Philosophy & The Mirror of Nature

Rorty, Richard

ISBN 10: 0631129618 / ISBN 13: 9780631129615

Published by Basil Blackwell 1980, Oxford, 1980

About this Item

1st UK edition (published a year after the scarce U.S. first edition). xv, 401 pp. Black hardcover with lettering to the spine, in dustjacket. Fading around spine and edges of the dustjacket. tear to the head of spine at rear hinge. Annotations in blue and black ink, especially towards the end of the book. 0631129618 8vo.

Seller Inventory # 66080

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Philosophy & The Mirror of Nature
• Publisher: Basil Blackwell 1980, Oxford
• Publication Date: 1980
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0631129618
• ISBN 13: 9780631129615
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First UK Edition.
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Philosophy and Religion

About this title

Synopsis

Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature hit the philosophical world like a bombshell. Richard Rorty, a Princeton professor who had contributed to the analytic tradition in philosophy, was now attempting to shrug off all the central problems with which it had long been preoccupied. After publication, the Press was barely able to keep up with demand, and the book has since gone on to become one of its all-time best-sellers in philosophy.

Rorty argued that, beginning in the seventeenth century, philosophers developed an unhealthy obsession with the notion of representation. They compared the mind to a mirror that reflects reality. In their view, knowledge is concerned with the accuracy of these reflections, and the strategy employed to obtain this knowledge--that of inspecting, repairing, and polishing the mirror--belongs to philosophy. Rorty's book was a powerful critique of this imagery and the tradition of thought that it spawned. He argued that the questions about truth posed by Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and modern epistemologists and philosophers of language simply couldn't be answered and were, in any case, irrelevant to serious social and cultural inquiry. This stance provoked a barrage of criticism, but whatever the strengths of Rorty's specific claims, the book had a therapeutic effect on philosophy. It reenergized pragmatism as an intellectual force, steered philosophy back to its roots in the humanities, and helped to make alternatives to analytic philosophy a serious choice for young graduate students. Twenty-five years later, the book remains a must-read for anyone seriously concerned about the nature of philosophical inquiry and what philosophers can and cannot do to help us understand and improve the world.

Review

"This is an ambitious and important book. Ambitious because it attempts to place the main concerns and discussions of contemporary philosophy within a historical perspective; important because this is all too rarely attempted within our present philosophical culture, and almost never done this well."--Times Literary Supplement