The Ethics, Epistemology, and Politics of Richard Rorty

Description

This book features fourteen original essays that critically engage the philosophy of Richard Rorty, with an emphasis on his ethics, epistemology, and politics. Inspired by James’ and Dewey’s pragmatism, Rorty urged us to rethink the role of science and truth with a liberal-democratic vision of politics. In doing so, he criticized philosophy as a sheer scholastic endeavor and put it back in touch with our most pressing cultural and human needs. The essays in this volume employ the conceptual tools and argumentative techniques of analytic philosophy and pragmatism and demonstrate the relevance of Rorty’s thought to the most urgent questions of our time. They touch on a number of topics, including but not limited to structural injustice, rule-following, Black feminist philosophy, legal pragmatism, moral progress, relativism, and skepticism. This book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars across disciplines who are engaging with the work of Richard Rorty. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments The Philosophy of Richard Rorty PART I: Ethics 1 Rorty as Liberal Ironist Peace Warrior 2 The Rorty-Dworkin Debate 3 Bildung, Unimportance, and Moral Progress 4 Philosophy, Literature, Politics: The Cases of Rorty and Collingwood PART II: Epistemology 5 What Should Rorty Say about Relativism? 6 Rorty’s Reconstruction of Epistemology 7 Rorty and Experience 8 Richard Rorty, Rocks, and Realism 9 Disepistemology PART III: Politics 10 Rorty, Habermas, and Radical Social Criticism 11 Thinking with Rorty about How to Make Philosophy more Livable 12 Poetic Justice?: Rorty’s Jurisprudence 13 Pragmatism and the Mirror of Law 14 Achieving Whose Country? Rorty and Baldwin on the United States List of Contributors Index