Truth and Progress: Volume 3

'This volume is Rorty at his best, again and again making us see things from a new, unexpected angle, strenuously engaging with those of us who resist his startling and unsettling 'take' on things. Convinced or not, you come away feeling that this is what philosophy ought to be doing, steadily extending the range of imaginable thoughts.' Charles Taylor

'Truth and Progress, the third volume of Richard Rorty's philosophical papers, can be recommended not only to Rorty's admirers and to those who regard him as a leading enemy of reason but to anyone who wants to get a sense of a significant intellectual phenomenon.' Thomas Nagel, The Times Literary Supplement

Introduction; Part I. Truth and Some Philosophers: 1. Is truth a goal of inquiry?: Donald Davidson vs. Crispin Wright; 2. Hilary Putnam and the relativist menace; 3. John Searle on realism and relativism; 4. Charles Taylor on truth; 5. Daniel Dennett on intrinsicality; 6. Robert Brandom on social practices and representations; 7. The very idea of human answerability to the world: John McDowell's Version of Empiricism; 8. Anti-sceptical weapons: Michael Williams vs. Donald Davidson; Part II. Moral Progress: Towards more Inclusive Communities: 9. Human rights, rationality, and sentimentality; 10. Rationality and cultural difference; 11. Feminism and pragmatism; 12. The end of Leninism, Havel and social hope; Part III. The Role of Philosophy in Human Progress: 13. The historiography of philosophy: four genres; 14. The contingency of philosophical problems: Michael Ayers on Locke; 15. Dewey between Hegel and Darwin; 16. Habermas, Derrida and the functions of philosophy; 17. Derrida and the philosophical tradition.