

























Introduction
Of late, some philosophers have come out to condemn 

Rorty's Neo-pragmatism as a distortion of the central goals of 
classical pragmatism, a great disservice to the contemporary 
pragmatic campaign. A good example of such thinkers is 
James Kloppenberg, who in his article, Pragmatism: An Old 
Name for Some New Ways of Thinking? Labels Rorty's 

1pragmatism as “…insufficiently pragmatic…” . For him, 
Rorty's “liberal ironism encourages selfishness, cynicism, 
and resignation by undercutting efforts to confront the hard 

2
facts of poverty and greed” .

Susan Haack, who is strongly convinced that Rorty 
misses the point of the early pragmatists, and primarily tilts 
the pragmatist legacy, terms Rorty's pragmatism “vulgar 

3
pragmatism” . Basically, she is perturbed by “Rorty's hopes 
of a post-philosophical culture in which 'we pragmatists' give 
up the old-fashioned idea that truth is a goal of inquiry, and 
remake philosophy as a genre of literature, just a kind of 

4writing” . Haack concludes that “playfulness has its price ... 

189

RORTY'S NEO-PRAGMATISM: 

RESHAPING HUMAN CONDITION 

WITH OUR THOUGHTS

Stanley M. NKEMNOLE



literary dilettantism of Rortyesque neo-pragmatism is 
crippled by its disastrous inability even to acknowledge the 

5truths that literature can teach us” .
6 Other contemporary thinkers have toed this line of 

thought in their attempt to disregard, and if possible totally 
eradicate Rorty's brand of pragmatism. Specifically, the work 
that triggered this write-up is Rorty's Point of Departure from 
Mainstream Pragmatist Approach to Epistemology by 

7
Raymond Osei and Husein Inusah . Here, Osei and Inusah 
sort to demonstrate that “Rorty's pragmatist theory is a 
deviation from mainstream pragmatism”, as his pragmatism 

8repudiates epistemology .
It is pertinent to state here that Rorty's critique of 

epistemology is the most misinterpreted and, consequently, 
the most criticized part of his philosophical project. While 
this work is not a defense of Rorty's pragmatism, we have to 
clarify some misinterpretations of Rorty's philosophical 
concerns by the above thinkers.

Firstly, we need to state categorically that Rorty's attack 
was on representationalist epistemologies (especially as 
championed by Descartes and Kant), not epistemology as 
such.In addition, Rorty has done more than anyone to revivify 
pragmatism. In fact, his pragmatism reaffirms many of the 
central aims of the early forerunners of the movement. Rorty's 
critique of representationalist epistemologies, his 
socialization of knowledge, and his emphasis on both 
fallibilism and possibility clearly keep in line with the 
pragmatist tradition. By bringing these pragmatist methods 
and concerns back into to the fold, Rorty revitalized a rich 
philosophical tradition, thus enabling it to be put to use for 
inquiry into contemporary problems. More practically, 
Rorty's philosophy has vital things to say in an epoch 
dominated by deconstructionists whose record appears less 
edifying to social structures. What makes Rorty so 
stimulating in the present intellectual climate is his readiness 
to uphold an object of affirmation that functions in company 
with his criticism. Rorty's idea of a post-philosophical 
culture, in which traditional intellectual constraints will give 
way to lively ironism and a more egalitarian society, is a 
source of hope in times when all the effects of global 

190



capitalism are being established, terror is the new warfare, 
and fewer and fewer intellectual discourses seek to address 
concrete social realities. It is in this historically-specific 
concern for the problems of men that Rorty best shows his 
pragmatist credentials. 

Pluralism is a central feature in the history of pragmatism 
that allows Rorty's position to be validated as sufficiently 
pragmatist. For Peirce, a community of diverse minds was the 
only real means to refine knowledge and reach a final 
opinion. James held pluralism to be a critical philosophical 
and moral concept. In a Pluralistic Universe, James claims 
that there exists no final word, no one true perspective. He 
notes that “the pluralistic view ... is willing to believe that 
there may ultimately never be an all-form at all, that the 
substance of reality may never get totally collected, that some 
of it may remain outside of the largest combination of it ever 

9
made” . In this acquiescence to the pluralistic universe, James 
sustains that mankind can leave its mark through dynamic, 
active creation. 

