Book contents
- David Foster Wallace in Context
- David Foster Wallace in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Contexts
- Part II Ideas
- Chapter 10 David Foster Wallace and Attention
- Chapter 11 After Analysis
- Chapter 12 Perfectionism and the Ethics of Failure
- Chapter 13 The Pragmatist Possibility in David Foster Wallace’s Writings
- Chapter 14 A Tale of Two Theses
- Chapter 15 Free Will and Determinism
- Chapter 16 David Foster Wallace’s Mathematics of the Infinite
- Chapter 17 David Foster Wallace and Existentialism
- Chapter 18 David Foster Wallace and Religion
- Chapter 19 Mr. Consciousness
- Part III Bodies
- Part IV Systems
- Works by David Foster Wallace
- Bibliography of Secondary Sources
- Index
Chapter 13 - The Pragmatist Possibility in David Foster Wallace’s Writings
from Part II - Ideas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 November 2022
- David Foster Wallace in Context
- David Foster Wallace in Context
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Contexts
- Part II Ideas
- Chapter 10 David Foster Wallace and Attention
- Chapter 11 After Analysis
- Chapter 12 Perfectionism and the Ethics of Failure
- Chapter 13 The Pragmatist Possibility in David Foster Wallace’s Writings
- Chapter 14 A Tale of Two Theses
- Chapter 15 Free Will and Determinism
- Chapter 16 David Foster Wallace’s Mathematics of the Infinite
- Chapter 17 David Foster Wallace and Existentialism
- Chapter 18 David Foster Wallace and Religion
- Chapter 19 Mr. Consciousness
- Part III Bodies
- Part IV Systems
- Works by David Foster Wallace
- Bibliography of Secondary Sources
- Index
Summary
After Wittgenstein, the most immediately visible – though by no means the only – philosopher addressed in Wallace’s work is the neopragmatist Richard Rorty, whose book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature provided the title for one of Wallace’s later stories, a narrative concerned with the nature and revelation of truth. Indeed, the pragmatic concept that truth is a matter of vocabulary became one of the central pillars of Wallace’s own philosophy, as critics, including Hayes-Brady and Tracey, have shown. This chapter offers some context for reading the pragmatic strain that animates especially Wallace’s later works, including treatment of the liberal ironist and the question of the constituted other. Opening with an introduction to the history of the American pragmatic tradition, we move on to consider its direct and implicit presences in Wallace’s work, concluding with the proposal of a pragmatic model for reading Wallace’s writing in both thematic and structural frames.
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- David Foster Wallace in Context , pp. 139 - 148Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022