There are a growing number of publications arguing that if we had more wonder in social life, then its quality would be significantly improved, and that we therefore need an “ethics” or a “politics” of wonder. The aim of this paper is to show that that message is unfortunate, and this is for two reasons. First, wonder does not generally have the positive political and moral effects that are attributed to it, so to assume that it does may lead one (...) to adopt unrealistic social policies. Second, wonder does potentially have a number of negative moral and politicaleffects, so social policies that put a premium on wonder may bring adverse consequences. In this way, the paper makes a general case against wonder as a positive force in morality and politics. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a new account of Richard Rorty’s interpretation of Michel Foucault, which demonstrates that in the course of his career, Rorty presented several diverse (often mutually exclusive) criticisms of Foucault’s political thought. These give different interpretations of what he took to be the flaws of that thought, but also provide different explanations as to the sources of these flaws. I argue that Rorty’s specific criticisms can be divided into two overall groups. Sometimes he saw Foucault’s rejection (...) of bourgeois democracies and bourgeois utopias as a specific case of his general critique regarding the structures of social life as inherently oppressive. At other times he seemed to attribute to Foucault a view that—while not all forms of social life are inherently oppressive—bourgeois democracies certainly are, in a very specific and radical way. In conclusion I show that Rorty’s interpretation of Foucault should be understood in the context of his approach toward the ‘American Cultural Left.’. (shrink)

The book presents a comprehensive account of Shusterman's principal philosophical ideas concerning pragmatism, aesthetics, and literary theory (including such themes as interpretation, aesthetic experience, popular art, and human embodiment ...

My aim in this paper is to shed light on Richard Rorty's critique of de Man's conception of unreadability. In particular, I explain why Rorty sees this conception as a kind of ‘negative theology’ that worships a ‘Dark God of Absence whose voice is in the literariness of Language’ — a god who, importantly, must be rejected given Rorty's ‘horizontal’ thought. I also address the question of whether ‘continually rediscovering the impossibility of reading’ can have any significance for politics. As (...) is well known, de Man himself thought the answer to the latter question was a resounding yes. But, according to Rorty, it is exactly because de Man managed to instill that conviction in the ‘American academic Left’ that the latter is far less effective politically than it could be. The final part of my paper is devoted to this very issue. (shrink)

This book is the first essay collection on Richard Shusterman, the foremost representative of contemporary pragmatist aesthetics, a philosopher whose books have been translated into more than fifteen languages. The 12 essays, which cover the wide-ranging scope of Shusterman’s pragmatist thought, divide into three sections: Literary Theory and Philosophy of Art; Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics; and Somaesthetics. Written by an international group of authors from different philosophical perspectives, the book’s essays not only provide a good introduction to Shusterman’s innovative (...) pragmatist theories, but show their useful applications to important and controversial topics in philosophy, politics, religious and gender studies, the arts, and somaesthetics. The book also includes two new texts by Shusterman: an introductory essay in which he explains the trajectory of his intellectual development and a detailed response to the other contributors, which closes the book. (shrink)

This book is the first essay collection on Richard Shusterman, the foremost representative of contemporary pragmatist aesthetics, a philosopher whose books have been translated into more than fifteen languages. The 12 essays, which cover the wide-ranging scope of Shusterman’s pragmatist thought, divide into three sections: Literary Theory and Philosophy of Art; Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics; and Somaesthetics. Written by an international group of authors from different philosophical perspectives, the book’s essays not only provide a good introduction to Shusterman’s innovative (...) pragmatist theories, but show their useful applications to important and controversial topics in philosophy, politics, religious and gender studies, the arts, and somaesthetics. The book also includes two new texts by Shusterman: an introductory essay in which he explains the trajectory of his intellectual development and a detailed response to the other contributors, which closes the book. (shrink)

Philosophers have been quite often portrayed as farcical figures who claim to possess knowledge that is salient to all human beings yet are at the same time completely out of touch with this world, and, for that reason, clumsy, naïve, and basically of no use to anyone, including their own miserable selves. This image is not only quite common—it is also as old as philosophy itself. Just recall the familiar passage from Plato’s Theaetetus that has Thales fall into a well (...) because he is so busy gazing at the stars that he simply fails to pay any attention to the ground he treads on . “How can you expect to know about all the heavens, when you cannot even see what is just beneath your feet?”1—asks a Thracian .. (shrink)

Review of two books in Polish: -/- Between Monism and Pluralism. A Study of the Genesis and Foundations of John Dewey’s Philosophy. -/- Concepts of Ch. S. Peirce’s Pragmatism and their Revival in 20th-Century Philosophy of Language.

On Philosophy and Philosophers is a volume of unpublished philosophical papers by Richard Rorty, a central figure in late-twentieth-century intellectual debates and a primary force behind the resurgence of American pragmatism. The first collection of new work to appear since his death in 2007, these previously unseen papers advance novel views on metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, philosophical semantics and the social role of philosophy, critically engaging canonical and contemporary figures from Plato and Kant to Kripke and Brandom. This book's diverse offerings, (...) which include technical essays written for specialists and popular lectures, refine our understanding of Rorty's perspective and demonstrate the ongoing relevance of the iconoclastic American philosopher's ground-breaking thought. An introduction by the editors highlights the papers' original insights and contributions to contemporary debates. (shrink)

The article is a critical response to Stefán Snævarr’s “Pragmatism and Popular Culture: Shusterman, Popular Art, and the Challenge of Visuality.”In its first part, I attempt to prove that several of Snævarr’s claims about popular culture and new media, which form the basic premises of his diagnosis of the alleged intellectual decline of the West, are either dubious or wrong. Moreover, in the context of this diagnosis, Snævarr levels some serious accusations against Richard Shusterman’s theory of popular culture, which, I (...) believe, are ungrounded and do not do justice to the latter’s approach. Henceforth, the remainder of the article is devoted to explaining in which aspects Snævarr’s interpretation of Richard Shusterman’s theory is misguided. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Richard Rorty’s views on intercultural hermeneutics as presented in his essay “Heidegger, Kundera, and Dickens” and in his correspondence with the Indian philosopher Anindita Niyogi Balslev. In doing so, I focus primarily on Rorty’s presumption that instead of providing an “authentic” picture of another culture, the goal of intercultural studies or hermeneutics should be to look if there is anything “of use” that a given culture offers and that is not offered by ours.

This is the first collection in English devoted exclusively to pragmatist aesthetics. Its main aim is to employ the resources of that rich and exciting tradition in studying artistic phenomena such as film, sculpture, bio-art, poetry, the novel, cuisine, and various body arts. But it also attempts to provide a wider background for such studies by sketching the history of pragmatist reflection on the aesthetic and by discussing some of the main positions that this history has produced: the aesthetic conceptions (...) of C.S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Joseph Margolis, Richard Shusterman (somaesthetics in particular), and others. (shrink)

On Philosophy and Philosophers is a volume of unpublished philosophical papers by Richard Rorty, a central figure in late-twentieth-century intellectual debates and a primary force behind the resurgence of American pragmatism. The first collection of new work to appear since his death in 2007, these previously unseen papers advance novel views on metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, philosophical semantics and the social role of philosophy, critically engaging canonical and contemporary figures from Plato and Kant to Kripke and Brandom. This book's diverse offerings, (...) which include technical essays written for specialists and popular lectures, refine our understanding of Rorty's perspective and demonstrate the ongoing relevance of the iconoclastic American philosopher's ground-breaking thought. An introduction by the editors highlights the papers' original insights and contributions to contemporary debates. (shrink)