6 ms·

Richard Rorty, whose humanism and love of democracy MacIntyre despised. Over the course of his career, MacIntyre went from an extreme left Marxist to an extrem

by neel_k 1y ago

Richard Rorty, whose humanism and love of democracy MacIntyre despised. Over the course of his career, MacIntyre went from an extreme left Marxist to an extreme right Thomist, and the only constant was his hatred of liberalism. He really couldn't stand the idea that people could believe in rationalism, feel the moral force of individual rights, or make purpose and meaning for themselves, all without appealing to an authoritarian source of control.

throw0101c 1y ago
> […] all without appealing to an authoritarian source of control. Well that was partly what After Virtue was about: arguing it wasn't possible to have an objective moral system without the supernatural. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Virtue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Virtue And he's not the only one to hold this view (many atheists do as well): * https://global.oup.com/academic/product/atheist-overreach-9780190880927 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/atheist-overreach-97... You're left with either Nietzsche's arbitrary will, or virtues (à la Aristotle). For the latter, MacIntyre attempted to develop a system of morality (? ethics?) based on human biology: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/655623.Dependent_Rational_Animals https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/655623.Dependent_Rationa... Once can certainly tell oneself that there is a certain purpose or meaning to one's life, but if you're a materialist, then (the argument goes (AIUI)) it's not true. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem The arrangement of atoms is arbitrary and without meaning, and to call some arrangement(s) "good" or "bad" or better / worse is a value judgement that is just as arbitrary and meaningless.
- keybored 1y ago
  Link dump at the ready. > And he's not the only one to hold this view (many atheists do as well): The author Christian Smith is apparently a Roman Catholic. What do you mean?
  - throw0101b 1y ago
    > Link dump at the ready. Links to three books which I've read recently (some owned, some library), and a link to an overview of the topic which they cover. > The author Christian Smith is apparently a Roman Catholic. What do you mean? Whether he is or not, the book in question has numerous footnotes to people / philosophers who are atheists.
    - keybored 1y ago
      > Whether he is or not, the book in question has numerous footnotes to people / philosophers who are atheists. “Many atheists do” (they are in the footnotes of this book written by a Catholic). That’s misleading.
Veen 1y ago
Perhaps, but 20 years after Rorty's death, he's largely forgotten. I think it unlikely the same will be true of MacIntyre two-decades hence.
- lapcat 1y ago
  > Perhaps, but 20 years after Rorty's death, he's largely forgotten. No, he's not. Not at all. Rorty has been and always will be more important, and more famous, than MacIntyre. This is not to insult MacIntyre, who was important within philosophical circles but not so much in the general public, except perhaps within religious groups, with which I'm not well acquainted. Rorty's breadth of influence was also greater than MacIntyre's, ranging from "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" to "Achieving Our Country", addressing vastly different subjects and audiences.
  - bpshaver 1y ago
    Not to mention the huge posthumous bump that Rorty got for being labeled "The Philosopher who predicted Trump." There was even a new collection of his essays out in 2022 [0]. [0] https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691217529/what-can-we-hope-for https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691217529/wh...
    - keybored 1y ago
      By who, people who want to tell themselves that they weren’t idiots/had their heads stuck in the sand for being blindsided by someone like Trump?
- vehemenz 1y ago
  This is an odd take. Rorty is one of the major philosophers of the 20th century. MacIntyre is more obscure, probably unknown to plenty of academic philosophers.
  - gjm11 1y ago
    My sense is that they're pretty comparably famous. I think MacIntyre gets a bit of extra press from people who like him for basically religious reasons (e.g., the OP's author bio begins by saying he's "the Honorary Professor for the Renewal of Catholic Intellectual Life at the Word on Fire Institute"). But I'd guess that most academic philosophers have heard of MacIntyre and could name at least one of his books. I do agree that it seems very weird to call Rorty "largely forgotten". (One pair of data points, from the person whose knowledge of such things I know best, namely myself. I am not a philosopher in any sense beyond that of having a bunch of books on philosophy. If you asked me out of the blue to name a book by MacIntyre, I would definitely remember "After Virtue", might remember "Whose Justice? Which Rationality?", and would not be able to think of any more. I could give you a crappy one-or-two-sentence summary of what AV is about (which would e.g. largely fail to distinguish his ideas about ethics from Anscombe's) but couldn't tell you much more about his work. If you asked me out of the blue to name a book by Rorty, I probably wouldn't be able to but would probably recognize a couple of his. I could tell you I thought he did important work in the general area of epistemology but not more than that. So to me MacIntyre is a bit more famous than Rorty. But my sense is that that's a bit unrepresentative among not-really-philosophers, and probably quite a lot unrepresentative among actual philosophers.)
kendallgclark 1y ago
He didn’t write as if he hated liberalism. Maybe he did. But in his work you get deep, principled critique from the basis of epistemology and selfhood. Lenin wrote like someone who hates liberalism. Stephen Miller gives that vibe from the right, though I doubt he can write anything coherent at all.
gjm11 1y ago
Excellent -- thanks! Do you know where/when he said it?

