Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Richard Rorty was affiliated over the course of his long teaching career with Princeton University, the University of Virginia, and Stanford University. Recognized as one of the most important voices in American philosophy of the late twentieth century, he was the author of numerous landmark works, including Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Michael Bérubé is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Pennsylvania State University; his most recent book is The Secret Life of Stories: From Don Quixote to Harry Potter, How Understanding Intellectual Disability Transforms the Way We Read. Mary V. Rorty is Clinical Associate Professor at the Stanford University Medical center and a Fellow of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics.In these lectures Rorty is singing the same old (and good) song about what we must give up. We must give up our striving to be in touch with the really real, and we must give up the illusion that by paring away the accidental features of our temporal lives we can finally be in touch with our true, authentic, selves. The lesson is so bracing and so difficult because it is delivered in the context of a tradition--philosophy since Plato--that had been dedicated to the doing of these impossible things for centuries. Where is Richard Rorty when we need him? He is here." - Stanley Fish, Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Law, Florida International University, and Floersheimer Visiting Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School <br /><br />"Richard Rorty, in these wonderfully clear and compact lectures, gave the best summary of his views of the meaning of truth and the philosophy of language and mind. His defense of 'narrative philosophy' is enhanced by the vivid and memorable sketches of Hegel, Nietzsche, William James, and other moderns who aimed as Rorty did to reconcile the work of reason and imagination." - David Bromwich, Yale University <br /><br />"[O]ne of the world's most influential contemporary thinkers." - <em>New York Times</em><br /><br />"These lectures connect Rorty's distinctive and controversial views about the nature and history of philosophy to a number of topics and issues he has not previously considered. The vigor with which Rorty presents his account of philosophy, and the questions raised by how he connects it to topics like poetry and romanticism, are stimulating and fascinating." - John Koethe, University of Wisconsin, author of <i>Scepticism, Knowledge, and Forms of Reasoning</i> <br /><br />"These lectures are a fine introduction to Rorty's work. It's all here: the affirmation of poets over philosophers, the interest in conversation as against analysis, the theory of the "new vocabulary" as preferable to the (sought for) perfect representation of the world as it is, the attempt to meld Nietzsche with American pragmatism, the mistrust of analytical philosophy and the affirmation of the imaginative. There's also the great sweep, the grand statements, and the provocative temperament. Rorty is one of the most eloquent, provoking and original mid to late-century American writers with an interest in philosophy." - Mark Edmundson, University of Virginia, author of <i>Self and Soul: A Defense of Ideals</i> <br /><br />"In 2004, the American pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty spent three days holding his Page-Barbour lectures entitled <i>Philosophy as Poetry.</i> Its beautiful title captures important aspects of Rorty's philosophy." - <em>Philosophy as Poetry</em>