•  11
    This essay is a reply to commentaries by Elin Danielsen Huckerby, Yvonne Huetter‐Almerigi, and Paul Showler on Tracy Llanera's Richard Rorty: Outgrowing Modern Nihilism (2020).
  •  5
    Rorty and Nihilism
    In Alan Malachowski (ed.), A Companion to Rorty, Wiley. 2020.
    The concept of nihilism plays an interesting role in Richard Rorty's oeuvre. On the one hand, Rorty barely refers to the concept; on the other, Rorty's critics pejoratively characterize his pragmatism as nihilistic. This chapter seeks to clarify Rorty's position. It suggests that Rorty avoids the concept in order to get away from the conceptual baggage that accompanies the existential sense of the term. Rorty neither endorses the idea that human lives are meaningless nor thinks that abandoning t…Read more
  •  6
    Art of Living: Irony and Redemption from Egotism
    In Martin Müller (ed.), Handbuch Richard Rorty, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. pp. 763-776. 2023.
    In relation to the question of the art of living, this chapter articulates the opposite of Richard Rorty’s liberal ironist: the egotist. In the first section, I articulate what egotism is and who egotists are. My aim is to nominate the egotist as a useful counter-figure to the liberal ironist. In the second section, I talk about irony. I emphasize the radicalism and relevance of Rorty’s conception of irony with the help of recent literature. In the third section, I argue that the power of irony …Read more
  •  19
    Précis of Richard Rorty: Outgrowing modern nihilism
    Philosophical Forum 53 (3): 151-155. 2022.
    The Philosophical Forum, EarlyView.
  •  11
    Reply to critics
    Philosophical Forum 53 (3): 139-144. 2022.
    The Philosophical Forum, EarlyView.
  •  14
    Pragmatism, Language Games, and the Philippine Drug War
    Philosophy and Global Affairs 2 (1): 69-90. 2022.
    This article explores the claim that how we talk can inspire how we reason and act. Contemporary research suggests that the words militant Christian leaders in the Philippines use shape how they rationalize President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. Describing drug users as “sinners,” a trope in religious language, is particularly lethal. Using work on pragmatism and philosophy of language by Richard Rorty, Robert Brandom, and Lynne Tirrell, the author examines how the term “sinner” generates per…Read more
  •  246
    This chapter takes a critical look at universities from the perspective of the neopragmatist philosophy of education outlined by Richard Rorty. The chapter begins with a discussion of Rorty’s view of the ends that educational institutions properly serve in a liberal democracy. It then considers the kind of culture that Rorty takes to be conducive to those ends and the kind that is antithetical to them. Rorty sometimes characterizes the latter as a culture of ‘egotism’. After describing the main …Read more
  •  44
    A Defence of Nihilism
    Routledge. 2020.
    This book offers a philosophical defence of nihilism. The authors argue that the concept of nihilism has been employed pejoratively by almost all philosophers and religious leaders to indicate a widespread cultural crisis of truth, meaning, or morals. Many religious believers think atheism leads to moral chaos (because it leads to nihilism), and atheists typically insist that we can make life meaningful through our own actions (thereby avoiding nihilism). In this way, both sides conflate the cos…Read more
  •  39
    Richard Rorty: Outgrowing Modern Nihilism
    Palgrave Macmillan. 2020.
    The book makes a new contribution to the contemporary debates on nihilism and the sacred. Drawing on an original interpretation of Richard Rorty’s writings, it challenges the orthodox treatment of nihilism as a malaise that human beings must overcome. Instead, nihilism should be framed as a problem for human culture to outgrow through pragmatism.
  •  19
    Richard Rorty: rethinking redemption in modernity
    Dissertation, Macquarie University. 2015.
    Theoretical thesis.
  •  71
    Disavowing Hate
    Journal of Philosophical Research 44 13-31. 2019.
    This article tracks how group egotists disavow their hate group identity. Group egotists are individuals born and raised in hate groups. The well-documented exit cases of Megan Phelps-Roper (Westboro Baptist Church) and Derek Black (White Nationalism) prove that hate group indoctrination can be undermined. A predominantly epistemic approach, which focuses on argument and conversational virtues, falls short in capturing the complexity of their apostasies. I turn to pragmatism for conceptual suppo…Read more
  •  1478
    Ethnocentrism: Lessons from Richard Rorty to Randy David
    Philippine Sociological Review 65 133-149. 2017.
