I was saddened to learn, just now, that Richard Rorty, the preeminent American philosopher of the past generation, passed away on Friday after a bout with cancer. I will post soon on Rorty and the impact upon me when I first read him fifteen years ago. For now, may I just say that we as a nation have lost a valuable intellectual and, yes, (despite his avowed atheism) spiritual resource. He embodied the best of the American spirit, and it flowed through his writing like a deep river. He shall be missed.
In a tribute written by the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas, Rorty is quoted as follows on his idea of the "holy" (you can find the entire text of Habermas' encomium
here):
My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law.
