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Umberto Eco, autor de novelas de éxito e importante teórico literario, funde en este libro esos dos papeles en un provocador debate en torno al controvertido tema de la interpretación literaria. Los limites de la interpretación - lo que se puede afirmar que significa realmente un texto - es una cuestión que interesa doblemente a un semiótico, autor de novelas cuya sorprendente complejidad ha sumido a los lectores en una gran especulación acerca de su significado. La iluminadora y a menudo ocurrent reflexión de Eco va de Dante a El nombre de la rosa, de El péndulo de Focault a Chomsky y Derrida, y lleva todos los sellos de su inimitable estilo personal. Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler y Christine Brooke-Rose ofrecen sendas perspectivas sobre el polémico tema y dan lugar a un intercambio de ideas único entre algunos de los más destacados y estimulantes teóricos de la disciplina. ... Read more

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Pragmatism is America's best-known native philosophy. It espouses a practical set of beliefs and principles that focus on the improvement of our lives. Yet the split between classical and contemporary pragmatists has divided the tradition against itself. Classical pragmatists, such as John Dewey and William James, believed we should heed the lessons of experience. Neopragmatists, including Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Jürgen Habermas, argue instead from the perspective of a linguistic turn, which makes little use of the idea of experience. Can these two camps be reconciled in a way that revitalizes a critical tradition?

Colin Koopman proposes a recovery of pragmatism by way of "transitionalist" themes of temporality and historicity which flourish in the work of the early pragmatists and continue in contemporary neopragmatist thought. "Life is in the transitions," James once wrote, and, in following this assertion, Koopman reveals the continuities uniting both phases of pragmatism. Koopman's framework also draws from other contemporary theorists, including Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Bernard Williams, and Stanley Cavell. By reflecting these voices through the prism of transitionalism, a new understanding of knowledge, ethics, politics, and critique takes root. Koopman concludes with a call for integrating Dewey and Foucault into a model of inquiry he calls genealogical pragmatism, a mutually informative critique that further joins the analytic and continental schools.

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A penetrating and illuminating exchange of views between Richard Rorty, a highly influential and sometimes controversial philosopher, and seven of his most thoughtful critics, providing new insights into the impact of his work on contemporary American philosophy.

Richard Rorty, William R. Kenan Professor and University Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, is a frequent and influential contributor to major literary magazines and professional journals in this country and abroad. Among his best-known book publications are The Linguistic Turn (1967 and 1992), Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), The Consequences of Pragmatism (1982), and Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (1989). ... Read more

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Pragmatism as naturalized Hegelianism?
This useful set of essays gives a thorough pro/con perspective on the revival of pragmatism and the place of Rorty in that revival. Each essay has a reply by Rorty. One of the essays aptly depicts the strain of 'naturalized Hegelianism' that pervades the pragmatic enterprise in the wake of Dewey whose seminal influence and early study of Hegel has come to set the tone of everything that followed. Indeed, the first essay by Rorty himself examines 'Dewey between Hegel and Darwin'. Ay, there's the rub. The influence of Darwin on Dewey is arguably the point where the whole subject was led astray into a new metaphysics, in the name of escaping it. Behind this lies the consistent prejudice against Plato and Kant, a puzzling stance, and one that haunts the whole school of pragmatists with a charge of presiding over dissolution with non-philosophy. ... Read more

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In this fascinating study, Peter Johnson makes explicit the issues involved in using the novel as a source in moral philosophy. The book pays close attention to questions of method, aesthetic accounts of the novel and the nature of ethical knowledge. The views of leading philosophers are examined and criticized in the light of the book's distinctive contribution to the current debate.
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Trained by some of the most eminent philosophers of the twentieth century, Richard Rorty has come to be one of the strongest critics of the philosophical tradition. In this book G. Elijah Dann takes seriously Rorty's writings, showing how, contrary to what many philosophers believe, he actually helps to enhance and enliven both the philosophy of religion and the chances for moral progress. Dann goes on to discuss Rorty's metaethics and reviews Rorty's well-known article, "Religion as Conversation-stopper," showing how the private/public distinction, though well-placed, needs adjustment. Contrary to Rorty's view that religious values should remain in the private realm, Dann maintains religious values can play an important role in the public square, albeit through a "translation" into secular terms. Finally the book explores how the history of philosophical interests shaped theological ones and Dann looks at Rorty's more recent thoughts about religion, particularly in his discussion with the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo. ... Read more

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In this introduction to Rorty's thought, Kolenda contends that Rorty's criticism of the traditional view of knowledge as a mirroring of reality should cause us to see it as a more active, creative and morally fraught process. From this he suggests comparisons between the thought of Rorty and Kant. ... Read more

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In "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" Richard Rorty presented his vision of post-philosophical culture, calling upon professional philosophers to accept that epistemology is dead, that the analytic method is a myth, and that philosophy and science are merely forms of literature. This volume is an examination of the conclusions drawn by Richard Rorty. Discussions, by philosophers such as W.V. Cline, Donald Davidson, Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor, John Yolton and Martin Hollis, cover Rorty's views on truth, language, knowledge and the self, together with his pragmatism, his "continental turn" and his regard for the literary potential of philosophical writing. ... Read more

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Addressing the "end-of-philosophy" debate and the challenge it presents to contemporary philosophy, this book draws on Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson, Habermas and Foucault, among others. It develops the implications of Richard Rorty's arguments in particular and provides a response: the development of a holistic, anti-foundationalist account of philosophy that engages critical theory and wide reflective equilibrium in carving out a positive role for a new kind of philosophy. ... Read more

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One of the most exciting and controversial philosophers of our time, Richard Rorty has developed a radical pragmatism that criticises the attempt to provide foundations for our standards of rationality. Rorty believes that the history of philosophy illustrates the futility of attempting to develop a theory of truth or justification that will enable us to be more rational in our activities and beliefs. This study focuses on the support that such a view might receive from Donald Davidson's work on truth and translation. Davidson's work is used to show that the apparent relativism in Rorty's account of truth can be avoided if we focus on the dynamics of translation. Davidson thus offers hope that we can defend objectivity without appealing to traditional views of truth and meaning. ... Read more

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The postmodern notion of gaming as a legitimate method of philosophical inquiry opposes the either/or model of modern discourse.Modern and Postmodern Strategies outlines the key issues informing the debate between modern and postmodern thought and focuses on the postmodern contention that the universalizing strategies of modern thought are cognitively and morally wrong.This study uses a range of theorists to explore the implications of monism and pluralism.By using the work of the poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger, the author demonstrates that literary texts can function alongside--and often illuminate--the philosophical arguments between modern and postmodern thought. ... Read more