Richard Rorty: From Pragmatist Philosophy to Cultural Politics

Richard Rorty was one of the most important philosophers of the last half of the twentieth century. His work helped effect global transformations in the way philosophy thinks about its work and role midst contemporary culture. He was influential across a diversity of disciplines in perturbing our inherited self-understandings of the place of intellectuals in culture and the roles of art, literature, science, and religion in contemporary liberal democratic society.
This collection of essays, by an international and interdisciplinary group of eminent scholars and thinkers in their own right, including Jürgen Habermas, Saskia Sassen, Robert Brandom, and Richard Shusterman, presents the first complete posthumous study of Rorty's work as a whole. The collection reflects on Rorty's myriad accomplishments, with particular attention on the role of pragmatist philosophy in Rorty's increasing identification of his thinking with the work of cultural politics. The book covers the full range of Rortyan themes, including the practice of philosophy and metaphilosophy, the politics of culture, and Rorty's place in the contemporary philosophical and critical-cultural landscapes. These reflections serve to both introduce the arc of Rorty's thinking and advance the critical reception of his work.

The first complete posthumous reflection on the work of Richard Rorty, one of the most important and influential American philosophers of recent times.

Alexander Gröschner is Senior Research in the School of Education at the Technische Universität München, Germany.
Colin Koopman is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon, USA.
Mike Sandbothe is Professor of Culture and Media at Jena University of Applied Sciences, Germany.

List of Contributors \ Preface Alexander Gröschner, Colin Koopman and Mike Sandbothe \ Abbreviations of Works by Richard Rorty \ Introduction \ 1. From Pragmatist Philosophy to Cultural Politics Alexander Gröschner and Mike Sandbothe \ 2. '. . . And to define America, Her Athletic Democracy': The Philosopher and the Language Shaper. In Memory of Richard Rorty Jürgen Habermas \ Part I: Pragmatist Philosophy \ 3. An Arc of Thought: From Rorty's Eliminative Materialism to his Pragmatism Robert Brandom \ 4. The Contingent Status of Epistemic Norms: Rorty, Kantian Pragmatisms, and Feminist Epistemologies Susan Dieleman \ 5. For the Sake of His Own Generation: Rorty on Destruction and Edification Bjørn Torgrim Ramberg \ Part II: From Pragmatist Philosophy to Cultural Politics \ 6. Challenging Philosophy: Locating Rorty's Positive Conception of Philosophy Colin Koopman \ 7. Pragmatist Philosophy and Enlarging Human Freedom: Rorty's Deweyan Pragmatism Christopher J. Voparil \ Part III: Cultural Politics \ 8. The Transformation of Citizenship: Rorty's Concept of Cosmopolitan Patriotism Saskia Sassen \ 9. Kindness to Babies: Radical Ideas in Rorty's Anti-Cynical Philosophy Esa Saarinen \ 10. Pragmatism and Cultural Politics: Variations on a Rortian Theme Richard Shusterman \ Bibliography \ Index