This paper attempts to examine some of Rorty’s recent writings on religious beliefs. Two claims stand at the core of these texts: (1) that religious beliefs are “private projects” and (2) that those who maintain such beliefs are not intellectually responsible for them because of their essentially private character. Other commentators on Rorty have challenged one or the other of these claims by utilizing resources outside the pragmatic tradition. But since Rorty typically allies himself with this tradition, I try to (...) examine both claims by employing the writings of two classical pragmatists, i.e., William James and John Dewey. I argue that neither James nor Dewey would accept the claims that stand at the core of Rorty’s view with respect to religious beliefs. In effect, Rorty’s thinking on religious beliefs marks a significant departure from his pragmatic forebears, even though he employs them (especially Dewey) to bolster his own position. (shrink)

In a famous essay, Wilfrid Sellars makes a distinction between the manifest and scientific images.1 According to Sellars, these images represent the two dominant conceptual frameworks by which we understand ourselves as persons-in-the-world. The manifest image utilizes "perennial philosophy" and "sophisticated common sense" to effect that understanding, while the scientific image employs the resources of theoretical physics. The challenge for the philosopher, Sellars argues, is to fuse these two complete and competing images into a single, synoptic view. It is important (...) to note, however, that the fusion Sellars envisions is not between two equally adequate frameworks. Rather, he claims, the scientific image is more adequate than its manifest counterpart. Briefly put, he maintains that the former provides a coherent account of the mind and the world, while the latter is essentially dualistic. For this reason, the scientific image merits primacy in his synoptic view. ;The task of this dissertation is to assess the ultimate adequacy of Sellars's claim. I proceed by placing Sellars in conversation with Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty and John McDowell, who, while owing significant philosophical debts to Sellars, do not believe we must privilege the scientific image to achieve a coherent account of the mind and the world. In effect, they argue that the manifest image is an entirely legitimate framework for addressing a problem that has haunted philosophy since the seventeenth century. By doing so, Putnam, Rorty and McDowell help us to see that there is something wrong with the way in which Sellars depicts the relationship between the manifest and scientific images---i.e. as complete and competing visions of persons-in-the-world. In the end, the efforts of Putnam, Rorty and McDowell remind us that resolving the difficulties that are implicit to the mind-world relation demands the resources of both images or frameworks; that is to say, it demands that we see the manifest and scientific images as partial and complementary, rather than complete and competing visions of persons-in-the-world. ;1See Wilfrid Sellars, "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man," reprinted in Science, Perception and Reality , 1--40. (shrink)