Rorty cited by Bogost

Today I am proofreading Ian Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology, which will be the first release in the OHP New Metaphysics series, edited by me and Bruno Latour.

Bogost has a nice quote from Rorty. I think these sorts of meta-reflections about the profession are when Rorty is at his best. This comes from his 1996 APA response to Marjorie Grene’s A Philosophical Testament:

“For [many philosophers] ‘doing philosophy’ is primarily a matter of spotting weaknesses in arguments, as opposed to hoping that the next book you read will contain an imaginative, illuminating redescription of how things hang together. Many of our colleagues think that one counts as doing philosophy if one finds a flaw in an argument put forward in a philosophical book or article, and that one is a good philosopher if one is quick to find such flaws and skillful at exhibiting them.”