Withouth God Or His Doubles: Realism, Relativism and Rorty"Without God or His Doubles" offers a sympathetic, but critical interpretation of the philosophy of Richard Rorty. Rorty is one of the most widely discussed of contemporary philosophers, but there exist few attempts to deal with the full scope of Rorty's writings in a systematic fashion. This book shows that the unifying theme that runs through Rorty's writings on epistemology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, and political philosophy is a quasi-religious conception of human creativity and human freedom. In other words, Rorty's attempt to avoid both realism and relativism is best understood in relationship to his claim that traditional philosophy has been god-obsessed. The animating spirit of Rorty's philosophy is to complete the Enlightenment project, to completely wean philosophy away from both God and the various god-doubles (Reason, Nature, Mind, Man, Science, Art). Rorty believes that a radical secularity will result in a kind of human emancipation and a heightened sense of human freedom. The book concludes with a critique of Rorty's proposal for philosophy and culture after the final departure of all the gods. |
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abandon abnormal discourse According to Rorty analytic philosophy anti-foundationalism argument attempt causal cognitive commitments concept of knowledge Contemporary Philosophy context Contingency of Language conversation coping correspondence criteria criticism culture Descartes Dewart Dewey distinction epistemic epistemology ethnocentric fact foundationalism foundationalist foundations framework Gadamer hermeneutics Hilary Putnam historical holism human idea idealism inquiry insists interpretation issue justification Kant Kantian kind knowledge claims Kuhn linguistic logical Lyotard means metaphysical realism moral nature neutral Nicholas Rescher normal discourse norms notion objectivism objects ontological Philosophy of Mind philosophy of science physical positivist Pragmatism privileged problem propositions Putnam question Quine Quine's rational reality reason reductionism relation relativism representations Richard Rorty Rorty believes Rorty rejects Rorty wants Rorty's claim Rorty's critique Rorty's philosophy Rorty's position Rorty's view Scheffler scientism seems sense simply skepticism social practices solidarity theory of knowledge things tion traditional true truth understanding University vocabulary