For Dewey, pluralism encourages diversity in 
perspectives, which serves to multiply the capacities of 
human knowledge and discovery. In Reconstruction in 
Philosophy, Dewey contends that “every combination of 
human forces that adds its own contribution of value to life 

10has for that reason its own unique and ultimate worth” . 
Indeed, Rorty's emphasis on conversation is tacitly pluralist. 
For Rorty, knowledge is contingent upon admittance to a 
particular language-game, which depends on a confluence of 
social and historical factors that define the sort of 
conversation taking place. Thus, knowledge is not singular, 
but plural, depending on place and time. A consistent 
emphasis among the early pragmatists, then, was on the value 
of several perspectives in the testing of ideas and the 
formation of knowledge. It is in this vein that Rorty's voice 
cannot be dismissed as distinct from the pragmatist tradition.

This write-up, while not taking up the task of defending 
Rorty's pragmatism, strives to show that Rorty's Neo-
pragmatism supports the thesis that our thought (philosophy) 
can bear a hand in reshaping human condition.

191



Rorty's Neo-Pragmatism
Pragmatism, as a philosophical ideology, stirs a 

multiplicity of meanings. To the common person, it suggests a 
sense of the American character, as Americans are 
historically known for pragmatic choices that effect practical 
consequences. Pragmatism can also suggest many things: a 
methodological approach for solving problems in the 
sciences and humanities; a term used by intellectual 
historians to describe a particular idea at a particular moment 
in American history; and so on. The multitude of meanings 
prescribed to the term is indicative of the difficulty of tying 
down pragmatism.

As a philosophical field of inquiry, pragmatism is 
concerned with the practical significances of knowledge. 
William James reasons that “the whole function of philosophy 
ought to be to find out what definite difference it will make to 
you and me, at definite instants of our life, if this world-

11formula or that world-formula be the true one” . James gives 
voice to an important reoccurring feature of pragmatism: a 
passion for results, consequences, practicality, and value of 
knowledge and the means used to derive such knowledge.

Common among the early pragmatists is the pre-
eminence conferred upon experience. Although Peirce, 
James, and Dewey all hold divergent views of experience, the 
epistemological work of experience is the unifying thread 
that binds them together. On the surface, the emphasis on 
experience would appear to place pragmatism within the 
larger tradition that began with Locke and Berkeley. The 
critical difference between those usually identified as the 
British empiricists and the pragmatists is found in the rapport 
that exists between knowledge and experience. For Locke, 
the epistemological role of experience is to provide the 
medium for coming to know ideas. That is, ideas are derived 
from experience. For the pragmatists, experience is 
transformed into an epistemological mechanism for 
evaluating ideas as they are encountered in reality. Hence, 
pragmatists are concerned mainly with the consequences of 
experience and how experience can be used to test a store of 

12ideas .
With the publication of Philosophy and the Mirror of 

192



Nature, Rorty “set down the path of pragmatism, one that he 
has been following for the past twenty years through a body of 
writing unmatched in recent American intellectual history in 

13
terms of its mass, critical accessibility, and provocation” . 
Charles Taylor observes that “what is exciting and 
controversial about Rorty's narrative is the sense of a radical 
new departure. What is radical is the promise that we can free 
ourselves of a whole host of questions which have been 

14central to philosophy hitherto” . Taylor enunciates the 
principal objective of Rorty's argument: philosophy is 
constrained by the questions it thinks it has to ask. For Rorty, 
the metanarrative of philosophical discourses, inherited from 
Plato and the tradition he helped create, has become 
outmoded. Rorty's intention “is to undermine the reader's 
confidence in 'the mind' as something about which one should 
have a 'philosophical' view, in 'knowledge' as something 
about which there ought to be a 'theory' and which has 
'foundations', and in 'philosophy' as it has been conceived 

