"Nowadays, to say that we are clever animals is not to say something philosophical and pessimistic but something political and hopeful – namely, if we can work together, we can make ourselves into whatever we are clever and courageous enough to imagine ourselves becoming. This is to set aside Kant’s question “What is man?” and to substitute the question “What sort of world can we prepare for our great grandchildren?”"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Philosophers from the United StatesEducators from the United StatesPeople from New York CityMacArthur FellowsYale University alumni
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
"Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality." Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3 (1998).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Rorty
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 in New York City – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher and pragmatist.
26 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Richard Rorty →
Related Quotes
"My principal motive is the belief that we can still make admirable sense of our lives even if we cease to have … "an …"
"As long as we try to project from the relative and conditioned to the absolute and unconditioned, we shall keep the p…"
"Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by becoming more imaginative."
"Truthfulness under oath is, by now, a matter of our civic religion, our relation to our fellow citizens rather than o…"
"… our maturation has consisted in the gradual realization that, if we can rely on one another, we need not rely on an…"
"If I had to lay bets, my bet would be that everything is going to go to hell, but, you know, what else have we got ex…"
"Philosophers get attention only when they appear to be doing something sinister—corrupting the youth, undermining the…"
"Complaints about the social irresponsibility of the intellectual typically concern the intellectual’s tendency to mar…"
"To abjure the notion of the “truly human” is to abjure the attempt to divinize the self as a replacement for a divini…"
"On James's view, "true" resembles "good" or "rational" in being a normative notion, a compliment paid to sentences th…"