Richard Rorty

The Philosophy of Richard Rorty

(Volume XXXII, 2010)

Richard Rorty transformed the discipline of philosophy during the last quarter of the twentieth century, while setting it on a new path for the twenty-first. In epistemology, the philosophy of language, culture, value, and politics, the impact of his thought is impossible to measure. Having achieved early prominence as a theorist and practitioner of analytic philosophy, Rorty directed criticism at the conventional pursuits and methods of philosophy, particularly attacking widespread preoccupation with questions of truth, representation, and the foundations of knowledge. He became the center of tremendous controversy, within and beyond the academy. This volume brings together many of Rorty's best critics and supporters for a comprehensive assessment of his achievement and a final defense of the views for which he became so widely known. Rorty died on June 7, 2007. His contributions to this volume, in the form of an intellectual autobiography and replies to critics, are among the very last things he wrote.

Table of Contents

Intellectual Autobiography of Richard Rorty

Richard Rorty

(Replies follow essays)

Cheryl Misak: Richard Rorty's Place in the Pragmatist Pantheon

James W. Allard: Idealism, Pragmatism, and the World Well Lost
Harvey Cormier: Richard Rorty and Cornel West on the Point of Pragmatism
Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley: False Dichotomies and Missed Metaphors: Genuine Individuals Need Genuine Communities
Robert Cummings Neville: Pragmatism, Metaphysics, Comparison, and Realism
Jean-Pierre Cometti: Richard Rorty, Pluralistic Pragmatism, and Relativism
Aldo Giorgio Gargani: A Pragmatist View of Language: From Truth to the Meaning of Truth
María Pía Lara: Richard Rorty: Building Up Pragmatism as a Tool for Democracy
Jaroslav Peregrin: Language, the World, and the Nature of Philosophy
János Boros: Representationalism and Antirepresentationalism: Kant, Davidson, and Rorty
Huw Price: One Cheer for Representationalism?
Yasuhiko Tomida: Davidson-Rorty Antirepresentationalism and the Logic of the Modern Theory of Ideas
Albrecht Wellmer: Rorty on Truth, Justification, and Experience
Michael P. Lynch: Truth and the Pathos of Distance
David Detmer: Rorty on Objectivity and Truth
Andrzej Szahaj: The Limits of Interpretative Anarchy: Rorty, Eco, and Fish
Susan James: Politics and the Progress of Sentiments
Richard A. Posner: Rorty on Law and Public Policy
Yong Huang: Rorty's Progress into Confucian Truths
J. B. Schneewind: Rorty on Utopia and Moral Philosophy
William L. McBride: The Contingency of Style
Jeffrey Stout: Rorty on Religion and Politics
Raymond D. Boisvert: Richard Rorty: Philosopher of the Common Man, Almost
Gianni Vattimo: Truth, Solidarity, History
Jolán Orbán: Pragrammatology: Derrida's Pragmatism, Rorty's Deconstruction
Pascal Engel: Speaking Up for the Clerks
Miguel Tamen: Inspirational Value and Causal Pressure
Peter Dews: "The Infinite is Losing its Charm": Richard Rorty's Philosophy of Religion and the Conflict between Therapeutic and Pragmatic Critique
James C. Edwards: Wishing Away the Truth: Thoreau, Emerson, Rorty

Bibliography of Rorty's Works