Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism - Richard Rorty

Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism

By: Richard Rorty, Eduardo Mendieta (Editor), Robert B. Brandom (Foreword by)

Paperback | 9 September 2024 | Edition Number 1

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"Provocative and engaging...The array of urgent questions and crises facing our democracy makes one miss Richard Rorty's voice: insistent, relentlessly questioning, and dedicated to the proposition that we can't afford to let our democracy fail."
-Chris Lehmann, New Republic

"Richard Rorty was the most iconoclastic and dramatic philosopher of the last half-century. In this final book, his unique literary style, singular intellectual zest, and demythologizing defiance of official philosophy are on full display."
-Cornel West

"Coherent, often brilliant, and it presents a clear and timely case for political pragmatism."
-Jonathan Ree, Prospect

"Today, there are few philosophers left whose thoughts are inspired by a unifying vision; there are even fewer who can articulate such a view in terms of such a ravishing flow of provocative, but sharp and differentiated, arguments."
-Juergen Habermas

Richard Rorty's final masterwork offers his culminating thoughts on the influential version of pragmatism he began to articulate decades ago in his groundbreaking Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. He identifies anti-authoritarianism as the principal impulse and virtue of pragmatism. Anti-authoritarianism, in this view, means acknowledging that our cultural inheritance is always open to revision because no authority exists to ascertain the truth, once and for all. If we cannot rely on the unshakable certainties of God or nature, then all we have left to go on-and argue with-are the opinions and ideas of our fellow humans. The test of these ideas, Rorty suggests, is relatively simple: Do they work? Do they produce the peace, freedom, and happiness we desire? To achieve this enlightened pragmatism is not easy, though. Pragmatism demands trust. It demands that we think and care about what others think and care about, and that we account for their doubts of and objections to our own beliefs.

No book offers a more accessible account of pragmatism, just as no philosopher has more eloquently challenged the hidebound traditions arrayed against the goals of social justice.

Industry Reviews
Today, there are few philosophers left whose thoughts are inspired by a unifying vision; there are even fewer who can articulate such a view in terms of a ravishing flow of provocative, but sharp and differentiated, arguments. But rarely anyone can compete with Richard Rorty in summarizing the whole of it in a series of brilliant literary lectures like these. -- Juergen Habermas
Richard Rorty was the most iconoclastic and dramatic philosopher of the last half-century. In this final book, his unique literary style, singular intellectual zest, and demythologizing defiance of official philosophy are on full display. -- Cornel West
A sharp and comprehensive statement of Richard Rorty's distinctive version of pragmatism, presented with all the wit and vitality typical of his writings. Carefully edited by Eduardo Mendieta, with an illuminating foreword by Robert B. Brandom, this book is invaluable reading for anyone interested in Rorty's philosophical vision. -- Richard J. Bernstein, Vera List Professor of Philosophy, The New School for Social Research
We have perhaps the clearest account of how he understood pragmatist thinking as a political undertaking...Provocative and engaging...The array of urgent questions and crises facing our democracy makes one miss Richard Rorty's voice: insistent, relentlessly questioning, and dedicated to the proposition that we can't afford to let our democracy fail. -- Chris Lehmann * New Republic *
The verve with which [the arguments] are made and their relevance to our current context make for a bracing read...The message of Rorty's body of work, so well summarized in these newly published lectures, is that aiming at 'increased responsiveness to the needs of a larger and larger variety of people and things' will reduce the sources of suffering, and by so doing multiply our opportunities to thrive. -- Michael S. Roth * Los Angeles Review of Books *
Show[s] an impressive command of both analytic and continental philosophy. -- George Scialabba * Commonweal *
It is coherent, often brilliant, and it presents a clear and timely case for political pragmatism. -- Jonathan Ree * Prospect *
A useful compendium of the philosopher's mature views. -- Robert Chodat * American Literary History *
A very finely edited collection of essays in which Rorty's undeniable polemical brilliance and philosophical knowledge are in full display. -- Richard Shusterman * Society *

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