Rorty is the lightning rod of contemporary pragmatism: both its most energetic proponent and its most controversial figure. His influence will have been felt in previous weeks of the seminar: Cheryl Misak and Maria Baghramian confront Rorty's work as they seek to develop less relativistic versions of pragmatism than Rorty appears to set out, and William Blattner takes up a suggestion of Rorty's in studying the affinities between Dewey and Heidegger.
Our visitor on Wednesday and Thursday will be Charles Guignon of the University of South Florida, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger (2nd ed. 2006), and co-editor of Richard Rorty (Cambridge, 2003). He will consider Rorty’s questioning of traditional epistemology and metaphysics in his first session, and Rorty’s recommendation that we replace truth with "social hope" in his second session, and he will lead us in discussing papers by Michael Williams, Charles Taylor, Richard Bernstein and Jean Bethke Elshtain.
Rorty's philosophy is notable for its rich mix of "continental," romantic, and analytic approaches, for example in utilizing Harold Bloom's concept of the "strong poet" as a model for scientific advance, Friedrich Nietzsche's idea of truth as "a mobile army of metaphors," and Ludwig Wittgenstein's writings about linguistic meaning in support of his claims about "the contingency of language."
In our final session on Friday we will consider some connections between what Shelley and Emerson say about the imagination and Nietzsche's and Rorty’s accounts of truth, and we will take some time for review and assessment.
On Friday evening the project director will host a farewell dinner at his home.
Readings:
Selections from Guignon, ed., Richard Rorty; selections from Percy Shelley, A Defense of Poetry;
Richard Rorty, “Pragmatism as Romantic Polytheism, in Morris Dickstein, ed. The Revival of Pragmatism;
John Dewey, Art as Experience (selections); Russell Goodman, American Philosophy and the Romantic Tradition, Chapter 3;
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Circles" and "The Poet."
Week 1 • Week 2 • Week 3 • Week 4 • Week 5
To receive more detailed information on the seminar review this website. You may also write: pragma@unm.edu.
We look forward to responding to your interest and seeing you here!
Pragmatism: A Living Tradition
Russell B. Goodman, Project Director
pragma@unm.edu
