The Rorty Reader

The first comprehensive collection of the work of Richard Rorty (1931-2007), The Rorty Reader brings together the influential American philosopher’s essential essays from over four decades of writings.  Offers a comprehensive introduction to Richard Rorty's life and body of work Brings key essays published across many volumes and journals into one collection, including selections from his final volume of philosophical papers, Philosophy as Cultural Politics (2007)) Contains the previously unpublished (in English) essay, “Redemption from Egotism” Includes in-depth interviews, and several revealing autobiographical pieces Represents the fullest portrait available today on Rorty’s relationship with American pragmatism and the trajectory of his thought

Preface. Acknowledgments. Source Acknowledgments. Abbreviations. General Introduction. Part I: Toward Philosophy without Mirrors: 1. Introduction,The Linguistic Turn. 2. Dewey?s Metaphysics. 3. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature: Introduction and Chapter VIII. 4. Pragmatism, Relativism, and Irrationalism. 5. Nineteenth-Century Idealism and Twentieth-Century Textualism. Part II: Conversations with Analytic Philosophy:   6. From Logic to Language to Play.   7. Pragmatism, Davidson, and Truth.   8. Twenty-Five Years After.   9. Putnam and the Relativist Menace. 10. Analytic and Conversational Philosophy. Part III: From Antirepresentationalism to Political Liberalism: 11. Philosophy as Science, as Metaphor, and as Politics. 12. Solidarity or Objectivity? 13. The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy. 14. Freud and Moral Reflection. 15. Private Irony and Liberal Hope. Part IV: Pragmatism, Literature, and Democracy: 16. The Humanistic Intellectual: Eleven Theses. 17. Heidegger, Kundera, and Dickens. 18. De Man and the American Cultural Left. 19. Feminism and Pragmatism. 20. Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality. 21. Looking Backwards from the Year 2096. 22. American National Pride: Whitman and Dewey. 23. Redemption from Egotism: James and Proust as Spiritual Exercises. Part V: Philosophy as Cultural Politics: 24. Truth without Correspondence to Reality. 25. Ethics without Principles. 26. Justice as a Larger Loyalty. 27. Pragmatism as Romantic Polytheism. 28. Religion in the Public Square: A Reconsideration. 29. Is ?Cultural Recognition? a Useful Concept for Leftist Politics? 30. Philosophy as a Transitional Genre. Part VI: Autobiographical: 31. From Philosophy to Post-Philosophy. 32. Trotsky and the Wild Orchids. 33. Biography and Philosophy. 34. The Fire of Life. Guide to Further Reading. Index.