Abstract
This essay introduces the work of Richard Rorty via a brief biography, and concentrates on the four Rortian themes. Here, Freeman presents a pragmatic vision for business and theories about business in hopes of stimulating more reading and discussion of Rorty’s work. Furthermore, the chapter suggests that scholars need to develop criteria by which they judge the usefulness of work and connect it to how value actually gets created for stakeholders.
Originally published in: The Academy of Management Review, 29(1), 127–130 © Academy of Management, 2004
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Notes
- 1.
This essay draws mainly on Rorty’s ideas in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979) and Philosophy and Social Hope (1999). Rorty’s other main monographs are Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989) and Achieving Our Country (1998b). Both Rorty’s 1999 and 1998b works are nontechnical, meaning that one does not need an extensive background in philosophy to benefit from reading them. Rorty’s 1989 work is readable by most with a bit of background in the humanities, whereas his 1979 work is difficult even for professional philosophers.
Rorty’s main technical work in the philosophy journals spanning his long and distinguished career has been collected in four volumes (Rorty 1982, 1991a, b, 1998a). In addition, Rorty has published two critical essays management theorists should read (Rorty 1986, 1998c).
For two collections by important philosophers who are critical of Rorty’s work (and Rorty’s response to the critics), see Malachowski (1990) and Brandom (2000).
- 2.
The exception is his Ruffin lecture response to Cornell West (see Rorty 1998c).
- 3.
Andy Wicks and I have explored these ideas about what pragmatism implies for management theorists in Wicks and Freeman (1998). I am grateful to Andy Wicks and to Gordon Sollars, Daniel R. Gilbert, Jr., John McVea, Rama Velamuri, Nicholas Dew, and Laura Dunham for conversations about the ideas in this essay.
- 4.
In this passage Dewey clearly articulates what I have called, elsewhere, the separation thesis.
References
Brandom, R., ed. 2000. Rorty and His Critics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Dewey, J. 1998. First Published in 1922 in Human nature and Conduct. In The Essential John Dewey. Volume 2: Ethics Logic and Psychology, ed. L. Hickman and T. Alexander. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Freeman, E. 1998. Poverty and the Politics of Capitalism. The Ruffin Series 1: 31–35.
Malachowski, A., ed. 1990. Reading Rorty. Oxford: Blackwell.
Rorty, R. 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 1982. Consequences of Pragmatism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
———. 1986. Freud and Moral Reflection. In Pragmatism’s Freud: The Moral Disposition of Psychoanalysis, ed. J. Smith and W. Kerrigan, 1–27. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
———. 1989. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1991a. Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1991b. Essays on Hiedegger and Others: Philosophical Papers Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1998a. Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers Volume 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1998b. Achieving Our Country. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
———. 1998c. Can American Egalitarianism Survive a Globalized Economy? The Ruffin Series 1: 1–6.
———. 1999. Philosophy and Social Hope. London: Penguin.
Wicks, A., and R.E. Freeman. 1998. Organization Studies and the New Pragmatism. Organization Science 9 (2): 123–140.
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Freeman, R.E. (2023). The Relevance of Richard Rorty to Management Research. In: Dmytriyev, S.D., Freeman, R.E. (eds) R. Edward Freeman’s Selected Works on Stakeholder Theory and Business Ethics. Issues in Business Ethics(), vol 53. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04564-6_29
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