15since Kant” . From this, we can trace two main paths of 
Rorty's philosophical outline in Philosophy and the Mirror of 
Nature. First, traditional problems of epistemology 
(especially, the issue of foundations of truth) and metaphysics 
(especially, the mind-body problem) must be rejected 
because they are issues no longer valuable to study. 
Additionally, the traditional philosophical categories of 
metaphysics, ethics, and particularly epistemology, reflect 
the entrenchment of the traditional metanarrative, and should 
be jettisoned as well. Rorty believes that philosophy should 
move away from self-identification with truth-seeking and 
the finding of absolutes. On his evaluation, philosophers must 
develop mindfulness of the socio-historical context in which 
they are theorizing, while at the same time identifying the 
historicity of philosophical theories which are thought of as 
existing outside of time and place. It becomes apparent, then, 
why Rorty chose Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Dewey as the 

16“three most important philosophers of our century” : each of 
the three became profoundly dedicated to historicist and anti 
foundationalist positions in their careers, which, for Rorty, 
“represented a paradigm shift from the Cartesian-Kantian 

193



17era” .
Rorty's distaste of traditional philosophical categories 

reached its zenith in his critique of mainstream epistemology. 
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn reasoned that 
scientific discourses function in two different ways: normally 

18and abnormally . The former searches for answers to 
questions in an environment where an accepted paradigm is 
present and agreed upon. That is, an agreed upon foundation 
is present against which suppositions are tested, verified, or 
refuted. The latter is revolutionary, ushering in a new 
paradigm with an associated sphere of new questions and 
problems. For Rorty, Kuhn's distinction between normal and 
abnormal scientific discourses translates into the 
philosophical distinction between epistemology and 
hermeneutics. Rorty contends that, similar to normal 
scientific discourses' notions of consensus, epistemology 
functions under a paradigm of “commensurability”. In his 
words, “epistemology proceeds on the assumption that all 
contributions to a given discourse are commensurable...By 
'commensurable' I mean able to be brought under a set of 
rules which will tell us how rational agreement can be 
reached on what would settle the issue on every point where 

19statements seem to conflict” . For Rorty, epistemology 
presumes the existence of a foundation that grounds the 
criterion of commensuration for a variety of discourses. For 
an epistemologist, this foundation is truth.

For Rorty, hermeneutics is much more fugitive in its 
treatment of knowledge. It is “an expression of hope that the 
cultural space left by the demise of epistemology will not be 
filled-that our culture should become one in which the 

20
demand for constraint and confrontation is no longer felt” . 
He maintains that hermeneutics embodies a similar function 
as Kuhn's abnormal scientific discourse does. He notes: 

Normal discourse is that which is conducted 
within an agreed-upon set of conventions about 
what counts as answering a question...Abnormal 
discourse is what happens when someone joins in 
the discourse who is ignorant of these conventions 

21or sets them aside . 
By its very nature, hermeneutics functions without a clear 

vision of rules that guide enquiry. It has no standard to test its 

194



objects of inquiry against. It views philosophy and 
epistemology as less a unified formal discourse, or a group of 
discourses, than an ongoing conversation. Rorty observes 
that “hermeneutics sees the relations between various 
discourses as those of strands in a possible conversation, a 
conversation which presupposes no disciplinary matrix 
which unites the speakers, but where the hope of agreement is 

22never lost so long as the conversation lasts” . Hermeneutics, 
then, is  indirectly historicist ,  pluralist ic,  and 
antifoundationalist. It is not reduced to a notion that 
philosophy and epistemology are wedded in a project aimed 
at showing how the mind mirrors nature. Therefore, it makes 
no references to representation or correspondence that 
epistemology carries with it. Rorty concludes that “if we see 
knowledge as a matter of conversation and of social practice, 
rather than as an attempt to mirror nature, we will not be 
likely to envisage a metapractice which will be the critique of 

23all possible forms of social practices” . The emphasis on 
conversation allows Rorty to move beyond the essentialism 
and foundationalism of traditional epistemological methods, 
while demonstrating the historical contingency of language 
and the discourses one chooses to express their knowledge 
and beliefs. This leads Rorty to a position of epistemological 
behaviorism.

