Philosophy and Social Hope
Since Plato most philosophy has aimed at true knowledge, penetrating beneath appearances to an underlying reality. Against this tradition, Richard Rorty convincingly argues, pragmatism offers a new philosophy of hope. One of the most controversial figures in recent philosophical and wider literary and cultural debate, Rorty brings together an original collection of his most recent philosophical and cultural writings. He explains in a fascinating memoir how he began to move away from Plato...
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One of the most provocative figures in recent philosophical and wider literary and cultural debate, Richard Rorty brings together in this collection a wide range of philosophical, political and cultural writings, many published in book form for the first time. He explains how he began to move away from Plato towards James and Dewey, culminating in his own version of pragmatism. What matters, he suggests, is not whether our ideas correspond to some fundamental reality but whether they help us carry out practical tasks and create a fairer and more democratic society. In an introduction called 'Relativism' and a (previously unpublished) afterword on the unfortunate popularity of the term 'postmodern', Rorty responds to charges that he is a 'postmodern relativist'. The New York Observer - Stephen Metcalf Instead of moral certitude, [Rorty] urges us to champion American individuality, flexibility and idiosyncrasy qualities brilliantly on display in this book.
AcknowledgementsPrefaceIntroduction: Relativism: Finding and MakingIAutobiographical1Trotsky and the Wild Orchids3IIHope in Place of Knowledge: A Version of Pragmatism2Truth without Correspondence to Reality233A World, without Substances or Essences474Ethics Without Principles72IIISome Applications of Pragmatism5The Banality of Pragmatism and the Poetry of Justice936Pragmatism and Law: A Response to David Luban1047Education as Socialization and as Individualization1148The Humanistic Intellectual: Eleven Theses1279The Pragmatist's Progress: Umberto Eco on Interpretation13110Religious Faith, Intellectual Responsibility and Romance14811Religion As Conversation-stopper16812Thomas Kuhn, Rocks and the Laws of Physics17513On Heidegger's NazismIVPolitics14Failed Prophecies, Glorious Hopes20115A Spectre is Haunting the Intellectuals: Derrida on Marx21016Love And Money22317Globalization, the Politics of Identity and Social Hope229VContemporary America18Looking Backwards from the Year 209624319The Unpatriotic Academy25220Back to Class Politics255Afterword Pragmatism, Pluralism and Postmodernism262Index278
\ Stephen MetcalfInstead of moral certitude, [Rorty] urges us to champion American individuality, flexibility and idiosyncrasy–qualities brilliantly on display in this book. \ —The New York Observer\ \