by neel_k 1y ago

throw0101c 1y ago

> […] all without appealing to an authoritarian source of control. Well that was partly what After Virtue was about: arguing it wasn't possible to have an objective moral system without the supernatural. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Virtue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Virtue And he's not the only one to hold this view (many atheists do as well): * https://global.oup.com/academic/product/atheist-overreach-9780190880927 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/atheist-overreach-97... You're left with either Nietzsche's arbitrary will, or virtues (à la Aristotle). For the latter, MacIntyre attempted to develop a system of morality (? ethics?) based on human biology: * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/655623.Dependent_Rational_Animals https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/655623.Dependent_Rationa... Once can certainly tell oneself that there is a certain purpose or meaning to one's life, but if you're a materialist, then (the argument goes (AIUI)) it's not true. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is–ought_problem The arrangement of atoms is arbitrary and without meaning, and to call some arrangement(s) "good" or "bad" or better / worse is a value judgement that is just as arbitrary and meaningless.

keybored 1y ago
Link dump at the ready. > And he's not the only one to hold this view (many atheists do as well): The author Christian Smith is apparently a Roman Catholic. What do you mean?
- throw0101b 1y ago
  > Link dump at the ready. Links to three books which I've read recently (some owned, some library), and a link to an overview of the topic which they cover. > The author Christian Smith is apparently a Roman Catholic. What do you mean? Whether he is or not, the book in question has numerous footnotes to people / philosophers who are atheists.
  - keybored 1y ago
    > Whether he is or not, the book in question has numerous footnotes to people / philosophers who are atheists. “Many atheists do” (they are in the footnotes of this book written by a Catholic). That’s misleading.

Veen 1y ago

Perhaps, but 20 years after Rorty's death, he's largely forgotten. I think it unlikely the same will be true of MacIntyre two-decades hence.

lapcat 1y ago
> Perhaps, but 20 years after Rorty's death, he's largely forgotten. No, he's not. Not at all. Rorty has been and always will be more important, and more famous, than MacIntyre. This is not to insult MacIntyre, who was important within philosophical circles but not so much in the general public, except perhaps within religious groups, with which I'm not well acquainted. Rorty's breadth of influence was also greater than MacIntyre's, ranging from "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" to "Achieving Our Country", addressing vastly different subjects and audiences.
- bpshaver 1y ago
  Not to mention the huge posthumous bump that Rorty got for being labeled "The Philosopher who predicted Trump." There was even a new collection of his essays out in 2022 [0]. [0] https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691217529/what-can-we-hope-for https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691217529/wh...
  - keybored 1y ago
    By who, people who want to tell themselves that they weren’t idiots/had their heads stuck in the sand for being blindsided by someone like Trump?
vehemenz 1y ago
This is an odd take. Rorty is one of the major philosophers of the 20th century. MacIntyre is more obscure, probably unknown to plenty of academic philosophers.
- gjm11 1y ago
  My sense is that they're pretty comparably famous. I think MacIntyre gets a bit of extra press from people who like him for basically religious reasons (e.g., the OP's author bio begins by saying he's "the Honorary Professor for the Renewal of Catholic Intellectual Life at the Word on Fire Institute"). But I'd guess that most academic philosophers have heard of MacIntyre and could name at least one of his books. I do agree that it seems very weird to call Rorty "largely forgotten". (One pair of data points, from the person whose knowledge of such things I know best, namely myself. I am not a philosopher in any sense beyond that of having a bunch of books on philosophy. If you asked me out of the blue to name a book by MacIntyre, I would definitely remember "After Virtue", might remember "Whose Justice? Which Rationality?", and would not be able to think of any more. I could give you a crappy one-or-two-sentence summary of what AV is about (which would e.g. largely fail to distinguish his ideas about ethics from Anscombe's) but couldn't tell you much more about his work. If you asked me out of the blue to name a book by Rorty, I probably wouldn't be able to but would probably recognize a couple of his. I could tell you I thought he did important work in the general area of epistemology but not more than that. So to me MacIntyre is a bit more famous than Rorty. But my sense is that that's a bit unrepresentative among not-really-philosophers, and probably quite a lot unrepresentative among actual philosophers.)

kendallgclark 1y ago

He didn’t write as if he hated liberalism. Maybe he did. But in his work you get deep, principled critique from the basis of epistemology and selfhood. Lenin wrote like someone who hates liberalism. Stephen Miller gives that vibe from the right, though I doubt he can write anything coherent at all.

gjm11 1y ago

Excellent -- thanks! Do you know where/when he said it?