My principal motive is the belief that we can still make admirable sense of our lives even if we cease to have... an ambition of transcendence.
Richard RortyRead
There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves.
Interpretation
Our inner selves are shaped by our own actions and choices.
Richard Rorty's quote suggests that our true essence and identity are not inherent or given, but rather constructed by our experiences, beliefs, and choices. It emphasizes personal responsibility in creating oneβs own meaning and understanding of the self, revealing that the depths of our being are formed through the contributions we consciously decide to place within ourselves.
In practice
During a motivational speech about self-discovery.
My principal motive is the belief that we can still make admirable sense of our lives even if we cease to have... an ambition of transcendence.
To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that languages are human creations.~ The suggestion that truth~ is out there is a legacy of an age in which the world was seen as the creation of a being who had a language his own.
The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do that.
Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by becoming more imaginative.
National pride is to countries what self-respect is to individuals: a necessary condition for self-improvement.
A talent for speaking differently, rather than for arguing well is the chief instrument of cultural change.
We are in front of a global scandal of around one billion - one billion people who still suffer from hunger today. We cannot look the other way and pretend this does not exist. The food available in the world is enough to feed everyone.
Every man's death is standing in for every other. And since death comes to all there is no way to abate the fear of it except to love the man who stands for us.
One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ' an unjust law is no law at all.
Because not even the least Dharma is there found or got at. Therefore is it called 'utmost, right and perfect enlightenment'. Self-identical is that Dharma and nothing is therein at variance. Therefore is it called 'utmost, right and perfect enlighten'
Language is the house of the truth of Being.
Our fortunes rise together, and they fall together. 'All men are brothers,' said the Analects. We have a collective responsibility-to bring about a more stable and more prosperous world, a world in which every person in every country can reach their full potential.
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