Richard Rorty, (4 Volume Set)

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) remains one of the contemporary world’s most influential thinkers. He has been a major figure in philosophy ever since the publication of his first important paper, ‘Mind-Body Identity, Privacy, and Categories’ in 1965, but it was the release of his seminal Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979) that caused the literature on his work to expand exponentially, a process which has accelerated since his death in 2007; scores of new articles and books about Rorty appear every year, and even his biography has proved to be an academic bestseller. Rorty’s enduring appeal has a number of sources. One is the scope and urgency of his views, for he was never shy about presenting his call for the abandonment of objective truth against the grand backdrop of the cultural progress of the West. Another is that his views were highly controversial, and yet could not be easily dismissed, since Rorty was able to claim with some plausibility that he was simply drawing out the consequences of positions developed by his more conventionally respectable peers. And another is that Rorty applied his views to a wide range of topical concerns outside of academic philosophy. For these and many other reasons, philosophers to this day line up to refute him, students read Rorty before the philosophers he discusses, and non-philosophy academics produce a continuous stream of articles applying his views to their own interests.

The daunting quantity (and variable quality) of literature available on Rorty makes it difficult to discriminate the useful from the tendentious, superficial, and otiose. That is why this new title in the highly regarded Routledge series, Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers, is so urgently needed. Edited by James Tartaglia, the author of Rorty and the Mirror of Nature (Routledge, 2007), one of the most popular and straightforward books available on Rorty, this new Routledge Major Work is a four-volume collection of the best scholarship from the 1960s to the present day; the collected materials have been carefully selected from a wide range of academic journals, edited collections, and research monographs, many of which are hard to obtain in their original source.

The first of the four volumes (‘Mind, Language, and Truth’) covers Rorty’s eliminative materialism in the philosophy of mind, his Davidsonian rejection of conceptual schemes in the philosophy of language, and his rejection of objective truth. Volume II (‘Metaphilosophy and Pragmatism’), meanwhile, assembles the best assessments of his pessimistic metaphilosophy, and his distinctive conception of pragmatism. The third volume (‘Philosophers’) brings together the key scholarly work on Rorty’s highly original - but endlessly disputed - interpretations of other philosophers, while the final volume in the collection (Volume IV: ‘Themes’) explores Rorty’s views as applied to a diverse range of topics, from feminism to environmentalism and bioethics.

The tightly focused organization of this collection will allow scholars quickly and easily to access both established and up-to-date assessments of Rorty’s central positions, and will also make for irresistible browsing. With comprehensive introductions to each volume, providing essential background information and relating the various articles to each other, Richard Rorty is destined to be an indispensable resource for research and study.

Volume I : Mind, Lanuage, and Truth

Part 1 : Richard Rorty
Chapter 1 : Obituary, The Times
Chapter 2 : Richard Rorty : What Made Him a Crucial American Philosopher?
Chapter 3 : Rorty Reexamined : Richard Rorty : The Making of an American Philosopher
Chapter 4 : Rorty and I : The Philosophical Forum

Part 2 : Mind
Chapter 5 : On The Elimination of "Sensations" and Sensations : Review of Metaphysics
Chapter 6 : What is Eliminative Materialism? : Australasian Journal of Philosophy
Chapter 7 : Rorty Revisited : Philosophical Studies
Chapter 8 : "Rorty Revisited", or "Rorty Revised?" : Philosophical Studies
Chapter 9 : Is Eliminative Materialism Materialistic? : Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Chapter 10 : Rorty’s Antipodeans : An Impossible Illustration? : Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Chapter 11 : Scientific Psychology as Hermeneutics? Rorty’s Philosophy of Mind : Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Chapter 12 : Is Rorty’s Non-Reductive Naturalism Reductive?, Richard Rorty : His Philosophy Under Discussion

Part 3 : Language
Chapter 13 : Reference and Rorty’s Veil : Philosophical Studies
Chapter 14 : Rorty’s Mirrorless World : Realism and Truth, 2nd Edition
Chapter 15 : Rorty’s Talk-About, Reading Rorty : Critical Responses to Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature
Chapter 16 : Vocabularies of Pragmatism : SynThesizing Naturalism and Historicism, Rorty and his Critics

