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Rorty’s Early Philosophical Papers (1955–1972)

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Abstract

The roots of Rorty’s mature philosophy are explored in a discussion of his early philosophical papers and reviews. His lifelong interest in metaphilosophy is traced to the influence of Richard McKeon. The crucial influence of Sellars, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Kuhn are also explored, as is his long-standing interest in pragmatism. It is explained how Rorty took something from all of these influences so as, cautiously, to arrive at an entirely new metaphilosophical position of his own.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Paul Goodman moved in the same circles as Rorty’s parents.

  2. 2.

    The book also contains Vere Chappell’s comments on Rorty’s paper and Rorty’s comments on Sayre’s paper on phenomenalism. Rorty’s former teachers Richard McKeon and John E. Smith also attended this conference.

  3. 3.

    Rorty is a “left-wing Sellarsian” in that he emphasizes Sellars’ view of awareness as a linguistic affair. By contrast, “right-wing Sellarsians” emphasize Sellars’ scientific realism.

  4. 4.

    The essay, “The Philosopher as Expert” is appended to the 2009 edition of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Other unpublished papers, including those in which Rorty attempts to reach a nonspecialist readership, can be found in (Rorty 2020).

  5. 5.

    In 1963, he had submitted a version of the paper to a collection edited by Max Black, Philosophy in America. Black had rejected it (Gross 2008, p. 186). This was another paper on which he credited the advice of his wife (Rorty 1965, p. 131 fn.19).

  6. 6.

    Feyerabend, whose work was read by Rorty (1965, p. 108: fn. 5), also advocated a form of eliminative materialism.

  7. 7.

    My thanks to James Tartaglia and Martin Müller for their advice. Any remaining errors are my own.

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Recommended Literature for Further Reading

  • Gross, Neil. 2008. Richard Rorty: The making of an American philosopher. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Reliable and readable – but it only takes Rorty’s life story up to 1982.

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  • Leach, Stephen, and James Tartaglia, eds. 2014. Mind, language, and metaphilosophy: Early philosophical papers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. A discussion of Rorty’s early papers – but excluding Rorty’s reviews and the introduction to The Linguistic Turn.

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  • Rorty, Richard, ed. 1992. The linguistic turn: Essays in philosophical method, with two retrospective essays. Chicago: University of Chicago Press A reprint of Rorty’s 1967 collection. The 1992 edition includes Rorty’s original 1967 introduction and the two retrospective essays ‘Ten Years After’ and ‘Twenty-Five Years After’.

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  • Rorty, Richard. 1996/2005. A philosophical self-portrait. In The Penguin dictionary of philosophy, ed. Thomas Mautner. London: Penguin. It is interesting to read how Rorty summarises his philosophy and philosophical development when given only a very limited space in which to do so.

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  1. Keele University, Staffordshire, UK

    Stephen Leach

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    Martin Müller

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    Martin Müller

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Leach, S. (2023). Rorty’s Early Philosophical Papers (1955–1972). In: Müller, M. (eds) Handbuch Richard Rorty. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-16253-5_10

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