Abstract

Rorty maintains that idealism and realism are dead ends and that somewhere beyond them is a better philosophy--a special kind of pragmatism--without the pretensions or illusions of what it supersedes. Unfortunately, the view of philosophy that Rorty puts forward is neither independently attractive nor easy to understand as a wholesome middle way between idealism and realism. In some ways it is hard to recognise as a view of philosophy at all. I argue for something closer to Thomas Nagel's view of philosophy, and Nagel's realism.