One of the philosophers I studied last fall, Richard Rorty, died last Friday from pancreatic cancer according to this news article.
Rorty’s landmark book "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" (1979), rankled some of his peers by arguing that there is no distinction between objective and subjective realities, a theme he continued to develop throughout his career. (…)
«He was a major figure in challenging the accepted pieties of analytic philosophy and the accepted pieties of so-called continental philosophy,» said friend and colleague Jerome Schneewind. «He put a bug in everyone’s ear.»
I read the Swedish anthology Striden om sanningen (en. the Fight for Truth) where Jürgen Habermas and Richard Rorty were the main contributors in a discussion between their respective positions; neo-pragmatic universal objectivism (idealism) and local subjectivism (contextualism). While they are both considered members of "neo-pragmatism", they turn in more or less opposite directions, making for fruitful discourse. Given Habermas’ phenomenological toolkit, he is able to found the objective truth while Rorty, on the other hand, rejects the foundation altogether. From my point of view, the "typical" philosophical standpoint, they are both right – in their own right.
I might post my A-rated paper later on meta.sigg3.net..