Consequences of Pragmatism (Essays: 1972-1980)

Richard Rorty characterizes modern philosophy as a struggle between pragmatism and representationalism, between philos- ophy as commentary and philosophy as a critique of our claims to know. He seeks to tie philosophy's past to its future by connecting what he sees as the positive (and neglected) contributions of the American pragmatic philosophers to contemporary European developments. I n his discussions of James. Dewey, Wittgenstein, Davidson, Nagel, Heidegger, Derrida, and Foucault he lays out a map of modern philosophy and its place in contemporary culture. Filling in the details of the story told in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, he offers an account of the changes in philoso- phy from Plato to the present. He argues that, since Hegel, historicist thought has been developing the notion of a culture which would be "post-philosophical" — in the sense that there would be no presiding discipline which synthesized or ordered the results of other spheres of activity. Rorty takes issue with the presuppositions of Anglo-American analytic philosophy and pre- sents an alternate view of the role of philosophy in culture. He suggests the way in which this post-philosophical culture finds expression in recent literary criticism, in hermeneutical ap- proaches to the social sciences, and in pragmatist philosophy. What emerges from Rorty's explorations is a revivified version of pragmatism that offers new hope for the future of philosophy. Richard Rorty is Kenan Professor of Humanities at the Univer- sity of Virginia. He is the author of many articles and the book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.

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