Philosophy and Social Hope: Richard Rorty
Philosophy and Social Hope: Richard Rorty
Penguin (Non-Classics) | ISBN: 0140262881 | 2000-01-01 | PDF (OCR) | 320 pages | 12.8 Mb
A superb introduction to one of today's leading and most provocative thinkers.
Since Plato most philosophy has aimed at true knowledge, penetrating beneath appearances to an underlying reality. Against this tradition, Richard Rorty convincingly argues, pragmatism offers a new philosophy of hope. One of the most controversial figures in recent philosophical and wider literary and cultural debate, Rorty brings together an original collection of his most recent philosophical and cultural writings. He explains in a fascinating memoir how he began to move away from Plato towards William James and Dewey, culminating in his own version of pragmatism. What ultimately matters, Rorty suggests, is not whether our ideas correspond to some fundamental reality but whether they help us carry out practical tasks and create a fairer and more democratic society.
Aimed at a general audience, this volume offers a stimulating summary of Rorty's central philosophical beliefs, as well as some challenging insights into contemporary culture, justice, education, and love.
Review: Great!
As a teacher of Philosophy courses, I have a preference for this excellent American writer. This volumn clearly marks Rorty's pragmatic move toward politics and society. It is not only this practical application of Philosophy that interests me, but his re-vitalization of Philosophy on the terms of Pragmatism and radical (non-reductionist) empiricism.
Review: Today's word is "panrelationalism"
Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, though excellent, is dense, and assumes a lot of knowledge of Western philosophical traditions. This book, by contrast, is pretty straightforward, and has excellent prose. Rorty argues once again for social constructionism, which, contrary to what rabid critics say about it, is neither nihilistic nor relativistic. Rorty is persuasive and straightforward, and does an excellent job of suggesting ties between the philosophy which he advocates and the politics of "social hope" which he stands for.
By dividing this apologia for social constructionism into several short chapters (most of them originally published as stand-alone essays), Rorty provides responses to many objections which have been made to his previous work. Some of these essays are pretty useless for most readers (e.g., an essay on Derrida's Specters of Marx), but most are models of simple and well-formed expository writing.
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