Philosophy and Social Hope

by Richard Rorty

Overview

Richard Rorty is one of the most provocative figures in recent philosophical, literary and cultural debate. This collection brings together those of his writings aimed at a wider audience, many published in book form for the first time. In these eloquent essays, articles and lectures, Rorty gives a stimulating summary of his central philosophical beliefs and how they relate to his political hopes; he also offers some challenging insights into contemporary America, justice, education and love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140262889
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/01/2000
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Richard Rorty is Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. He is the author of PHILSOPHY AND THE MIRROR OF NATURE, CONTINGENCY, IRONY AND SOLIDARITY, and ACHIEVING OUR COUNTRY.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: Relativism: Finding and Making
I. Autobiographical
1. Trotsy and the Wild Orchids
II. Hope in Place of Knowledge: A Version of Pragmatism
2. Truth without Correspondence to Reality
3. A World without Substances or Essences
4. Ethics without Principles
III. Some Applications of Pragmatism
5. The Banality of Pragmatism and the Poetry of Justice
6. Pragmatism and Law: A Response to David Luban
7. Education as Socialization and as Individuation
8. The Humanistic Intellectual: Eleven Theses
9. The Pragmatist's Progress: Umberto Eco on Interpretation
10. Religious Fatih, Intellectual Responsibility and Romance
11. Religion as Conversation-stopper
12. Thomas Kuhn, Rocks, and the Laws of Physics
13. On Heidegger's Nazism
IV. Politics
14. Failed Prophecies, Glorious Hopes
15. A Spectre is Haunting the Intellectuals: Derrida on Marx
16. Love and Money
17. Globalization, the Politics of Identity and Social Hope
V. Contemporary America
18. Looking Backwards from the Year 2096
19. The Unpatriotic Academy
20. Back to Class Politics

Afterword: Pragmatism, Pluralism and Postmodernism
Index

Editorial Reviews

Instead of moral certitude, [Rorty] urges us to champion American individuality, flexibility and idiosyncrasy–qualities brilliantly on display in this book.
—The New York Observer

Stephen Metcalf