The Ironic Politics of Richard Rorty
developments within the field of philosophy in recent years, and the implications of those developments for political thought and practice, might do well to begin with the works of Richard Rorty.' Rorty's writings do a great deal to clarify and synthesize themes from a wide range of important thinkers, including Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, Habermas, Dewey, and Kuhn. Since much of his work consists of attempts to locate and explain his own writings in reference to these other thinkers, it provides a reference point from which to map current disputes within the postmodern movement.2 Also, Rorty's self-consciously American range of allusions and his jargon-free writing style make him more accessible to many than the works of continental philosophers. The attempt to understand Rorty's thinking does, however, present certain difficulties, despite his use of clear, even blunt language. Certain of his political views, for instance, carry connotations of human nature and natural rights which seem incompatible with his overall anti-essentialist outlook. A related difficulty is the question of whether Rorty's own writings reflect the sort of rhetorical strategies which, he argues, should replace the rigid and universalistic logics of traditional philosophy. Since Rorty's recent books consist of articles and lectures composed throughout the 1980s for various purposes, I shall attempt in this essay to provide a systematic outline of Rorty's major themes.3 In the first section I shall explore his views of reality and science, self and society, including his response to charges of "relativity" as self-refuting
The Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The encyclopedia of philosophy , The encyclopedia of philosophy , مرکز فناوری اطلاعات و اطلاع رسانی کشاورزی
The Tsadik and His Soul’s Sparks: From Kabbalah to Hasidism
The present study shows the continuity between the Safedian Kabbalistic view of the relations between the sparks of a certain soul, and the Hasidic theory, that was conceived of as innovated by and characteristic of 18th century Hasidism, as to the responsibility of the Tsadik for the sparks that belongs to his soul. In the two literatures, the rescue of a spark of one's soul is related to the beautiful captive woman that is conceived of as an externalization of an inner dimension of the righteous person, immersed in a shell.