Ironies Of Solidarity

1. Introduction -- 2. An ironic analysis -- 3. Hope and redistribution -- 4. Penetrating a new market -- 5. The Janus face of inclusion -- 6. The enchantment of abstract finance -- 7. Transforming mutualities in business -- 8. Death as moral hazard -- 9. Conclusion: Ironies of solidarity.

In this 1989 book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable on a private level, although it cannot advance the social or political goals of liberalism. In fact Rorty believes that it is literature not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense of human solidarity. A truly liberal culture, acutely aware of its own historical contingency, would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. The book has a characteristically wide range of reference from philosophy through social theory to literary criticism. It confirms Rorty's status as a uniquely subtle theorist, whose writing will prove absorbing to academic and nonacademic readers alike.

This unique book provides a novel and challenging framework for understanding and influencing organizational change. It reimagines managing and leading change as the mindful mobilisation of maps, masks and mirrors.

Economics for Alfred Marshall, the last of the classical economists, is concerned with activities in the ordinary business of life. In that milieu, we find conflicts and chaotic behavior among people, firms, and countries, which make them conduct their affairs in different, and sometimes, ironic ways. Economic Ironies Throughout History explores, explains, predicts, and harnesses these ironies for economists and scholars alike. Szenberg and Ramrattan distill their core economic ironies from a vast history of philosophy and literature that applies to economic thought. They include philosophical, psychological, literary and linguistic discussions and the personalities behind those ideas such as Socrates, Kierkegaard, Hume, Freud, Jung, Saussure, and Barthes. This book is ideal for economists as well as scholars across the business, social science, and humanities fields.

The concept of irony is difficult to pin down, difficult to capture. This book is a critical examination of how Soren Kierkegaard and the pragmatist Richard Rorty approach the complex subject of irony. Gregory L. Reece traces the development of the philosophical concept of irony from Socrates to Hegel, Schlegel, Kierkegaard and Rorty, while addressing the very question that is central for both Kierkegaard and Rorty, the question of the relationship of ironic philosophy to an ironic life. Must ironic philosophy result in what Kierkegaard calls infinite, absolute negativity or in what Rorty describes as doubt and meta-stability? Gregory L. Reece argues that the answer is no, and that the belief that it must is based on an important philosophical mistake which in different forms is committed by both the early Kierkegaard and by Rorty. The insights of these philosophers, as well as those developed by Wittgenstein, are used to develop the beginning of an ironic philosophy of religion. Specifically, this work follows Kierkegaard and pursues these questions with special concern for the relation of ironic philosophy to religious belief.

Richard Rorty is notorious for contending that the traditional, foundation-building and truth-seeking ambitions of systematic philosophy should be set aside in favour of a more pragmatic, conversational, hermeneutically guided project. This challenge has not only struck at the heart of philosophy but has ricocheted across other disciplines, both contesting their received self-images and opening up new avenues of inquiry in the process. Alan Malachowski provides an authoritative overview of Rorty's considerable body of work and a general assessment of his impact both within philosophy and in the humanities more broadly. He begins by explaining the genesis of Rorty's central ideas, tracking their development from suggestions in his early papers through their crystallization in his groundbreaking book, "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature". Malachowski evaluates some of the common criticisms of Rorty's position and his ensuing pragmatism. The book examines the subsequent evolution of his ideas, focusing particularly on the main themes of his second major work, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. The political and cultural impact of Rorty's writings on such diverse fields as feminism, cultural and literary theory, and international relations are also considered, and the author explores why Rorty's work has generally found its warmest reception in these areas rather than among mainstream philosophers.

The edge of irony, says Linda Hutcheon, is always a social and political edge. Irony depends upon interpretation; it happens in the tricky, unpredictable space between expression and understanding. Irony's Edge is a fascinating, compulsively readable study of the myriad forms and the effects of irony. It sets out, for the first time, a sustained, clear analysis of the theory and the political contexts of irony, using a wide range of references from contemporary culture. Examples extend from Madonna to Wagner, from a clever quip in conversation to a contentious exhibition in a museum. Irony's Edge outlines and then challenges all the major existing theories of irony, providing the most comprehensive and critically challengin theory of irony to date.