Oh, I see. Thanks for clearing that up.

On what basis would a mere philosopher side with liberalism or conservatism???.People should have the forms they wish, and if you are free, then make a stand with the ones you like...Not one of us has found the truth, so when it comes to telling what is more true or less true in social or moral forms, we are all liars...Think of how Socrates or Heidegger dirtied up their philosophy with politics...There are times we should all speak in the general, and when we wish to weigh in on morals and politics, we should do it as individuals having no louder voice than the average man...If you want to do good, demand that every person have authority in their own affairs...There is no philosopher who can better say for a man what he needs than he himself can say...

Rorty's closure (satisfaction) was a making peace with openness?

So many philosophers tend to hunt for the final truth. Rorty wants to consciously embrace the endlessness of inquiry. He wants to deny the pseudo-theological claim to ahistorical truth. He wants to embrace finitude.

Rorty loved Heidegger (not without objections). Heidegger wrote about Being Toward Death. As humans, we know we must die some day. Nothingness lurks outside our windows. For Heidegger (who I am still learning about), man's freedom and authenticity come from acknowledging/accepting this death, which is also the cause of our finitude.
But philosophers like Heidegger and Rorty are the exception. For many philosophy is especially concerned with truth that stays truth, eternity, the transcendent.

Rorty wants to stay as loose as possible. It actually reminds me of the Tao. Neopragmatism aims at the flexibility of water. It's only dogma is to have no other dogma. Unprincipled on principle. The only think static about pragmatism is its dynamic conception of "truth," that ever-seductive abstract noun.

The psyche, seeing the intellect as an advancement, imagines it must be a better judge of what's real. What it doesn't yet grasp is that it's the only judge of what's real. There wasn't any distinction between real and unreal prior to its advent. It is the distinction maker.

Don't you think that is about impossible, to reject the sacred and eternal on principal??? All of our forms, as principals are, are based upon something you have referenced elsewhere, the numena...

We see an ordered universe, and the order suggests an ordering hand, so it is natural to think of forms as some great blueprint out of which a flawed reality was made...

But for us as for others, what we come out of infancy with is a sense of this knowledge and reality already formed for us spiritually in anticipation of our needs, that all our principals and ideals are eternal, and that our awareness is also the awareness of God... If we reject the eternal for the practical we must also reject principals and ideals as a matter of course, because these are values brought with us out of our irrationality...

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, 38:2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? 38:3 Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. 38:5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? 38:6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; 38:7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? 38:8 Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? 38:9 When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it, 38:10 And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, 38:11 And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed? 38:12 Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place; 38:13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it? 38:14 It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment. 38:15 And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken. 38:16 Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth? 38:17 Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? 38:18 Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all. 38:19 Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof, 38:20 That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof? 38:21 Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great? 38:22 Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, 38:23 Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? 38:24 By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east wind upon the earth? 38:25 Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder; 38:26 To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; 38:27 To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? 38:28 Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew? 38:29 Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? 38:30 The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. 38:31 Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? 38:32 Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? 38:33 Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? 38:34 Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? 38:35 Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are? 38:36 Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? 38:37 Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven, 38:38 When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together? 38:39 Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions, 38:40 When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait? 38:41 Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.

My take on Rorty:

Philosophy provides us with new concepts to think around, through, above, below. Most western philosophy has been locked in the Plato/Aristotelian box that all "good" thought is rooted in evidence and mechanistic descriptions of phenomena. Thought, in fact, can and does go further. If you stick to one conceptual paradigm all your ideas will remain locked inside that paradigm and all conclusions become presupposed by their methods for revelation. Philosophy's function is not to prove anything, or make undeniably objective claims. Instead, philosophy is an historical opening-into the possibilities of human thought and consciousness.


Don't lock your mind in a conceptual box, that's all philosophy and science are about. Challenge yourself with new ideas, open your mind; don't worry about if those ideas are "true" or not, do not obsess with being "right." In this way, you will walk a true path and your ideas will come from a true place.

My take on Rorty:

Philosophy provides us with new concepts to think around, through, above, below. Most western philosophy has been locked in the Plato/Aristotelian box that all "good" thought is rooted in evidence and mechanistic descriptions of phenomena. Thought, in fact, can and does go further. If you stick to one conceptual paradigm all your ideas will remain locked inside that paradigm and all conclusions become presupposed by their methods for revelation. Philosophy's function is not to prove anything, or make undeniably objective claims. Instead, philosophy is an historical opening-into the possibilities of human thought and consciousness.


Don't lock your mind in a conceptual box, that's all philosophy and science are about. Challenge yourself with new ideas, open your mind; don't worry about if those ideas are "true" or not, do not obsess with being "right." In this way, you will walk a true path and your ideas will come from a true place. The abstract cannot capture truth, or the elusive Sophia. We must walk truth, we must become truth, not just 'say' it.

If an abstraction does not capture truth, does not show it clearly, then it is no good idea, not even an idea, because truth is the object of ideas, and no hot potatoe is dropped as quickly as an idea found to hold no truth....

No one is likely to walk a true path having no worry about truth... Your ideas will come from a true place is a statement of faith, and not of fact... Do ideas come???Can we lock the mind, as a concept in a conceptual box??? Maybe we could hold it for ransom... If an abstraction does not capture truth, does not show it clearly, then it is no good idea, not even an idea, because truth is the object of ideas, and no hot potatoe is dropped as quickly as an idea found to hold no truth....

Truth is not at all the object of ideas. Like I said this is the Aristotelian teleological outlook. It works in some contexts--it is not, however, the be-all end-all. It's a conceptual paradigm that all thought is geared to follow evidence to the altar of truth. Thought can only facilitate the active creation of truth, it cannot capture truth because there is no atemporal "truth" sitting there waiting to be captured.

Evidence alone doesn't lead to truth. Understanding is letting go, and in this way you grab on.