Putnam discusses each of the fifteen odes found in the book, studying the work both as a whole and as a series of interactive units.

This long-awaited study of the most enigmatic figure of Greek philosophy reclaims Socrates' ground-breaking originality. Written by a leading historian of Greek thought, it argues for a Socrates who, though long overshadowed by his successors Plato and Aristotle, marked the true turning point in Greek philosophy, religion and ethics. The quest for the historical figure focuses on the Socrates of Plato's earlier dialogues, setting him in sharp contrast to that other Socrates of later dialogues, where he is used as a (...) mouthpiece for Plato's often anti-Socratic doctrine. At the heart of the book is the paradoxical nature of Socratic thought. But the paradoxes are explained, not explained away. The book highlights the tensions in the Socratic search for the answer to the question 'How should we live?' Conceived as a divine mandate, the search is carried out through elenctic argument, and dominated by an uncompromising rationalism. The magnetic quality of Socrates' personality is allowed to emerge throughout the book. Clearly and forcefully written, philosophically sophisticated but entirely accessible to non-specialists, this book will be of major importance and interest to all those studying ancient philosophy and the history of Western thought. (shrink)

Return of the invisible tomato -- What's the use of calling Cavell a pragmatist? -- The turn to literature -- Stylists of the philosophical -- The personal and the political.

I find myself in the odd position of trying to convince someone who had done as much as anyone to bring philosophy into the wider culture that he is wrong to urge now that its practice be consigned to the esoteric pursuits of “private ironists.” The problem, I still believe, is Richard Rorty’s all-or-nothing approach to philosophy : foundationalism or ironism; and this, I think, is encouraged by his selective reading of philosophy’s history. On that reading, modern philosophy “centered (...) around a discussion of truth” ; it was preoccupied with foundationalist claims of one sort or another. But that preoccupation was permanently discredited by Friedrich Nietzsche and his descendants, especially Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida, leaving philosophy with nothing to do but pick the bones of its own carcass. What is missing from this story is precisely the line of thought—extending from the left Hegelians to Jürgen Habermas—I sought to develop in my paper. That line is defined by, among other things, the primacy of practical reason and the rerouting of philosophical inquiry in sociohistorical directions. One of its high points is American pragmatism, which, pace Rorty, does not lie along the Nietzsche—Heidegger—Derrida line. Thomas McCarthy is professor of philosophy at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Critical Theory of Jürgen Habermas and editor of the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought. His work-in-progress concerns the relation of philosophy to social theory. (shrink)

This paper examines the ironic speaker’s intentions, drawing distinctions on the basis of two criteria: communicative priority and manifestness. It is argued that these provide useful insights into the widely discussed categories of speaker’s intentions. First of all, “ironic meaning” is viewed as comprising a set of different types of meaning, including a bundle of implicatures that can be hierarchically ranked in terms of both communicative priority and inferential priority. Secondly, examples of different degrees of manifestness of the ironist’s intentions (...) are discussed in light of the communicative complexities of irony, which is viewed as a higher-order phenomenon. The final discussion attempts to bring together the analyses of the speaker’s and the hearer’s perspectives, contributing to a dynamic model of ironic discourse. (shrink)

The analysis of identity in cases of memory loss, particularly in Alzheimer’s disease, sheds light on relevant philosophical and practical concerns, such as decision-making processes, autonomy, and the improvement of interaction with patients. Literature on psychological continuity recognizes identity when there are no disruptions in memory, which is certainly not the case in Alzheimer´s disease. Narrative identity, particularly in its relational and non-relational versions, delivers tools which are not exempt from difficulties. Either the caregivers’ narrative or the patient’s narrative is (...) dismissed. Furthermore, if there is a contradiction of narratives in relational theories, we are advised to either find the best narrative or seek agreement. However, one option rejects one narrative, while the other is unattainable in practice for the case in question. Hence, we propose drawing from ironism (Rorty, 1989), which suggests duality of dialogues when dealing with problems. This will be used to defend that the narratives of both, a person with Alzheimer and those close to them, are valid when constituting identity of the former. In this case, we will articulate and defend relational ironism, which allows us to embrace inconsistent narratives without seeking agreements. According to this, personal identity in this case is in constant tension between the narratives of those who suffer Alzheimer’s disease and the narratives of those close to them. We close illustrating possible benefits for how best to interact with patients. (shrink)

