Book contents
- On Philosophy and Philosophers
- On Philosophy and Philosophers
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Sources
- Introduction: Rorty as a Critical Philosopher
- I Early Papers
- 1 Philosophy as Ethics
- 2 Philosophy as Spectatorship and Participation
- 3 Kant as a Critical Philosopher
- 4 The Paradox of Definitism
- 5 Reductionism
- 6 Phenomenology, Linguistic Analysis, and Cartesianism: Comments on Ricoeur
- 7 The Incommunicability of “Felt Qualities”
- 8 Kripke on Mind-Body Identity
- II Later Papers
- Index of Names
3 - Kant as a Critical Philosopher
from I - Early Papers
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 October 2020
- On Philosophy and Philosophers
- On Philosophy and Philosophers
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Sources
- Introduction: Rorty as a Critical Philosopher
- I Early Papers
- 1 Philosophy as Ethics
- 2 Philosophy as Spectatorship and Participation
- 3 Kant as a Critical Philosopher
- 4 The Paradox of Definitism
- 5 Reductionism
- 6 Phenomenology, Linguistic Analysis, and Cartesianism: Comments on Ricoeur
- 7 The Incommunicability of “Felt Qualities”
- 8 Kripke on Mind-Body Identity
- II Later Papers
- Index of Names
Summary
“Kant as a Critical Philosopher” constitutes Rorty’s only paper devoted exclusively to Immanuel Kant. Through a probing, sympathetic, and original account of Kant and his relation to Aristotle and Wittgenstein, Rorty develops a distinctive understanding of critical philosophy. Briefly put, a critical philosopher aims to present a vocabulary that will invalidate both skeptical attempts at undermining a given datum and foundationalist attempts at grounding it. For Rorty, the central aim of Aristotle, Kant, and Wittgenstein was precisely to develop a vocabulary of this kind – a vocabulary targeting two kinds of opponents, foundationalists and skeptics – and it is for this reason that their philosophies provoke similar reactions. This interpretative framework allows Rorty to provide an explanation for the diversity of interpretations of Kant’s oeuvre and to highlight the lasting value of Kant’s thought, which for Rorty is to “make it impossible” to think that “the task of philosophy is to provide constitutive principles that will back up regulative principles.”
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- Information
- On Philosophy and PhilosophersUnpublished Papers, 1960–2000, pp. 38 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
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