Summary Of Richard Rorty S Pragmatism As Anti Authoritarianism

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The pragmatists’ objection to the idea that truth is a matter of correspondence to the intrinsic nature of reality is that it requires us to humble ourselves before something non-human, whether the Will of God or the Intrinsic Nature of Reality. We must set aside any authority save that of a consensus of our fellow humans. #2 Dewey was a utilitarian, which means he believed that in the end, the only moral or epistemological criteria we have or need is whether performing an action or holding a belief will, in the long run, make for greater human happiness. He saw progress as produced by increasing willingness to experiment and get out from under the past. #3 Pragmatism is the philosophy of inquiry, and it was developed by Charles Sanders Peirce, George Herbert Mead, and William James. It was anti-foundationalist, coherentist, and holist in its view of the nature of inquiry. It was anti-Cartesian in its view of the universe as evolving. #4 The three founding pragmatists were Peirce, James, and Dewey. They were all American, and they all had different philosophical concerns. They were all disciples of Kant, but they each improved on his doctrine of categories and his conception of logic.

The last book by the eminent American philosopher and public intellectual Richard Rorty, providing the definitive statement of his mature philosophical and political views. Richard RortyÕs Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism is a last statement by one of AmericaÕs foremost philosophers. Here Rorty offers his culminating thoughts on the influential version of pragmatism he began to articulate decades ago in his groundbreaking Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Marking a new stage in the evolution of his thought, RortyÕs final masterwork identifies anti-authoritarianism as the principal impulse and virtue of pragmatism. Anti-authoritarianism, on this view, means acknowledging that our cultural inheritance is always open to revision because no authority exists to ascertain the truth, once and for all. If we cannot rely on the unshakable certainties of God or nature, then all we have left to go onÑand argue withÑare the opinions and ideas of our fellow humans. The test of these ideas, Rorty suggests, is relatively simple: Do they work? Do they produce the peace, freedom, and happiness we desire? To achieve this enlightened pragmatism is not easy, though. Pragmatism demands trust. Pragmatism demands that we think and care about what others think and care about, which further requires that we account for othersÕ doubts of and objections to our own beliefs. After all, our own beliefs are as contestable as anyone elseÕs. A supple mind who draws on theorists from John Stuart Mill to Annette Baier, Rorty nonetheless is always an apostle of the concrete. No book offers a more accessible account of RortyÕs utopia of pragmatism, just as no philosopher has more eloquently challenged the hidebound traditions arrayed against the goals of social justice.

The essential provides a brief introduction to the main features of Richard Rorty's neopragatism. At the same time, it offers a systematic guide to a fruitful reading of Rorty. The author proposes to read it as a fragile balance of pragmatism and romanticism by which Rorty seeks to change our self-image. Moreover, he elucidates this transformative ambition through a sketch of "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" and the utopian figure of the liberal ironist. The essential concludes with a reference to Rorty's hitherto unrecognized ethico-political motivation and with a methodological suggestion for further reading of his texts: One must apply the pragmatist method to himself. The content Introduction: Reading Rorty's work as a balance of pragmatism and romanticism Revolutionary language game pragmatism after the linguistic turn The strong romantic dimension of Rorty's neopragmatism The liberal utopia of a combination of public pragmatism and private romanticism in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Conclusion: Democratic Anti-Authoritarianism - Rorty's Ethical-Political Motivation The target groups Students and teachers of social sciences and philosophy The author Dr. Martin Müller is a flight captain and lecturer in philosophy at the Munich Volkshochschule. As long-time Rorty interpreter, he is currently on the board of the Richard Rorty Society. .

One of America's foremost philosophers challenges the lost generation of the American Left to understand the role it might play in the great tradition of democratic intellectual labor that started with writers such as Walt Whitman and John Dewey.

Richard Rorty is one of the most provocative figures in recent philosophical, literary and cultural debate. This collection brings together those of his writings aimed at a wider audience, many published in book form for the first time. In these eloquent essays, articles and lectures, Rorty gives a stimulating summary of his central philosophical beliefs and how they relate to his political hopes; he also offers some challenging insights into contemporary America, justice, education and love.

Pragmatism has been reinvented in every generation since its beginnings in the late nineteenth century. This book, by one of todayÕs most distinguished contemporary heirs of pragmatist philosophy, rereads cardinal figures in that tradition, distilling from their insights a way forward from where we are now. Perspectives on Pragmatism opens with a new accounting of what is living and what is dead in the first three generations of classical American pragmatists, represented by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Post-Deweyan pragmatism at midcentury is discussed in the work of Wilfrid Sellars, one of its most brilliant and original practitioners. SellarsÕ legacy in turn is traced through the thought of his admirer, Richard Rorty, who further developed JamesÕs and DeweyÕs ideas within the professional discipline of philosophy and once more succeeded, as they had, in showing the more general importance of those ideas not only for intellectuals outside philosophy but for the wider public sphere. The book closes with a clear description of the authorÕs own analytic pragmatism, which combines all these ideas with those of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and synthesizes that broad pragmatism with its dominant philosophical rival, analytic philosophy, which focuses on language and logic. The result is a treatise that allows us to see American philosophy in its full scope, both its origins and its promise for tomorrow.

Michael Bacon gives a critical presentation of Rorty's writings on pragmatism and political theory, comparing and contrasting him with pragmatists such as Hilary Putnam and Susan Haack and liberals such as John Rawls and Brian Barry. The result is an imaginative presentation of one of contemporary philosophy's most innovative and important thinkers.

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.