Richard Rorty

by Neil Gascoigne

Overview

Neil Gascoigne provides the first comprehensive introduction Richard Rorty’s work. He demonstrates to the general reader and to the student of philosophy alike how the radical views on truth, objectivity and rationality expressed in Rorty’s widely-read essays on contemporary culture and politics derive from his earliest work in the philosophy of mind and language. He avoids the partisanship that characterizes much discussion of Rorty’s work whilst providing a critical account of some of the dominant concerns of contemporary thought.

Beginning with Rorty’s early work on concept-change in the philosophy of mind, the book traces his increasing hostility to the idea that philosophy is cognitively privileged with respect to other disciplines. After the publication of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, this led to a new emphasis on preserving the moral and political inheritance of the enlightenment by detaching it from the traditional search for rational foundations. This emerging project led Rorty to champion ‘ironic’ thinkers like Foucault and Derrida, and to his attempt to update the liberalism of J. S. Mill by offering a non-universalistic account of the individual’s need to balance their own private interests against their commitments to others.

By returning him to his philosophical roots, Gascoigne shows why Rorty’s pragmatism is of continuing relevance to anyone interested in ongoing debates about the nature and limits of philosophy, and the implications these debates have for our understanding of what role the intellectual might play in contemporary life. This book serves as both an excellent introduction to Rorty’s work and an innovative critique which contributes to ongoing debates in the field.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780745654515
Publisher:	Polity Press
Publication date:	04/25/2013
Series:	Key Contemporary Thinkers
Sold by:	JOHN WILEY & SONS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	549 KB

About the Author

Neil Gascoigne is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Royal Holloway University of London.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements viii

Introduction: No Single Vision 1

1 Politics and the authority of philosophy 1

2 Actor and martyr 5

3 Far, far away ... 10

1 Out of Mind 13

1 Our Rortian ancestors 13

2 Materialism and the mind-body problem 18

3 Dogmas of empiricism 35

2 What is Eliminative Materialism? 42

1 Introduction 42

2 Analysis, explication and elimination 46

3 Eliminative materialism 53

4 Incorrigibility 59

5 Troubles with eliminativism 67

6 Far, far away, lies ... 73

3 Rorty's Kehre 78

1 Introduction 78

2 Realism and reference 79

3 Scepticism, relativism, truth 90

4 Overcoming Philosophy 107

1 After Philosophy? 107

2 The linguistic turn 109

3 The future of philosophy 117

4 Whither epistemology? 123

5 The reappearing 'we' 130

6 In conversation 136

5 New Selves for Old 142

1 From epistemology to politics 142

2 Dewey's redescription 144

3 Contingency, irony and solidarity 149

4 Metaphorlosophy 152

5 Two concepts of freedom 158

6 Liberalism and the limits of philosophy 168

7 The last ironist 175

6 The Whole Truth 183

1 The authority of norms 183

2 The view from nowhere 185

3 Relativism redux 189

4 Triangulation 198

Conclusion: The Ends of Philosophy 213

1 Double vision 213

2 Nothing but the truth 215

3 The ends of philosophy 218

Notes 222

Bibliography 234

Index 253

Editorial Reviews

Richard Rorty was a much-admired and controversial philosopher, but why is he admired, and why is he controversial? Neil Gascoigne’s readable and interesting book answers both of these questions. Gascoigne writes with clarity and style, and shows a deep knowledge of Rorty’s writings and the motivations behind them. Anyone who wants to understand Rorty’s ideas as a whole, and their significance, should read this book. Highly recommended.”
Tim Crane, University College London

“This is an excellent—and, indeed, timely—book which substantially furthers our understanding of one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century.”
Duncan Pritchard, University of Edinburgh

“Rorty’s neopragmatism is often presented as a sequence of slogans about mind, language, truth, solidarity, and the nature of philosophy. In this important new book, Neil Gascoigne looks beyond the catch phrases and provides a compelling account of Rorty’s philosophy, from his early work in philosophy of mind to his last writings on social hope. The Rorty that emerges is a far more formidable and systematic philosopher than one might expect.”
Robert Talisse, Vanderbilt University

From the Publisher