Richard Rorty Archives - Public Seminar

Philosophy

A New Perspective on Richard Rorty’s Philosophy

A series of lectures belatedly published in English sheds new light on the mind of a moralist

September 14, 2021 • by Laura Nelson

1 Richard Rorty, the American philosopher and public intellectual who died in 2007, is perhaps best known as “the philosopher who predicted Donald Trump.” In Achieving Our Country, a book articulating his reflections on the possibilities and prospects for democracy in the United States, Rorty worried that economic inequality, coupled with ...

A New Perspective on Richard Rorty’s Philosophy

Democracy

Far-Right Populism is Bad Enough

On fascism, populism, and democracy

October 15, 2020 • by Jan-Werner Mueller

From more or less mad Roman emperors to -- of course -- Adolf Hitler, by now it would seem easier to name historical figures to whom Donald Trump has not been linked than ones whom he has been said to resemble. By the same token, there has been a deluge ...

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Richard Rorty: The Dark Years

The philosopher’s vision of what is dangerous and yet possible

April 26, 2019 • by Richard J. Bernstein

The passages below are selections from “Richard Rorty: The Dark Years.” Introduction No one was more acute than American philosopher Richard Rorty in echoing and epitomizing the accusations and taunts of his critics. In “Trotsky and the Wild Orchids” he tells us that conservative culture warriors characterize him “one of the relativistic, ...

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Remembering Philosopher Stanley Cavell

1926-2018

July 31, 2018 • by Laura Nelson

One of the persistent themes in the work of American philosopher Stanley Cavell (1926-2018) was that of voice -- both in the sense of having a distinctive voice of one’s own, and of giving voice to experiences and truths that may (or may not) have escaped notice. The voice that Cavell displayed throughout his career in ...

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The Resuscitation of Truth

A Pragmatic Defense of Political Integrity

May 1, 2017 • by Laura Nelson

Time magazine recently re-purposed a cover-graphic and feature article from 1966, changing the title-question from “Is God Dead?” to “Is Truth Dead?” The central figure in this feature was, as you might expect, the current president of the United States. Donald Trump’s fondness for the lie, whether big or small, has ...

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Prophets of Deceit

Post-Truth Politics and the Future of the Left

April 3, 2017 • by Nicholas Baer and Maggie Hennefeld

–Reinhart Koselleck Hindsight, much like the year we’re all now desperately looking forward to, is 20/20. –John Oliver The spectacular and traumatic failure of established news sources and polls to predict the outcome of the 2016 Presidential Election has not only heightened a pervasive sense of uncertainty and anxiety, but also given rise ...

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Trump’s Call to Order

The Politics of Resentment

March 17, 2017 • by Santiago Zabala

Throughout the twentieth-century other thinkers drew on Popper’s intuition to stress a common opposition to the universalistic aspirations of modernity: fundamental political, moral, and cultural concepts functioned to denigrate and marginalize others who didn’t measure up to its criteria of rationality. This aspirational rationality was responsible not only for twentieth-century ...

Power and Crisis

Against “Charm”

The Uses of Autobiography for Philosophy

December 20, 2015 • by Laura Nelson

Moreover, how other philosophers lived and died is not the most important thing about them either: while life and work are inseparable, the latter takes pride of place. Heidegger went too far in saying that all one needs to know about Aristotle, for philosophical purposes, was that he lived, then ...

Power and Crisis

The Ethics and Politics of Responsible Belief

On liberalism and faith

August 18, 2015 • by Laura Nelson

Prior to his death in June 2007, Richard Rorty turned his attention to religious belief and its place in the public sphere. Rorty had long been presenting himself as the “village atheist” in the domains both of academic philosophy and public intellectualism: he viewed religious belief as the ...