When it first appeared in 1979, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature hit the philosophical world like a bombshell. In it, Richard Rorty argued that, beginning in the seventeenth century, philosophers developed an unhealthy obsession with the notion of representation: comparing the mind to a mirror that reflects reality. Rorty's book is a powerful critique of this imagery and the tradition of thought that it spawned. Thirty years later, the book remains a must-read and stands as a classic of twentieth-century (...) philosophy. Its influence on the academy, both within philosophy and across a wide array of disciplines, continues unabated. This edition includes new essays by philosopher Michael Williams and literary scholar David Bromwich, as well as Rorty's previously unpublished essay "The Philosopher as Expert.". (shrink)

This article examines some general features of what Richard Rorty called "cultural politics." It attempts to explain why Rorty thought it both possible and desirable to give politics priority over ontology. He set aside traditional philosophical questions concerning what there is, while making those worth retaining subservient to cultural negotiation. Rorty's conception of cultural politics can perhaps avoid the complaint that by failing to deliver a substantial version of objectivity, he falls hostage to dangerous relativism.

In his final work, Richard Rorty provides the definitive statement of his political thought. Rorty equates pragmatism with anti-authoritarianism, arguing that because there is no authority we can rely on to ascertain truth, we can only do so intersubjectively. It follows that we must learn to think and care about what others think and care about.

How can we feel at home in this world without clinging to false certainties? This book offers a humanist re-reading of philosophical pragmatism and explores its potentials for a worldview that relies only on human resources. Thinking along with authors like William James and F.C.S. Schiller, it highlights a fundamentally humanist strand of pragmatism aimed at fostering human creativity and transformative action. It is grounded in everyday experience and underlines our responsibility to strive for the better. Ana Honnacker traces perspectives (...) on science, religion, and ethics in the light of a pragmatic understanding of humanism. Furthermore, she suggests how to address the existential challenges we face today. Thus, pragmatic humanism is explored not only as a philosophy for critical minds, but also as a way of life. (shrink)

Drawing freely and expertly from Continental and analytic traditions, Richard Bernstein examines a number of debates and controversies exemplified in the works of Gadamer, Habermas, Rorty, and Arendt. He argues that a "new conversation" is emerging about human rationality—a new understanding that emphasizes its practical character and has important ramifications both for thought and action.

The reformist philosophy of the classical pragmatist tradition has gradually evolved into the now-fashionable revolutionary styles of pragmatism, some scientistic, some literary. This evolution is traced from Peirce, James, Dewey, and Mead, through Schiller, Lewis, Hook,and Quine, to Rorty’s literary-political neo-pragmatism. Rather than get hung up on the question of which variants qualify as authentic pragmatism, it is better — more fruitful, and appropriately forward looking— to ask what we can learn from the older tradition, and what we can salvage (...) from the new. (shrink)

This essay reconsiders the question of humanism in Nietzsche’s philosophy. The author argues that established readings of Nietzsche’s critique of humanism fail to consider the conceptual history of humanism; a genealogy which Nietzsche, as a classical philologist, knew well. The result is a more nuanced, historically and anthropologically textured idea of the human in Nietzsche’s thought than has often been understood. This representation of human nature extends important rational and moral values about what it means to be human by re-calling (...) Cicero, Petrarch, Erasmus, and other key-figures in the humanist tradition. In doing so Nietzsche’s thought doesn’t mark an end of humanism, or construct a sign-post towards a post-humanistic age, but expresses a radical, rhetorically-driven challenge to conceiving of the human being as a rational animal . Only after we have corrected in such an essential point the historical way of thinking that the Enlightenment brought with it, may we once again carry onward the banner of the Enlightenment, the banner with the three names: Petrarch, Erasmus, Voltaire.— Human, All Too Human, 26. (shrink)