“… our maturation has consisted in the gradual realization that, if we can rely on one another, we need not rely on anything else. In religious terms, this is the Feuerbachian thesis that God is just a projection of the best, and sometimes the worst, of humanity. In philosophical terms, it is the thesis that anything that talk of objectivity can do to make our practices intelligible can be done equally well by talk of intersubjectivity.”
"John Searle on Realism and Relativism." Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3 (1998).
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Richard Rorty 21
American philosopher 1931–2007Related quotes
“One day you'll find a love, and then we can talk on equal terms.”
ibid
Drenai series, Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf
Context: One day you'll find a love, and then we can talk on equal terms. I do not mean that to sound patronizing. You are bright and intelligent. You have courage and wit. But sometimes, it is like trying to describe colors to a blind man. Love, as I hope you will find, has great power. Even death cannot destroy it. And I still love her.
“By an object, I mean anything that we can think, i. e. anything we can talk about.”
"Reflections on Real and Unreal Objects", Undated, MS 966
Source: Think Big (1996), p. 146
"In Exile, Free Speech at Last in The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/11/22/in-exile-free-speech-at-last/4591c34b-12c4-4a86-be28-261f6a260b8d/ (22 November 1997)
“Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world.”
World Wildlife Fund: British National Appeal Banquet, London (1962)
The Environmental Revolution: Speeches on Conservation, 1962–77 (1978)
Context: For conservation to be successful it is necessary to take into consideration that it is a characteristic of man that he can only be relied upon to do anything consistently which is in his own interest. He may have occasional fits of conscience and moral rectitude but otherwise his actions are governed by self-interest. It follows then that whatever the moral reasons for conservation it will only be achieved by the inducement of profit or pleasure.
Rejoinder when told that he couldn't talk about physics, because "nobody [at this table] knows anything about it."
Part 5: "The World of One Physicist", "Alfred Nobel's Other Mistake", p. 310.
Quoted in Handbook of Economic Growth (2005) by Philippe Aghion and Steven N. Durlauf.
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)
“Girls can do anything. We do do anything and we expect to be treated as equals.”
Quoted in David Barber, Helen Clark, new chief of UN Development Programme," https://archive.is/20131125142737/www.monstersandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/news/article_1467092.php/PROFILE_Helen_Clark_new_chief_of_UN_Development_Programme_"PROFILE: Asia-Pacific News (26 March 2006)