Rorty and His Critics

by Brandom, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780631209829
• ISBN10: 0631209824
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-10-03
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Thirteen of the most distinguished living philosophers - including Donald Davidson, Juuml;rgen Habermas, Hilary Putnam, John McDowell, Jacques Bouveresse, and Daniel Dennett - assess Richard Rorty's arguments for revising our philosophical conceptions of truth, reality, objectivity, and justification. These essays, together with Rorty's substantial replies to each, and other new material by him, offer by far the most thorough and thoughtful discussion of the work of the thinker who has been called 'the most interesting philosopher alive.'

Author Biography

Robert B. Brandom is Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. His 1977 Princeton PhD thesis on pragmatism and the philosophy of language was supervised by Richard Rorty. He is author of Making it Explicit (1994), an extension of his thesis.

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors	vii
Introduction	ix
Universality and Truth	1	(30)
Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty's Pragmatic Turn	31	(34)
Jurgen Habermas
Response to Habermas	56	(9)
Richard Rorty
Truth Rehabilitated	65	(16)
Donald Davidson
Response to Davidson	74	(7)
Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty on Reality and Justification	81	(10)
Hilary Putnam
Response to Putnam	87	(4)
Richard Rorty
The Case for Rorts	91	(18)
Daniel C. Dennett
Response to Dennett	101	(8)
Richard Rorty
Towards Rehabilitating Objectivity	109	(20)
John McDowell
Response to McDowell	123	(6)
Richard Rorty
Reading Rorty: Pragmatism and its Consequences	129	(27)
Jacques Bouveresse
Response to Bouveresse	146	(10)
Richard Rorty
Vocabularies of Pragmatism: Synthesizing Naturalism and Historicism	156	(35)
Robert B. Brandom
Response to Brandom	183	(8)
Richard Rorty
Epistemology and the Mirror of Nature	191	(29)
Michael Williams
Response to Williams	213	(7)
Richard Rorty
What was Epistemology?	220	(22)
Barry Allen
Response to Allen	236	(6)
Richard Rorty
Is Truth a Goal of Inquiry?: Rorty and Davidson on Truth	242	(26)
Akeel Bilgrami
Response to Bilgrami	262	(6)
Richard Rorty
Freedom, Cruelty, and Truth: Rorty versus Orwell	268	(83)
James Conant
Response to Conant	342	(9)
Richard Rorty
Post--ontological Philosophy of Mind: Rorty versus Davidson	351	(27)
Bjorn Ramberg
Response to Ramberg	370	(8)
Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty: Selected Publications	378	(15)
Index	393