This paper identifies cultural disenchantment as a crucial concept in Rorty's understanding of liberalism, and considers how Rorty's use of this term draws on but also differs from similar ideas in Nietzsche and Weber. It argues that Rorty's notion of disenchantment complements his Darwinian view of human nature and his conception of the self as a centerless web of beliefs and desires. These three principal ideas form the basis of Rorty's novel theoretical approach to liberal democracy and of his belief (...) in its ability to sustain itself without its traditional rationalist justifications. (shrink)

I argue that Kant is a key figure in understanding Rorty’s work, by drawing attention to the fact that although he is ostensibly the principal villain of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, at the end of that book Kant provides the basis of Rorty's positive proposal that we view the world “bifocally”. I show how this idea was re-worked as “irony” in Continency, Irony, and Solidarity, and became central to Rorty’s outlook. However, by allowing this Kantian influence into his (...) thinking, Rorty made his position untenable. For Rortyan pragmatism undercuts the higher stance required by the concept of irony; and yet without this Kantian influence, Rorty would have been unable to justify his pluralism. Rorty could not live with Kant but could not live without him either. (shrink)

Even if unconditional truth is unattainable in principle, the ideal of unconditional truth has an important role to play in practice, according to Habermas. Habermas' position can be construed as descriptive or prescriptive. Either way, it faces considerable challenges. As a description, it raises classic philosophical problems. As a prescription, it raises many of the practical problems of religious fundamentalism, as Rorty argues. Trying to avoid the theoretical problems inherent to the concept of unconditional truth by non-epistemic means is not (...) promising. (shrink)

The Kant-Hegel relation has a continuing fascination for commentators on Hegel, and understandably so: for, taking this route into the Hegelian jungle can promise many advantages. First, it can set Hegel’s thought against a background with which we are fairly familiar, and in a way that makes its relevance clearly apparent; second, it can help us locate Hegel in the broader philosophical tradition, making us see that the traditional ‘analytic’ jump from Kant to Frege leaves out a crucial period in (...) post-Kantian thought; third, it can show Hegel in a progressive light, as attempting to take that tradition further forward; fourth, it can help us locate familiar philosophical issues in Hegelian thought that otherwise can appear wholly sui generis; and finally, and perhaps most importantly of all, focusing on this relation can help raise and crystalise some of the fascinating ambiguities concerning Hegel’s outlook, regarding whether Hegel’s response to Kant shows him to have been a reactionary, Romantic, pre-critical thinker, who sought to turn the philosophical clock back to a time before Kant had written, or a modernist, Enlightened and essentially critical one, who remained true to the spirit if not the letter of Kant’s philosophy. (shrink)

Leading scholars evaluate the importance of Dewey's work for our times.

Argues that out of the confrontation between Rorty and Habermas may be found a new way to answer the question of what kind of politics do we need today.