Abstract

Richard Rorty is best known for his critique of the Western Philosophical Tradition. However, there is very little known or written about his early philosophical thinking before his break with philosophy. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation was an investigation of the intellectual path traveled by Rorty from his dissertation in 1956 to his 1974 essay, "Overcoming the Tradition." The central question asked was whether there was anything like a radical conversion in his thinking that led to his rejection of philosophy: Was there an early Rorty as well as a later Rorty? This question is answered negatively. What is argued is that from his earliest writings, one can begin to discern a style of thinking and the creation of a vocabulary that contain the seeds of his disenchantment with philosophy. While there is no straightforward development to his ideas, his critique of philosophy was beginning to take shape from his earliest writings. When his break with the tradition is announced, it comes not as a radical alteration of what he had written but as a gradual displacement of his beliefs and an acceptance of the consequence of the ideas that had begun to take shape in his earlier work