Objectivity Relativism And Truth Volume 1

Richard Rorty's collected papers, written during the 1980s and now published in two volumes, take up some of the issues which divide Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophers and contemporary French and German philosophers and offer something of a compromise - agreeing with the latter in their criticisms of traditional notions of truth and objectivity, but disagreeing with them over the political implications they draw from dropping traditional philosophical doctrines. In this volume Rorty offers a Deweyan account of objectivity as intersubjectivity, one that drops claims about universal validity and instead focuses on utility for the purposes of a community. The sense in which the natural sciences are exemplary for inquiry is explicated in terms of the moral virtues of scientific communities rather than in terms of a special scientific method. The volume concludes with reflections on the relation of social democratic politics to philosophy.

A continuation of the philosopher's attack on traditional attempts to establish objective fundamental truths concludes with reflections on the relation of social democratic politics to philosophy.

In this volume Rorty offers a Deweyan account of objectivity as intersubjectivity, one that drops claims about universal validity and instead focuses on utility for the purposes of a community. The sense in which the natural sciences are exemplary for inquiry is explicated in terms of the moral virtues of scientific communities rather than in terms of a special scientific method. The volume concludes with reflections on the relation of social democratic politics to philosophy.

This book seeks to clarify the concept of irony and its relation to moral commitment. Frazier provides a discussion of the contrasting accounts of Richard Rorty and Søren Kierkegaard. He argues that, while Rorty's position is much more defensible and thoughtful than his detractors acknowledge, it is surprisingly more parochial than Kierkegaard's.

Kölbel examines and rejects the mainstream view of 'meaning' and how this relates to truth, instead developing and defending an alternative, relativist, theory.

This volume examines the past, present, and potential relationships between pragmatism and communication research. For scholars and students in communication study.

Feminist thinkers have been critically examining science for over a century; but who critiques the criticism?

Acknowledgement of the ethical dimension of global finance is commonplace in the wake of financial crises. The sub-prime crisis and ensuing credit crunch are only the latest in a long run of global financial crises that wreak social havoc and force us to consider alternative possibilities for global finance. By defining cosmopolitanism and analysing how cosmopolitan ideas can increasingly provide an account of the governance of global finance, Brassett examines whether global finance can be regulated so as to provide cosmopolitan values like social security, equality and democratic accountability. It suggests that such an exercise is not adequately resourced by existing theoretical approaches to critical IPE and instead develops a new pragmatic approach based on the thought of Richard Rorty. Combining ethical theory with empirical analysis, it focuses on the Tobin Tax – (a proposal to place a small levy on foreign currency transactions to dampen speculation and raise vast revenues) – and explores whether it could underpin more cosmopolitan forms of global financial governance. This book situates cosmopolitan ideas in the extant dilemmas and indeterminacies of global ethics, suggesting alternatives where possible. It will be of interest to students and scholars of international ethics, global governance, global civil, international relations, international political economy, global finance, public policy, critical theory, political theory and philosophy.