From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sat Oct 05 2002 - 00:42:55 BST
Hi Davor,
I've put some thought into this and I hope it helps.
I think one of the best overall introductions to his project is
"Pragmatism, Relativism, and Irrationalism" in Consequences of Pragmatism.
It gives three different characterizations of pragmatism (aka Rorty's main
philosophical project) and gives his first attempts to defend it against
relativism and irrationalism.
There are several other important essays in Consequences plus a couple of
essays that sketch the contours of professional philosophy (interesting in
conjunction with Pirsig's piece on philosophology). The problem with the
essays in Consequences is that they are difficult to read (its where Platt
picked out his "incomprehensible" quote). So, I suggest not starting there
(plus you probably won't find it at your local library).
A book you might find at your local library (or, if you really wanted to
buy it, its alot cheaper than most philosophy books) is Philosophy and
Social Hope. It includes a slew of essays ranging all over and differs
from his other volumes of essays because those volumes, as Rorty says,
"consisted of papers written for philosophical journals, or for conferences
attended mostly by philosophy professors. In this volume, I am reprinting
pieces of two other sorts: first, lectures intended for a so-called
'general audience' (that is, students and teachers in colleges and
universities, as opposed to gatherings of specialists in philosophy);
second, contributions to newspapers and magazines, mostly on political or
semi-political topics."
The first essay I would read from Philosophy and Social Hope is "Trotsky
and the Wild Orchids." Its an autobiographical essay that talks about his
various philosophical projects without actually getting into them. I think
it helps because its a simple narrative of his life while discussing what
led to his beliefs and helps contextualize them with his incessant
name-dropping.
After that, there are three essays that put forth his main philosophical
projects: "Truth without Correspondence to Reality," "A World without
Substances or Essences," and "Ethics Without Principles." As of yet, I've
only finished the first one, but I think that they will help in linking
together his vocabulary. Aside from those, the Introduction ("Relativism:
Finding and Making") and the Afterword ("Pragmatism, Pluralism, and
Postmodernism") help finish putting the pieces in place. The other essays
on politics and contemporary America are excellent and mostly very short,
so plowing through them would be easy to do.
The problem with reading Rorty is that he drops names and references like
they were candy for children. Without a background in academic philosophy
(meaning, you've taken several college-level History of Philosophy classes)
most of them are hard to understand. That's what kept me from
understanding him for a long time. What helped was actually simply reading
more of his essays. A good name-dropper uses them as place-holders for
sets of descriptions or philosophical projects and usually doesn't just let
them stand by themselves. Usually you can figure out the gist of what he
means by the surrounding passages. The names and references (like those to
"technical realism" or "verficationism") are used as a web that are wound
around the essays, so that one can transfer what is said in one essay to
another.
So, my one piece of advice, which you can take or leave, is this: if you
come upon names and references that don't mean anything to you, take note
of the context and move on. After reading several essays you'll be able to
piece together what he means better and if you go back and reread the
essays, they will make all the more sense. Actually, the same thing
happens when reading anybody, including Pirsig. Rereading Pirsig in light
of the other things he's written opens up new perspectives.
Other than that, good luck!
Matt
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