Truth and Progress: Volume 3: Philosophical Papers

Rorty, Richard

ISBN 10: 0521553474 / ISBN 13: 9780521553476

Published by Cambridge University Press, 1998

May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.85. Seller Inventory # G0521553474I4N00

Synopsis:

The volume complements two highly successful previously published volumes of Richard Rorty's philosophical papers: Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth, and Essays on Heidegger and Others. The essays in the volume engage with the work of many of today's most innovative thinkers including Robert Brandom, Donald Davidson, Daniel Dennett, Jacques Derrida, Juergen Habermas, John McDowell, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, and Charles Taylor. The collection also touches on problems in contemporary feminism raised by Annette Baier, Marilyn Frye, and Catherine MacKinnon, and considers issues connected with human rights and cultural differences.

Reviews: Rorty contends that the ideas that reality has an intrinsic nature and that truth is a correspondence with reality are inherently flawed and therefore hinder inquiry, the former allegedly because "reality" is a matter of how we conceptualize things and the latter allegedly because there cannot be a theory of the nature of truth. Rejecting those ideas, he believes we should not aim at truth but at solving problems, the solutions to which raise yet other problems, and that philosophy advances by increasing its imaginativeness rather than its rigor. He defends this conception of inquiry in carefully argued essays about the issues as they have been discussed by such philosophers as Davidson, Wright, Putnam, Searle, and Taylor, among others. There are also essays on such topics as cultural differences, democracy, and feminism. Of the 17 essays, four are new. Recommended for academic libraries.ARobert Hoffman, York Coll., CUNY
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Bibliographic Details

Title: Truth and Progress: Volume 3: Philosophical ...
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: 1998
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket