i think i picked up the idea of "conversation" from a b3n w4tson backlash argt against de saussure!

[dubdobdee]

geuss on rorty on "conversation" (and some discontents)

have only skimmed this: am totally back-achey and mentally fuzzy today and not getting my ideas in order on ANYTHING, least of all chumpdom left right or elsewhere

am tryin to do a (small) bit of spring cleaning -- or at least its pintsize cousin "putting stuff away"

Comments

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Well my argument is that Oakeshott is explicitly a kind of idealist, at least in valuing the conversation of man as more than a happy accident, or at least as a happy accident worth defending, and that Rorty had better be careful about how he takes on the idea of 'a conversation of mankind' since it seems hard to use that image without bringing in presumptions about what 'mankind' is.

But I'm at the limit of my familiarity with Rorty here, and it's a long time since I read Geuss!