Rorty describes epistemological behaviorism as 
“explaining rationality and epistemic authority by reference 
to what society lets us say, rather than the latter by the 

24former” . This proposition is radical because it contests the 
t r a d i t i o n a l  K a n t i a n  i d e a  o f  e p i s t e m o l o g i c a l  
representationalism that is the foundation of Analytic 
philosophy. Rorty employs Sellars's critique of the “Myth of 
the Given”, and Quine's appraisal of the necessary-contingent 
distinction to demonstrate the social nature of knowledge and 
belief. In Sellars and Quine, Rorty spots a “commitment to the 
thesis that justification is not a matter of a special relation 
between ideas (or words) and objects, but of conversation, of 

25social practice” . The emphasis on justification in social 
practice provides Rorty with a more holistic view of 
knowledge, and, hence, allows him to abandon any criterion 
of accuracy linked with epistemological representationalism. 

195



He reasons that “if assertions are justified by society rather 
than by the characterization of the inner representation they 
express, then there is no point in attempting to isolate 

26
privileged representations” . Consequently, the only 
criterion of knowledge for Rorty's epistemological 
behaviorism is access to the rules of the language-game. If we 
see knowledge as justified in a social conversation, then “it 
will not occur to us to invoke either of the traditional Kantian 

27distinctions” . Thus, without the appeal to representationalist 
epistemological techniques, Rorty concludes that the “notion 

28of the mind as Mirror of Nature can be discarded” .
With the mind as Mirror of Nature metaphor discarded, 

Rorty maintains that philosophy should move towards 
purposes of edification. Using Gadamer's notion of 
“redescription”, Rorty describes edification as “finding new, 
better, more interesting, more fruitful ways of speaking”, to 
“reinterpret our familiar surroundings in the unfamiliar 

29
terms of our new inventions” . For Rorty, by its very nature, 
edification is revolutionary: in Kuhn's terms, it is expressed in 
an abnormal discourse, for it is “the power of strangeness” 
that facilitates the shedding of “our old selves...to aid us in 

30becoming new beings” . In order to fashion new words and 
expressions to redescribe ourselves, the discourse to 
articulate such a vocabulary would, essentially, need to be of a 
different and new brand than that of the normal discourse. The 
new expressions in which to redescribe the familiar are non-
conformists and subversive, thus, the language used to 
describe the new and novel cannot be that which reflects the 
conformity of normal discourse. Therefore, for Rorty, there is 
need for openness to new ways of thinking and speaking to 
overcome the traditions of philosophy that are no longer 

31expedient .
If edification demands an abnormal, revolutionary 

discourse to redescribe our familiar mode of being, then 
Rorty believes a certain approach is required on the part of the 
philosopher. For him, the edifying “peripheral, pragmatic 
philosophers are skeptical primarily about systematic 
philosophy, about the whole project of universal 
commensuration...they make fun of the classic picture of man, 
the picture which contains systematic philosophy, the search 

196



32for universal commensuration in a final vocabulary” . In 
challenging systematic philosophy, “great edifying 
philosophers {like Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and 
Dewey}destroy for the sake of their own generation ... to keep 
space open for the sense of wonder which poets can 
sometimes cause--wonder that there is something new under 
the sun, something which is not an accurate representation of 

33what was already there” . Without the mind as Mirror of 
Nature, Rorty sees the hope of plurality and new ways of 
describing ourselves that move beyond the normal discourse 
provided by the traditional Western conception of philosophy 
and epistemology.

Rorty not only provides a hopeful vision of post-
epistemology philosophy, he also held that philosophical 
theories and methodologies encompass a sociological 
dimension that is inherent in philosophical doctrines. The 
notion, then, of there being philosophical theories that exist in 
a vacuum apart from a socio-historical context is untenable 
for Rorty. Rather, philosophy embodies the needs and 
concerns of people in a definite context at a certain historical 
moment. For Rorty, the story of philosophy is not one of the 
perennial investigations of foundational problems; rather, 
philosophy is a story of intellectual answers to human needs 
and longings throughout history.

