Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Rorty
- Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
- The Cambridge Companion to Rorty
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations of Works by Rorty
- Introduction: The Unity of Richard Rorty’s Philosophy
- 1 Rorty’s Metaphilosophy: A Pluralistic Corridor
- 2 After Metaphysics: Eliminativism and the Protreptic Dilemma
- 3 Rorty and Classical Pragmatism
- 4 A Pragmatism More Ironic Than Pragmatic
- 5 Rorty and Semantic Minimalism
- 6 Returning to the Particular: Morality and the Self after Rorty
- 7 Rorty’s Political Philosophy
- 8 Tinkering with Truth, Tinkering with Difference: Rorty and (Liberal) Feminism
- 9 Rorty’s Insouciant Social Thought
- 10 Rorty and National Pride
- 11 Rorty on Religion
- 12 Rorty: Reading Continental Philosophy
- 13 Rorty’s Literary Culture: Reading, Redemption, and The Heart’s Invisible Furies
- 14 Wild Orchids
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
6 - Returning to the Particular: Morality and the Self after Rorty
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2021
- The Cambridge Companion to Rorty
- Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
- The Cambridge Companion to Rorty
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Abbreviations of Works by Rorty
- Introduction: The Unity of Richard Rorty’s Philosophy
- 1 Rorty’s Metaphilosophy: A Pluralistic Corridor
- 2 After Metaphysics: Eliminativism and the Protreptic Dilemma
- 3 Rorty and Classical Pragmatism
- 4 A Pragmatism More Ironic Than Pragmatic
- 5 Rorty and Semantic Minimalism
- 6 Returning to the Particular: Morality and the Self after Rorty
- 7 Rorty’s Political Philosophy
- 8 Tinkering with Truth, Tinkering with Difference: Rorty and (Liberal) Feminism
- 9 Rorty’s Insouciant Social Thought
- 10 Rorty and National Pride
- 11 Rorty on Religion
- 12 Rorty: Reading Continental Philosophy
- 13 Rorty’s Literary Culture: Reading, Redemption, and The Heart’s Invisible Furies
- 14 Wild Orchids
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
Summary
This chapter begins by arguing that the common tendency to write off Rorty’s views on morality on the grounds that they are vulnerable to straightforward charges of relativism is mistaken if only because it ignores the fact that those views are conceived independently of his epistemological behaviorism. It then moves on to examine the relationship between Rorty’s notion of selfhood and his distinction between public and private morality. In exploring that relationship, a number of problematic issues are identified concerning: Rorty’s dependence on a Freudian multi-personality account of the self, his excessive optimism regarding the demands of self-creation in modern societies, and whether the very idea of morality as a private concern can carry the weight he places upon it. Some of the literary critic Lionel Trilling’s views on the burdens of self-making are introduced to temper Rorty’s utopian expectations.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Rorty , pp. 129 - 154Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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