I illustrate with a quotation from the atheist philosopher Richard Rorty, who died recently and is, I suspect, now having a lengthy conversation with his maker. Rorty argued that secular professors ought “to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own.

What counts as rational argumentation is as historically determined and as context-dependent, as what counts as good French.

[Walt] Whitman and [humanist educator John] Dewey tried to substitute hope for knowledge. They wanted to put shared utopian dreams - dreams of an ideally decent and civilized society - in the place of knowledge of God's Will, Moral Law, the Laws of History, or the Facts of Science.... As long as we have a functioning political left, we still have a chance to achieve our country, to make it the country of Whitman's and Dewey's dreams.

What sort of world can we prepare for our great grandchildren?

Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by becoming more imaginative.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

The difference between people and ideas is... only superficial.