Richard Rorty’s notion of ironism has been widely criticized for entailing frivolity and light-mindedness, for being inimical to moral commitment and, perhaps most importantly, for its putative incompatibility with his vision of liberalism. This paper suggests that these criticisms are misplaced, stemming from a misunderstanding of ironism that Rorty’s presentation has itself in part encouraged. The paper goes on to argue that ironism is not only consistent with the liberal society which Rorty favours, but that it can (...) serve such a society by helping to illustrate the ways in which those societies contain unrecognized injustices. (shrink)

In Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Richard Rorty courageously takes a stand against the public dissemination of ironist philosophical theory, such as that produced by Nietzsche, because he sees it as being socially undermining and irreconcilable in theoretical terms with liberal democratic values. And yet, the intellectuals in his ideal society would, privately, share many of the same views from which Rorty would desire that the general public be protected. Thus Rorty would appear to trade tensions between the individual and the (...) state for tensions between the intellectual and the nonintellectual---a dubious improvement. By redescribing both the motives of the typical ironist theorist and his basic view of large-scale, sociopolitical structure I will try to reinstate the social value of ironist theory. Throughout the paper I will fomlulate perspectives and raise questions illustrative of such theory and aimed at trying to maintain as full and open a communication as possible between the individual, whether intellectual or not, and the sociopolitical structures within which he finds himself. (shrink)

Richard Rorty and Stanley Cavell are both preoccupied with questions of contingency: whether conventions are ‘merely’ conventional, what kind of foothold they might provide, how to step away from convention, how to make convention one’s own. Not that the work of either philosopher could be described as conventional. Neither produced the philosophical equivalent of the ‘hackwork’ characterizing Thomas Kuhn’s ‘normal science’. Both philosophers invoke traditional philosophical argumentation, but do so only to depart from its terms. To some disciplinary sensibilities, both (...) might seem to indulge in meta-philosophy, talking about philosophy rather than doing it. Both thinkers would reject this... (shrink)

Richard Rorty believes that the combination of ironism and poetic impulse when attached to the public/private distinction, creates an opening for a type of liberalism that satisfies both the urge for individuality and the urge for solidarity. Rorty's antirealistic pragmatism leads to a society functioning very much like our own. This Dissertation dredges out some of the very contentious underlying assumptions of what Rorty feels is a philosophy-less vision. The ironic poet is Rorty's paradigm of correct modern character. Portraying (...) this poet clearly will bring out what a powerful and radical, yet paradoxically rigidly conservative, outlook he would have us adopt. ;The journey for the outlines of the poet's personality takes me through an investigation of Rorty's interest in Heidegger. While Heidegger's poet can be described in some way as a discoverer , Rorty's poet cannot. From these differing conceptions of the poet I jump to the is/ought distinction as characterized by Hume and reversed by Rorty. I argue that Rorty believes that a fact can only be found within an 'ought.' Utopianism becomes then the only legitimate hope for change. The poet becomes the ultimate option-creator. ;Next is examined Rorty's distinction between the private and public realms. The poet, in Rorty's conception, must speak and create within these two vastly divergent realms. Liberalism and its attendant base upon the isolated and transcendent individual becomes clearly to the forefront here as a grounding point . Habermas and Feyerabend are used to further characterize possible aspects of the poet. I characterize the ironist poet as a reluctant dadaist because of the limits the strong attachment to liberalism places upon him/her. ;Ultimately Rorty's central assumption that the public and private realms absolutely cannot be harmonized in one complete 'overlying' vision that does justice to both is critiqued and questioned. All of this leads to a portrait of a severely circumscribed poet. (shrink)