Contemporary Meta-Philosophical Arguments
Essentially, one could say that what motivated Rorty's 

philosophical project is a quest for significance of philosophy 
in a pluralistic society. For Rorty, the realization that there a 
call at the door of philosophy to lend a hand in social project is 
continuously being distorted by philosophy's image as a 
classroom activity. Such an image, in Rorty's judgment, 
seems to be reducing the role of philosophers to that of a 
historical interest or lone rangers closed in their own heaven. 
As such, Philosophy should bear a hand in shaping our 
present conditions. Rorty contends that the unrelenting 
fidelity to the Cartesian/Kantian epistemological foundation 
has stiffened the move for an alternative culture vision that is 
appropriately pragmatic. He asserts that Descartes and Kant 
created a rationalistic world of meaning that was far detached 

197



from a practical appeal in daily living. Hence, there is need for 
deconstruction and circumvention to usher in a state of affairs 
in which the intellectual achievements of the contemporary 
man will bear hand in shaping socio-cultural realities of the 
epoch. Thus it is a quest for a post-philosophical culture, a 
reshaping of our tradition with our thoughts.

Rorty sustains that philosophers do not seem to agree as to 
whether philosophy is to be regarded as a science, metaphor 
or politics. Three answers offered are rooted in the scientific, 
poetic and political traditions. Each answer, according to 
Rorty, has been presented as the aim of philosophy in Western 
philosophical tradition.

According to Rorty, the scientific answer is typical of 
Edmund Husserl and his positivist counterparts that model 
philosophy on science. Their reflection seems to be remote 
from politics and art. While Heidegger favors the poetic 
answer. Pragmatists see in science and philosophy a tool for 

34social progress ; hence political. And each group is 
suspicious of the other.

Evidently, science is constantly growing and continually 
improving human condition. The problem, Rorty specifies, is 
not science itself but those who are using science to dictate the 
pace and values of the culture. This understanding opens our 
horizon to a whole new frame of mind. The past inaction of 
the philosophical tradition should no longer be stomached; 
the sense for urgency in searching for a new vision is 
expressed in the fact that we are approaching a time “we shall 
no longer turn to the philosophers for rescue as our ancestors 
turned to the priests. We shall turn instead to the poets and the 
engineers, the people who produce startling new projects for 

35
achieving the greatest happiness of the greatest number” . 
This, certainly, will puncture philosophy's insolent image as 
the foundation of culture.

The expanding culture of poets, novelists, and politicians, 
interrogates the self-image of the philosopher as an 
intellectual supervisor. People are now in search of the 
opinion of poets and politicians rather than those of 
philosophers. In the face of this, philosophy senses itself as 
more outdated and less to do with the rest of the culture. Thus, 
the big showdown to philosophers in their claim to ground, 

198



criticize, and dictate for the rest of culture: they feel irrelevant 
because philosophy as a whole has been deflected by those 
that actually strive to improve human condition. 

Nonetheless, there were some redeeming philosophical 
voices. According to Rorty, Wittgenstein tried to form a new 
theory of representation which would have nothing to with 
materialism; Heidegger fashioned a new set of philosophical 
categories which would have nothing to do with science, 
epistemology, or the Cartesian search for certainty; and 
Dewey saw the illusoriness of epistemological problems, and 
truth as purported correspondence, and knowledge as 
accuracy of representations; he then tried to fashion a 
naturalized version of Hegel's vision of history, by taking the 

36line of a social crusader . Instead of arguing against the 
Kantian doctrines, Rorty notes, these redeeming 
philosophical voices set them aside in order “to assert for the 
possibility of a post-Kantian culture, one in which there is no 
all-encompassing discipline which legitimizes or grounds the 

37
others…” . They announced new maps of terrain, thus, 
paving the way for new shapes in the culture.