Part 4 : Truth
Chapter 17 : Observation and Truth : From Locke to Rorty : Truth : A Guide for The Perplexed
Chapter 18 : The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing but The Truth
Chapter 19 : Epistemic Relativism Defended’ and ‘Epistemic Relativism Rejected : Fear of Knowledge : Against Relativism and Constructivism
Chapter 20 : Without God or His Doubles? : Without God or His Doubles : Realism, Relativism and Rorty
Chapter 21 : Accuracy : A Sense of Reality : Truth and Truthfulness : An Essay in Genealogy

Volume II : Metaphilosophy and Pragmatism

Part 5 : Reviews of Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature
Chapter 22 : The End of Philosophy? : New York Review of Books
Chapter 23 : Review of Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature : Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Chapter 24 : Critical Notice of Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature : Australasian Journal of Philosophy
Chapter 25 : Review of Philosophy and The Mirror of Nature : International Studies in Philosophy
Chapter 26 : Philosophy in The Conversation of Mankind : Review of Metaphysics
Chapter 27 : Is The End in Sight for Epistemology? : Journal of Philosophy
Chapter 28 : Rorty on The Possibility of Philosophy : Journal of Philosophy

Part 6 : Metaphilosophy
Chapter 29 : Philosophy, The "OTher" Disciplines, and Their Histories : A Rejoinder to Richard Rorty : Soundings
Chapter 30 : Edification and The End of Philosophy : Philosophy in Question : Essays on a Pyrrhonian Theme
Chapter 31 : Epistemology and The Mirror of Nature, Rorty and His Critics
Chapter 32 : Rorty on Knowledge and Truth, Richard Rorty
Chapter 33 : Serious Philosophy and Freedom of Spirit : Journal of Philosophy
Chapter 34 : Can Free Spirits be Serious? : Southwest Philosophy Review
Chapter 35 : Reclaiming The Conversations of Mankind : Philosophy
Chapter 36 : Quietism and Cognitive Command : Philosophical Quarterly
Chapter 37 : Philosophy Without Foundations : Reason Papers
Chapter 38 : Richard Rorty’s Anti-Foundationalism and Traditional Philosophy’s Claim of Social Relevance : International Philosophical Quarterly

Part 7 : Pragmatism
Chapter 39 : The Decline and Resurgence of American Pragmatism : W. V. Quine and Richard Rorty : The American Evasion of Philosophy : A Genealogy of Pragmatism
Chapter 40 : Rorty’s "Postmodern" Pragmatism : Relativism and Reality : A Contemporary Introduction
Chapter 41 : Rorty : Hermeneutics and Irony : The Two Pragmatisms : From Peirce to Rorty
Chapter 42 : An Old Name for Some New Ways of Thinking : Richard Rorty : Prophet and Poet of The New Pragmatism
Chapter 43 : Pragmatism, Right Answers, and True Banality, Pragmatism in Law and Society
Chapter 44 : Vulgar Pragmatism : An Unedifying Prospect : Evidence and Inquiry : A Pragmatist Reconstruction of Epistemology, 2nd edn.

Volume III : Philosophers

Part 8 : Davidson
Chapter 45 : Post-Quinean Pragmatism : Pragmatism : From Peirce to Davidson
Chapter 46 : Rorty, Davidson and Truth : Ratio
Chapter 47 : Subjectivity, Realism and Postmodernism : The Recovery of The World
Chapter 48 : Post-Ontological Philosophy of Mind : Rorty versus Davidson, Rorty and His Critics

Part 9 : Dennett
Chapter 49 : Comments on Rorty : SynThese
Chapter 50 : Postmodernism and Truth, The Proceedings of The Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy

Part 10 : Derrida
Chapter 51 : Deconstruction and Pragmatism : Is Derrida a Private Ironist or a Public Liberal?, Deconstruction and Pragmatism
Chapter 52 : The Rhetoric of Philosophical "Writing" : Emphatic Metaphors in Derrida and Rorty : The Journal of AesThetics & Art Criticism

