Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Rorty
- Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
- The Cambridge Companion to Rorty
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations of Works by Rorty
- Introduction: The Unity of Richard Rorty’s Philosophy
- 1 Rorty’s Metaphilosophy: A Pluralistic Corridor
- 2 After Metaphysics: Eliminativism and the Protreptic Dilemma
- 3 Rorty and Classical Pragmatism
- 4 A Pragmatism More Ironic Than Pragmatic
- 5 Rorty and Semantic Minimalism
- 6 Returning to the Particular: Morality and the Self after Rorty
- 7 Rorty’s Political Philosophy
- 8 Tinkering with Truth, Tinkering with Difference: Rorty and (Liberal) Feminism
- 9 Rorty’s Insouciant Social Thought
- 10 Rorty and National Pride
- 11 Rorty on Religion
- 12 Rorty: Reading Continental Philosophy
- 13 Rorty’s Literary Culture: Reading, Redemption, and The Heart’s Invisible Furies
- 14 Wild Orchids
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
5 - Rorty and Semantic Minimalism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2021
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Rorty
- Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
- The Cambridge Companion to Rorty
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations of Works by Rorty
- Introduction: The Unity of Richard Rorty’s Philosophy
- 1 Rorty’s Metaphilosophy: A Pluralistic Corridor
- 2 After Metaphysics: Eliminativism and the Protreptic Dilemma
- 3 Rorty and Classical Pragmatism
- 4 A Pragmatism More Ironic Than Pragmatic
- 5 Rorty and Semantic Minimalism
- 6 Returning to the Particular: Morality and the Self after Rorty
- 7 Rorty’s Political Philosophy
- 8 Tinkering with Truth, Tinkering with Difference: Rorty and (Liberal) Feminism
- 9 Rorty’s Insouciant Social Thought
- 10 Rorty and National Pride
- 11 Rorty on Religion
- 12 Rorty: Reading Continental Philosophy
- 13 Rorty’s Literary Culture: Reading, Redemption, and The Heart’s Invisible Furies
- 14 Wild Orchids
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
Summary
In this paper I first worry that Rorty’s attack on various conceptions of “the world” has an alarming tendency to veer from opposition to the kind of realism that he associates with various philosophers, such as Plato, Descartes, or even Kant, into skepticism about ordinary activities including those of observing things and referring to them. I try to uncover the roots of this slide in various semantic doctrines, and explore the distinction between minimalist or deflationist theories of truth, and any wider, and less plausible general doctrine of semantic minimalism.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Rorty , pp. 110 - 128Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021