The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

On "Universality and Truth" and "Pan-Relationalism," which are lectures 3-5 in Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism.

How do we justify democracy? Rorty says we don't have to refer to transcendent Truth or Good to do this. He also denies the disinction between essential and accidental properties, and in fact between substance and property: Everything is just described in terms of its relations to other things, and which relations are important are not intrinsic to the thing, but a matter of a speaker's purposes.

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Amy started out as an NYC punk fan, was in the "cow punk" band Last Roundup with her brother, and then in a vocal trio called The Shams that released an album and an EP around 1993. She finally emerged as a full front-person as a solo artist in 1997; she's since released nine solo albums plus three more with her husband Wreckless Eric, who now serves as her producer.

We discuss "Bricks" from Hang In There With Me (2024), "Genovese Bag" by Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric from A Working Museum (2012), and "Beer and Kisses" from Diary of a Mod Housewife (1997). End song: "Dancing with Joey Ramone" from Little Fugitive (2005). Intro: "Dark Angel" by The Shams from Quilt (1993). More at amyrigby.com.

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Continuing on Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism, ch. 1, "Pragmatism and Religion" and 2, "Pragmatism as Romantic Polytheism."

Rorty evaluates past pragmatists' approaches to religion, arguing contra James that it can't be "privatized," that democratic social goals involve shared rationality, which means that all of our beliefs are open to the judgment of our peers.

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We begin a long series on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's "Phenomenology of Perception" (1945), focusing on Part I, "The Body": "Experience and Objective Thought."

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On Richard Rorty's Pragmatism As Anti-Authoritarianism (1997), ch. 1-2 about religion. Should democracy be defended on absolutist grounds, e.g. by reference to God-given or natural rights, the nature of Man, or the dictates of Reason?

Rorty says no! Democracy, ethics, and even truth itself are a matter for societies to decide for themselves. Monotheistic religion provides a negative model for ceding authority on these matters no something non-human.

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