# Richard Rorty is dead.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-rorty-is-dead/407539>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [June 11, 2007, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-rorty-is-dead/407539 "2007-06-11T07:04:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2007, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-rorty-is-dead/407539/1 "2007-06-11T07:04:41Z")

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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.

[Wiki.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rorty)

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**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2007, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-rorty-is-dead/407539/2 "2007-06-11T08:13:38Z")

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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.

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**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2007, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-rorty-is-dead/407539/3 "2007-06-11T14:55:12Z")

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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.

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**Author:** ![Timchik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@Timchik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Timchik)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2007, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/richard-rorty-is-dead/407539/4 "2007-06-15T20:25:02Z")

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It’s somewhat depressing that I’ve only heard of his death more than a week after the fact (from an article in [Slate](http://www.slate.com/id/2168488/fr/flyout) ). 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.