In this paper I examine problems besetting forms of philosophical and social critique that are motivated by the 'hermeneutics of suspicion' and normatively oriented to the goal of 'unmasking'. I argue that there is an urgent need to correct the one-sided emphasis on 'unmasking', and we can do this by reorienting critique to the practice of individual and social transformation. The argument goes like this. The practice of unmasking critique has split off from utopian projects in whose service it was (...) originally placed, and has become the vehicle of a self-consuming, practice-crippling skepticism that - from Friedrich von Schlegel to Paul de Man and Richard Rorty - goes by the name of irony or ironist theory. Postmodernism, in one of its aspects, is the latest form of this skepticism. I interpret postmodernism as the manifestation of a crisis of confidence (in our ideals and in our agency) and as an ironization of critique. Drawing upon Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault, I reformulate the normative demands of critique such that its practice avoids the problem of self-reference while responding to the problem of self-reassurance. Key Words: confidence • critique • irony • postmodernism • reason • skepticism. (shrink)

The past decade has seen the gradual emergence of what might be called a postmodern perspective on nursing research. However, the development of a coherent postmodern critique of the modernist position has been hampered by some misunderstandings and misrepresentations of postmodern epistemology by a number of writers, leading to a fractured and distorted view of postmodern nursing research. This paper seeks to distinguish between judgemental relativist and epistemic relativist or ironist positions, and regards the latter as offering the most coherent (...) critique of modernist/(post)positivist nursing research. The writings of poststructuralist philosophers, including Barthes, Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault and Rorty are examined, and a number of criteria for a postmodern ironist concept of research validity or trustworthiness are suggested. Whilst these writers reject the idea of Method as a guarantee of valid research, they nevertheless believe that value judgements can and must be made, and turn to notions of ironism, différance, and the differend. Ultimately, the postmodern ironist reader of the research report must make a judgement without criteria, based on her own practical wisdom or ‘prudence’. (shrink)

Richard Rorty draws a distinction between an activity of using old words in new senses for self liberation or private autonomy and an activity of searching ‘‘for theories which will get at real essence.’’ He calls those who engage in the former activity ‘‘ironists,’’ people like Proust, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Hegel and Derrida, and calls those who engage in the latter activity ‘‘metaphysicians,’’ people like Plato, Descartes and Kant. The ironists, he says, have radical and continuing doubts about their final vocabularies, (...) because they have been impressed by other vocabularies. Unlike metaphysicians who search for words closer to reality, ironists engage only in playing off new words against old ones. When Rorty realized that this distinction is implausible, that both groups shared a certain unavoidable metaphysical link, he then called for replacement of theory with novel in ironism, which implies replacement of philosophy with literature. Theory, he says, is about general ideas, while the novel is about people. This paper is aimed at averting this implication, by arguing that interpretation of the novel implicates metaphysics and is theory-laden, and that ironism should not be seen in the Rortyan way as that opposed to metaphysics, but as a new way of doing metaphysics. Integrativism, an African method of philosophy, is employed to dissolve Rorty’s distinction between ironism and metaphysics, and to redescribe ironism as ‘‘innovativism.’’ The method of this work is argumentative, conversational, critical and redescriptive. Keywords: Ironism, metaphysics, integrativism, innovativism, redescription. (shrink)

Traditional liberals have questioned whether Richard Rorty's postmodern hero--the "ironist"--can be a committed liberal democrat, as Rorty maintains. The article examines Rorty's argument for liberal historicism in _Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity and concludes that postmodern historicists can indeed be diehard liberals because historicists cannot philosophically question their moral-political beliefs. As Rorty shows, historicism is theoretically incoherent. It reduces to a practical stance: at the end of our historicist musings we return to where we were before we began to philosophize--liberal democrat, (...) whatever. The fundamental question for postmodern historicism is whether human beings can stop philosophizing. (shrink)