Departure for a Post Philosophical Culture
Rorty expresses the belief that the realization of a post-

philosophical culture is imperative, because once we stop 
venerating idols like Marxism, rationality, Platonism, 
Aristotelianism, Cartesianism, etc., then we will be able to 
focus more fully on each other and attain a deepened sense of 
human solidarity. As a pragmatist culture, it will be a place for 
co-operation among all kinds of intellectuals. For Rorty, 

This would be a culture in which neither the 
priests nor the physicists nor the poets nor the 
party were thought of as more 'rational' or more 
'scientific', or 'deeper' than one another. No 
portion of culture will be singled out as 
exemplifying (or signaling or failing to 
exemplify) the condition on which the rest 

38aspired .
People will become champions, not because they have 

occult or clandestine knowledge of things, but because they 
have become extraordinary in being good to human beings. In 
other words, people will show themselves champions by 
being competent in their service to the human community. In 

199



this culture in question, there will be a broader logical space 
in conveying communal opinions and hopes. In it, we seek for 
new enterprises that will help us transcend our acculturation. 
Against this background, Rorty trusts that “our best chance 
for transcending our acculturation is to be brought up in a 
culture that prides itself on not being monolithic  on its 
tolerance for a plurality of subcultures and its willingness to 

39listen to neighbouring cultures” .
Rorty believes that the hermeneutics of post-

philosophical culture is to listen and partake in conversation 
without preconception of a predetermined foundation. The 
hope of agreement is never lost as long as the conversation 
lasts. He writes:

The notion of culture as a conversation rather 
than as a structure erected upon foundations fits 
well with this hermeneutical notion of knowledge, 
since getting into a conversation with strangers is 
like acquiring a new virtue or skill by imitating 
models. Is a matter of (phronesis) rather than 

40
(episteme) .

As conversation is an important useful tool in the social 
project, the post-philosophical culture should not lose sight of 
that sense of community, which only impassioned 

41conversation makes possible . 
In this new culture, philosophers will become players 

rather than onlookers. Their thoughts will be verified by their 
practical and adaptive relevance to the subject within the 
community. The philosopher, here, risks the danger of being 
outdated if he does not comprehend that philosophy is an 
instrument for social reform.

The Credibility of Rorty's Project
Rorty persuasively opens our vistas to a passionate 

concern for philosophy's segregation from common human 
concerns. There is no doubt that Rorty searches for a 
condition for living in solidarity in a pluralistic society. 
Rorty's attack on any individual or groups who tries to dictate, 
under the pretense of philosophy or privileged knowledge, is 
illuminating. Hence, any person or group of individuals that 
postulates a predetermined ground blocks conversation with 
others, thereby causing harm to the community.

200



 Accordingly, it is appropriate to reason that a philosopher 
should not detach and insulate himself from the joys and fears 
of his community. And if he cannot, in any way, contribute to 
the social project, one can rightly ask of what use is his 
philosophical knowledge or initiative. And if a philosopher is 
closed up in his own discipline and see no need for solidarity 
and partnership with others in the literary field, but takes the 
sole position of a judge of all, it will at once be an arrogance to 
claim to possess already all that can be known. Such a 
pretense and arrogance will obstruct intellectual 
development and solidarity in the community. Charles 
Guignon and David Hiley are right to hold that what 
motivated Rorty's post-philosophical quest is a concern 
expressed near the end of Philosophy and the Mirror of 
Nature that “traditional philosophy's search for final 
solutions to questions about truth, rationality and knowledge 
could lead to 'freezing over of culture' and 'the 
dehumanization of human beings'  seems to reflect the moral 

42concerns that drive the argumentation of the whole book” . 

Conclusion
As philosophical theories increase, philosophical 

propositions become gradually detached from practical and 
social problems that first attracted its practitioners, and 
progressively irrelevant to the rest of culture. Rorty advocates 
for a therapeutic conception of philosophy, where there is no 
separation of knowledge and action. This brings up an 
important aspect of Rorty's philosophy that illustrates his 
pragmatist commitments: meliorism. It is in his meliorism 
that one finds a profound concern for social hope that is 
absent of Cartesian and Kantian literature.
 Improvement of human condition is, thus, at the heart of 
Rorty's neo-pragmatism and is realized in the abilities of 
human effort to create better future realities. This is a call that 
philosophy should not shy away from if it is to remain 
relevant in this contemporary epoch.

