{"title":"Rorty's Philosophy of Consciousness","authors":"James Tartaglia","doi":"10.1002/9781118972199.ch3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118972199.ch3","url":null,"abstract":"This essay begins by asking why Rorty would endorse a physicalist agenda which, on the face of it, ran counter to his aims in philosophy; and concludes both that his motivation was confused, and that he failed to detach physicalism from metaphysics and scienticism. I begin by showing the importance of metaphilosophy to Rorty’s position on consciousness, and the centrality of consciousness to his overall project. I then summarise Rorty’s position, which was essentially derived from Ryle, but uniquely driven by metaphilosophy. My assessment begins by disputing Rorty’s thesis about the historical origins of the concept of consciousness, before following him into his favourite argumentative territory by talking about the social utility of first-person reflection on consciousness, and his own motivations for wanting to undermine such reflection. I conclude that because of his obsession with religion, Rorty became entangled in a scientistic agenda he should have opposed.","PeriodicalId":412309,"journal":{"name":"A Companion to Rorty","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132050216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rorty and Dewey","authors":"David L. Hildebrand","doi":"10.1002/9781118972199.ch20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118972199.ch20","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":412309,"journal":{"name":"A Companion to Rorty","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125119805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature","authors":"James Tartaglia","doi":"10.1002/9781118972199.ch5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118972199.ch5","url":null,"abstract":"This essay comprises an overview of the plot to Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, followed by a more detailed examination of the three parts of the book. It begins by showing the importance of metaphilosophy to Rorty’s project, while explaining the significance of PMN for both Rorty’s philosophy as a whole, and the history of philosophy. Then follows the overview, after which I explain the detail of Rorty’s arguments, while developing a line of argument to show that Rorty’s final conclusion that there is no objective truth – because the world can be endlessly redescribed – undermines his argumentative strategy. Taking into account Rorty’s standard response, according to which he was making a pragmatic social proposal, I conclude that Rorty’s desire to avoid the nihilistic conclusion that life is meaningless, led him to transform existentialism into postmodernism; and that the result, however brilliant, is nevertheless unstable and badly motivated.","PeriodicalId":412309,"journal":{"name":"A Companion to Rorty","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124829232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Truth of Being and the History of Philosophy","authors":"Mark B. Okrent","doi":"10.5840/MONIST198164433","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/MONIST198164433","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":412309,"journal":{"name":"A Companion to Rorty","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1981-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128459042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}