Richard Rorty

This distinctive collection by scholars from around the world focuses upon the cultural, educational, and political significance of Richard Rorty's thought. The nine essays which comprise the collection examine a variety of related themes: Rorty's neopragmatism, his view of philosophy, his philosophy of education and culture, Rorty's comparison between Dewey and Foucault, his relation to postmodern theory, and, also his form of political liberalism.

Richard Rorty's neopragmatist philosophy marks him as one of the most gifted and controversial thinkers of his time. Antifoundationalism and antirepresentationalism are the guiding motifs in his thought. He wants to jettison a set of philosophical distinctions—appearance/reality, mind/body, morality/prudence—that have dominated and shaped the history of Western philosophy since the time of Plato. It is a position that has propelled him into a series of heated debates with philosophers who are the most influential of their generation—analytic philosophers such as Quine, Davidson, Rawls, and Putnam; as well as Continental philosophers, including Habermas, Derrida, Foucault, and Lyotard. At the same time, Rorty's work has helped to break down the artificial separation between these two wings of Western philosophy by acting as an intellectual bridge between them. This distinctive collection by scholars from around the world focuses upon the cultural, educational, and political significance of his thought. The nine essays which comprise the collection examine a variety of related themes: Rorty's neopragmatism, his view of philosophy, his philosophy of education and culture, Rorty's comparison between Dewey and Foucault, his relation to postmodern theory, and, also his form of political liberalism.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Rorty's Neopragmatism: Nietzsche, Culture and Education
Chapter 2 Rorty and the Instruments of Philosophy
Chapter 3 Pragmatism, Metaphysics and Human Potential
Chaper 4 Truth and Trust: Rorty's Davidsonian Philosophy of Education
Chapter 5 On What We May Hope: Rorty on Dewey and Foucault
Chapter 6 Richard Rorty and Postmodern Theory
Chapter 7 The Political Liberalism of Richard Rorty
Chapter 8 Richard Rorty's Self-Help Liberalism: A Marxist Critique of America's Most Wanted Ironist
Chapter 9 Richard Rorty and the End of Philosophy of Education
Chapter 10 Achieving America: Postmodernism and Rorty's Critique of the Cultural Left