Part 11 : Dewey
Chapter 53 : What is The Legacy of Instrumentalism? Rorty’s Interpretation of Dewey : Journal of The History of Philosophy
Chapter 54 : Pragmatism and Liberalism Between Dewey and Rorty : Political Theory

Part 12 : Gadamer
Chapter 55 : Hermeneutics and The "New Pragmatism" : Gadamer : Hermeneutics, Tradition and Reason

Part 13 : Habermas
Chapter 56 : Coping with Contingencies : The Return of Historicism, Debating The State of Philosophy

Part 14 : Hegel
Chapter 57 : Absolute Knowing and Liberal Irony : Hegel, Rorty, and The Criterion of Progress : International Studies in Philosophy

Part 15 : Heidegger
Chapter 58 : On Saving Heidegger from Rorty : Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

Part 16 : Nietzsche
Chapter 59 : Disembodied Perspectives : Nietzsche contra Rorty : Nietzsche-Studien

Part 17 : Peirce
Chapter 60 : "We Pragmatists …" : Peirce and Rorty in Conversation : Partisan Review

Part 18 : Plato
Chapter 61 : Theaetetus, Part II : A Dialogical Review : Antioch Review

Part 19 : Putnam
Chapter 62 : Realism with a Human Face, Part Two : Relativism : Realism with a Human Face
Chapter 63 : Truth, Activation Vectors and Possession Conditions for Concepts : Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Chapter 64 : What is at Stake Between Rorty and Putnam? : Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

Part 20 : Wittgenstein
Chapter 65 : Solidarity, Objectivity, and The Human Form of Life : Wittgenstein vs : Rorty : Critical Review
Chapter 66 : Rorty, Wittgenstein, and Postmodernism : Neopragmatism and The Politics of The Ethnos

Volume IV : Themes

Part 21 : Bioethics
Chapter 67 : Rorty’s Pragmatism and Bioethics : Journal of Medicine and Philosophy

Part 22 : Chinese Philosophy
Chapter 68 : Rorty and Chuang Tzu : Anti-Representationalism, Pluralism and Conversation , Journal of Chinese Philosophy

Part 23 : Environmental Philosophy
Chapter 69 : Materialists, Ontologists, and Environmental Pragmatists : Social Theory and Practice
Chapter 70 : Landscape, Nature, and Neopragmatism : Environmental Ethics

Part 24 : Ethnocentrism
Chapter 71 : Ethnocentrism and Irony : Pragmatism and Political Theory : From Dewey to Rorty

Part 25 : Feminism
Chapter 72 : Feminism and Pragmatism : A Reply to Richard Rorty : New Left Review

Part 26 : Irony
Chapter 73 : The Irony of Ironic Liberalism : International Studies in Philosophy
Chapter 74 : Irony and Commitment : An Irreconcilable Dualism of Modernity, Richard Rorty : Critical Dialogues

Part 27 : Literature
Chapter 75 : The Philosophical Curriculum and Literature Culture : A Response to Rorty : Man and World
Chapter 76 : Rorty, Literary Narrative and Political Philosophy : History of The Human Sciences

Part 28 : Moral Philosophy
Chapter 77 : What has Moral Philosophy Done for Us … Lately?
Chapter 78 : Rorty and Moral Relativism : European Journal of Philosophy

Part 29 : Nihilism
Chapter 79 : Richard Rorty and The Dissolution of Crisis : The Banalization of Nihilism : Twentieth-Century Responses to Meaninglessness
Chapter 80 : Rorty : The Post-Metaphysical Solution to Meaninglessness : Meaninglessness : The Solutions of Nietzsche, Freud, and Rorty

Part 30 : Politics
Chapter 81 : The Politics of Richard Rorty : New Politics
Chapter 82 : Language, Truth and Justice : Solidarity in The Conversation of Humankind : The Ungroundable Liberalism of Richard Rorty

Part 31 : Religion
Chapter 83 : Rorty on Religion and Hope : Inquiry
Chapter 84 : Rorty, Religious Beliefs, and Pragmatism : International Philosophical Quarterly

Part 32 : Social Science
Chapter 85 : Richard Rorty and The Meaning of Social Science : International Social Science Review