This article provides a semantic reading of Tracy Llanera's brilliant book Richard Rorty: Outgrowing Modern Nihilism. Llanera is reframing the debate of how to react to the malaise of modern nihilism ...by proposing a change of metaphor: instead of trying to “overcome” nihilism, we should try to “outgrow” nihilism. This article invites Llanera to shed more light on her project with respect to the semantic categories of realism and representationalism, and with respect to the growing field of conceptual engineering. Can Llanera's project be fruitfully understood as engineering the concepts of “transcendence” and “redemption”? How much of the project hangs on the idea that language does not represent but is rather a tool that helps us fulfill our varying needs? How neat is the entanglement of semantic and existential meaning?
Richard Rorty notoriously maintained that philosophy is not an academic discipline. He thought that the only viable candidate for philosophy to be an academic discipline—where philosophy consists in ...a collection of permanent, pure topics—depends on a Cartesian conceptual framework. Once we overcome this framework, he maintained, there will be nothing left to be the distinct subject matter of philosophy. This article argues that there is a conception of philosophy that can be an academic discipline, even if we take Rorty's challenge seriously. It remains even if we overcome the Cartesian conceptual framework. In the end the article goes beyond Rorty's challenge and considers two further criteria for philosophy to be an academic discipline: that it have a distinct method, and that it be able to be done for the public good. The article argues that philosophy can fulfill these two criteria, and therefore that it can be an academic discipline.
Rorty invites us to abandon the belief that moral foundationalism of a universalist nature is useful for the moral progress of our societies. Instead, he suggests that post-modern secular liberalism ...and solidarity, understood as a local identification process and not as a universally binding principle, should be the axes of such progress. The present article will 1) clarify the redescription of solidarity made by Rorty, 2) show how such contingent redescription ends up being more useful for the attaining of solidarity that the foundationalist view, and 3) suggest an interpretation from which the self-empowerment between his notion of liberalism and the redescription of the concept of solidarity can be made evident. KEY WORDS Rorty, liberalism, solidarity, foundationalism, literature, redescription. Rorty nos invita a abandonar la creencia en que el fundacionalismo moral de caracter universalista es util para el progreso moral de nuestra sociedad. Por el contrario, propone que el liberalismo secular post-moderno y la solidaridad deben ser los ejes de dicho progreso, entendiendo esta ultima como un proceso de identificacion local, y no como un principio de universal cumplimiento. Este articulo clarificara la redescripcion que hace Rorty del concepto de solidaridad, mostrara como dicha redescripcion contingente resulta mas util para la consecucion de la solidaridad que la vision fundacionalista y sugerira una interpretacion desde la cual se evidencie la auto-potenciacion entre su nocion de liberalismo y la redescripcion del concepto de solidaridad. PALABRAS CLAVE Rorty, liberalismo, solidaridad, fundacionalismo, literatura, redescripcion. Rorty nos convida a abandonar a crenca de que o fundacionalismo moral de carater universalista e util para o progresso moral da nossa sociedade. Pelo contrario, propoe que o liberalismo secular pos-moderno e a solidariedade devem ser os eixos deste progresso, entendendo esta ultima como um progresso de identificacao local e nao como um principio de universal cumprimento. Este artigo aclarara a redescricao que Rorty faz do conceito de solidariedade, mostrara como tal redescricao contingente e mais util para a consecucao da solidariedade que a visao fundacionalista e sugerira uma interpretacao a partir da qual se evidencia a autopotenciacao entre sua nocao de liberalismo e a redescricao do conceito de solidariedade. PALAVRAS CHAVE Rorty, liberalismo, solidariedade, fundacionalismo, literatura, redescricao.
The process of othering is the process of assigning a group or individual the role of the Other and creating one's own identity in opposition to it. It deprives Others of the characteristics of "the ...same": reason, dignity, love, pride, heroism, nobility, and ultimately human rights, regardless of whether the Other is a racial or religious group, a sexual minority or a nation. The process of othering can take a form of exploitation, oppression and even genocide because, as Richard Rorty put it, everything changes who is a fellow member of our moral community. Stanisław Konopacki describes it in relation to the question of European identity, built in opposition to Otherness. This opposition turns out to be extremely inspiring for an analysis of contemporary crises in the European Union. The paper presents a theoretical analysis of the process itself, its anthropological sources, and its consequences for the Habermas project of the contemporary European public sphere.
This commentary critically examines two facets of Tracy Llanera's recent book Richard Rorty: Outgrowing Modern Nihilism. First, it considers her interpretation of Richard Rorty's redemptive project. ...It argues that, while Llanera succeeds in resolving tensions in Rorty's public‐private distinction, her account downplays the role of abnormal discourse within projects of self‐creation. Second, it raises several questions about Llanera's strategy for situating this redemptive project within debates concerning existential nihilism. On her view, one ought to follow Rorty in addressing the problem of egotism instead of the problem of nihilism, since the former is prior to the latter. But it is not clear who counts as an egotist, or why egotists are especially prone to becoming nihilists. Moreover, there are reasons to think that egotism and nihilism are fundamentally different kinds of problems.
Richard Rorty's realism Earle, William James
Metaphilosophy,
April 2023, 2023-04-00, 20230401, Letnik:
54, Številka:
2-3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
An examination of late Rorty shows that he does not abandon belief in an external world about which we can, and indeed must, acquire knowledge. His disapproval of the correspondence theory of truth ...does not involve the idea that anything other than local weather, for example, could falsify remarks about local weather. It is just that once we get done looking out the window or, if we are outside, feeling the right kind of drops make contact with our skin, there is nothing else we can do, nothing better, to make ourselves more certain, more cognitively secure. One can see this in the detailed work that enables scientific progress. Science improves itself by doing more of the same. G. E. Moore's famous open question stays open only as a reminder that our fallibility never disappears and that our cognitive security is never better than pro tem. Rorty, as a faithful pragmatist and undogmatic meliorist, thinks this is perfectly O.K.
O artigo reconstrói as disputas na Associação Americana de Filosofia (APA) que culminaram, em 1979, na chamada "Rebelião Pluralista". Um dos personagens centrais desse drama foi o filósofo Richard ...Rorty (1933-2008), formulador intelectual das queixas de insatisfação disciplinar e institucional que eclodiram na reunião anual da associação naquele ano. O episódio pode ser interpretado como um caso exemplar de processos de mudança intelectual envolvendo crise institucional e a emergência de movimentos científicos/intelectuais.
Richard Rorty Voparil, Christopher J
2006., 2006, 2006-07-10, 20060101
eBook
This book offers a fresh perspective on Richard Rorty by situating his work in the arena of political theory. Reinterpreting Rorty's much-maligned antirepresentationalism as a Romantic affirmation of ...the power of imaginative writing, Voparil firmly grounds Rorty in an American tradition that includes not only James and Dewey, but Emerson, Whitman, and James Baldwin, and initiates an overdue reassessment of this important thinker's value to the political discourse of the 21st century.
Scientific realism is a critical target of anti-representationalists such as Richard Rorty and Huw Price, who have questioned the very possibility of providing a satisfactory argument for realism or ...any other ontological position. I will argue that there is a viable form of realism which not only withstands this criticism but is vindicated on the antirepresentationalists’ own grounds. This realist position, largely drawn from the notion of the scientific method developed by the founder of philosophical pragmatism, Charles S. Peirce, will further be compared with the accounts of truth and objectivity proposed by the contemporary pragmatists, Rorty, Price, and Robert B. Brandom.
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