Contingency, irony, and solidarity / Richard Rorty.

By:

Rorty, Richard

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1989.Description: 1 online resource (xvi, 201 pages)Content type:

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9780511804397
0511804393
9781139648523
1139648527

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

Electronic books.

Additional physical formats: Print version:: Contingency, irony, and solidarity.DDC classification:

401 22

LOC classification:

P106 .R586 1989eb

Other classification:

08.25
08.34

Online resources:

Click here to access online

Contents:

pt. 1. Contingency: The contingency of language -- The contingency of selfhood -- The contingency of a liberal community -- pt. 2. Ironism and theory: Private irony and liberal hope -- Self-creation and affiliation: Proust, Nietzsche, and Heidegger -- From ironist theory to private allusions: Derrida -- pt. 3. Cruelty and solidarity: The barber of Kasbeam: Nabokov on cruelty -- The last intellectual in Europe: Orwell on cruelty -- Solidarity.

Action note:

digitized 2011 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve

Summary: American philosopher Richard Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature, or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable but it cannot advance Liberalism's social and political goals. In fact, Rorty believes that it is literature and not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense of human solidarity. Specifically, it is novelists such as Orwell and Nabokov who succeed in awakening us to the cruelty of particular social practices and individual attitudes. Thus, a truly liberal culture would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. Rorty uses a wide range of references - from philosophy to social theory to literary criticism - to elucidate his beliefs.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Materials specified	Status	Date due	Barcode
Electronic-Books	OPJGU Sonepat- Campus	E-Books EBSCO			Available

Includes bibliographical references and index.

American philosopher Richard Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature, or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable but it cannot advance Liberalism's social and political goals. In fact, Rorty believes that it is literature and not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense of human solidarity. Specifically, it is novelists such as Orwell and Nabokov who succeed in awakening us to the cruelty of particular social practices and individual attitudes. Thus, a truly liberal culture would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. Rorty uses a wide range of references - from philosophy to social theory to literary criticism - to elucidate his beliefs.

Print version record.

Use copy Restrictions unspecified star MiAaHDL

Electronic reproduction. [Place of publication not identified] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2011. MiAaHDL

Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. MiAaHDL