Danger to philosophy...

Here's one of Rorty's concluding words in his book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (389):

But the dangers to abnormal discourse do not come from science or naturalistic philosophy. They come from the scarcity of food and from the secret police.  Given leisure and libraries, the conversation which Plato began will not end in self-objectivation - not because aspects of the world, or of human beings, escape being objects of scientific inquiry, but simply because free and leisured conversation generates abnormal discourse as the sparks fly upward.  

This point Rorty gets it perfectly right.  In times and places where food and justice are at stake, no philosophy is possible.  Survival is certainly of prime importance. Philosophy - or rather, philosophizing - is something for the 'good' times!

Jules sent me this picture, which somehow fits in with this thought: