulum Swinging Between Dogmatism And Skepticism. The Only Way To Stop This Increasingly Tiresome Pendulum Swing Is To Change Our Conception Of What Philosophy Is Good For. But That Is Not Something Which Will Be Accomplished By A Few Neat Arguments. It Will Be Accomplished, If It Ever Is, By A Long, Slow Process Of Cultural Change - That Is To Say, Of Change In Common Sense, Changes In The Intuitions Available For Being Pumped Up By Philosophical Arguments.

What Sort Of World Can We Prepare For Our Great Grandchildren?