Gerald Bivens

Projects

Definitions

'human'=df

Another difference is that Greek descriptions of our situation presuppose that humanity itself has an intrinsic nature — that there is something unchangeable called ‘the human’ which can be contrasted with the rest of the universe. Pragmatism sets that presupposition aside and urges that humanity is an open-ended notion, that the word ‘human’ names a fuzzy but promising project rather than an essence.1

Notes

  1. Richard Rorty, "A World without Substances and Essences," in Philosophy and Social Hope (London: Penguin Books, 1999), 52.