Pancreatic cancer. You philosophy types will know him as the author of *Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature * and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. The former, at least, will live on as a classic of philosophy. Like most really good philosophers, he did his greatest work in his 40s and 50s, and after that…not so much. But he will be missed.
I’m not a philosopher, but my field is American Intellectual History. I always found Rorty’s neopragmatism quite engaging and intellectually congenial, even though i didn’t always agree with him. He was certainly a very important twentieth century thinker.
Unlike too many modern philosophers, Rorty is a clear writer. Even when I disagree with him I always admire his wit, intelligence, clarity, and passion for philosophy.
It’s somewhat depressing that I’ve only heard of his death more than a week after the fact (from an article in Slate ). What, there was no room in the news after the latest bulletin about Paris Hilton? Whether or not you agree with him, he’s got to count as one of the more significant American thinkers of the past hundred years.
His Contingency, Irony and Solidarity is one of the books that most influenced my own thinking, putting into words things I’d always vaguely thought but couldn’t formulate coherently.
For better or for worse, he could be the patron philosopher of the SBMB.