ENDNOTES
1. James T. Kloppenberg, “Pragmatism: An Old Name for Some New 

Ways of Thinking?”, The Journal of American History, Vol. 83, No. 1., 

201



1996, p. 125
2.  Ibid.
3. Susan Haack, Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate: Unfashionable 

Essays, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 2.
4.  Ibid.
5.  Ibid.
6. T. M. Alexander, (1980) “Richard Rorty and Dewey's Metaphysics of 

Experience”, Southwest Philosophical Studies, Vol. 5, 1980; J. 
Campbell, “Rorty's Use of Dewey”, The Southern Journal of 
Philosophy, Vol. 22, 1994; R. Shusterman, “Dewey on Experience: 
Foundation or Reconstruction?”, in Casey Haskins and David Seiple 
(eds.) Dewey Reconfigured: Essays on Deweyan Pragmatism, Albany, 
New York: SUNY, 1999; B. Allen, “What is Epistemology?”, in Robert 
B. Brandom (ed.) Rorty and His Critics, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 
2000; J. McDowell, “Toward Rehabilitating Objectivity”, in Robert B. 
Brandom (ed.) Rorty and His Critics, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000.

7. Raymond N. Osei and HuseinInusah, “Rorty's Point of Departure from 
Mainstream Pragmatist Approach to Epistemology”, The Nigerian 
Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 2, 2011.

8.  Ibid, p. 86
9. William James, “What Pragmatism Means”, in John I. McDermott 

(ed.) The Writings of William James, Chicago: The University of 
Chicago Press, 1977, p. 20.

10. John Dewey,Reconstruction in Philosophy, New York: Henry Holt and 
Company, 1920, p. 204.

11. William James, “What Pragmatism Means”, p. 379.
12. H. S. Thayer,Meaning and Action: A Critical History of Pragmatism, 

New York: The BobbsMerrill Company, 1968.
13. J. Pettegrew,A Pragmatist's Progress?: Richard Rorty and American 

Intellectual History, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000, p. 9.
14. Charles Taylor,“Rorty in the Epistemological Tradition”, in Alan R. 

Malachowski (ed.) Reading Rorty: Critical Responses to Philosophy 
and the Mirror of Nature (and Beyond), Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 
1990, p. 258.

15. Richard Rorty,Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton, New 
Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1979, p. 7.

16. Ibid, p. 5.
17.  Neil Gross,Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher, 

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008, p. 205.
18. 

19.  Richard Rorty,Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, p. 316.
20. Ibid., p. 315.
21. Ibid., p. 320.
22. Ibid., p. 318.
23. Ibid., p. 171.
24. Ibid., p. 174.
25. Ibid., p. 170.
26. Ibid., p. 174.
27.  Ibid.

202



28. Ibid., p. 170.
29. Ibid., p. 360.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., p. 364.
32. Ibid., p. 368.
33. Ibid., pp. 369  370.
34. Richard Rorty,Essays on Heidegger and Others: Philosophical 

Papers, Vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 19.
35. Ibid., p. 26.
36.  Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, p. 5.
37. Ibid., p. 6.
38. Richard Rorty,The Consequences of Pragmatism: Essays 1972-1980, 

Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1982, p.xl.
39. Richard Rorty,Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical 

Papers, Vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 14.
40. Richard Rorty,Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, p. 319. 
41. Richard Rorty, “The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres”, in 

Richard Rorty et al. (eds.) Philosophy in History, Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 74.

42. C. B. Guignon and D. R. Hiley, “Biting the Bullet: Rorty on Private and 
Public Morality”, in Alan R. Malachowski (ed.) Reading Rorty: 
Critical Responses to Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (and 
Beyond), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 339.

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