Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature: Thirtieth-Anniversary Edition (Princeton Classics)

by Richard Rorty

But if we ask ourselves where the pigeonholes come from, whether they’re adequate, and whether we need really be uneasy if such distinctions seem not to be exhaustive or exclusive, where do we turn? Presumably to philosophy. What sort of questions are these? Presumably philosophical questions. Philosophy, as the discipline that asks the largest questions and establishes the most comprehensive schemes of classification, always has the last word. The one sort of question that can never get a definite answer is a question that asks about itself. It is precisely reflection on the adequacy of questions, rather than answers, that has determined the course of the history of philosophy. Reflection on whether and when we can pose the questions “science or art?” “objective or subjective?” takes pride of place. Thus to insist that philosophy fall, once and for all, under one side or the other of such dichotomies is ipso facto to forbid it to raise questions as to the status of such distinctions. Such an insistence, as we’ve noted, has been the driving force behind each historic revolution in philosophy; the unacceptability of the concomitant prohibition is the reason why no such revolution has been, or can be, the last.

December 8, 2020. Page 402. Philosophy breaking the 4th wall.