    This article engages Richard Rorty’s controversial concept of ethnocentrism with the help of Randolf (Randy) S. David’s writings. The first section defines Rorty’s concept of ethnocentrism and responds to the general criticisms of relativism and divisiveness that have been made against it. The second section suggests a conceptual replacement for Rorty’s notion of a vicious ethnocentrism: egotism. Egotism is a kind of cultural ethnocentrism that is resistant to openness, creativity, and social tr…Read more
  •  26
    Pragmatist Transcendence in Rorty’s Metaphilosophy
    Analyse & Kritik 41 (1): 97-116. 2019.
    This article argues that a pragmatist ambition to transcendence undergirds Richard Rorty’s metaphilosophy. That transcendence might play a positive role in Rorty’s work might seem implausible given his well-known rejection of the idea that human practices are accountable to some external, Archimedean standpoint, and his endorsement of the historicist view that standards of rationality are products of time and chance. It is true that Rorty’s contributions to epistemology, philosophy of mind and m…Read more
  •  14
    To de-essentialize, to break up the lump, to pick over these traditions and institutions one by one, and see what use they have for our present purposes - this is the path that Richard Rorty navigates in order to make his mark in the realm of philosophical thinking. He ruptures intellectual discourse by being flagrantly anti- philosophical, as made manifest by his avoidance of the ironic act of asking essentialistic yet unanswerable questions such as What is being? What is human nature? What can…Read more
  •  28
    A Copernican revolution heralds a grand renovation of a tradition of knowledge. In science—the discipline from which the concept originates—it aptly connotes a paradigm shift from a previously accepted notion of reality. It is upon this conceptualization that John Dewey wrote: “Kant claimed that he had effected a Copernican revolution in philosophy by treating the world and our knowledge of it from the standpoint of the knowing subject.” For the Enlightenment thinker, traditional philosophy cons…Read more
  •  24
    Rethinking nihilism
    Philosophy and Social Criticism 42 (9): 937-950. 2016.
    The idea of nihilism continues to figure prominently in philosophical debates about the problems of modernity. The aim of this article is to consider how Richard Rorty’s work might advance these debates. The article begins with a discussion of the problem of nihilism as it appears in the recent exchange between Charles Taylor, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly. It then brings Rorty into the conversation by considering his reflections on egotism and his proposed antidote to it: self-enlargement. I pr…Read more
  •  18
    Richard Rorty and the concept of redemption
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 82 (2): 103-118. 2017.
    It is curious why a secular pragmatist like Richard Rorty would capitalize on the religiously-laden concept of redemption in his recent writings. But more than being an intriguing idea in his later work, this essay argues that redemption plays a key role in the historical development of Rorty’s thought. It begins by exploring the paradoxical status of redemption in Rorty’s oeuvre. It then investigates an overlooked debate between Rorty, Dreyfus and Taylor that first endorses the concept. It then…Read more
  •  45
    Rethinking nihilism: Rorty vs Taylor, Dreyfus and Kelly
    Philosophy and Social Criticism 42 (9): 937-950. 2016.
    The idea of nihilism continues to figure prominently in philosophical debates about the problems of modernity. The aim of this article is to consider how Richard Rorty’s work might advance these debates. The article begins with a discussion of the problem of nihilism as it appears in the recent exchange between Charles Taylor, Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly. It then brings Rorty into the conversation by considering his reflections on egotism and his proposed antidote to it: self-enlargement. I pr…Read more
  •  1866
    Morality by Words: Murdoch, Nussbaum, Rorty
    Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture 18 (1): 1-17. 2014.
    Despite the initial strangeness of grouping Iris Murdoch (a Platonist), Martha Nussbaum (an Aristotelian), and Richard Rorty (a pragmatist) together, this paper will argue that these thinkers share a strong commitment to the moral purport of literature. I will also show that their shared idea of moral engagement through literature interlocks the individual’s sense of self and the world of others. After considering their accounts, I will conclude by raising the question of literature’s moral limi…Read more
  •  151
    Redeeming Rorty’s Private–Public Distinction
    Contemporary Pragmatism 13 (3): 319-340. 2016.
    Rorty uses the private–public distinction as a conceptual tool to uphold the ideal of self–creation (Romanticism) simultaneously to the ideal of solidarity (Enlightenment liberalism). The difficulty of accommodating these two apparently opposing ideals has led Rorty to make inconsistent and contradictory claims about the private–public distinction. This article suggests a way of easing the tension that exists around Rorty’s formulations of the distinction. It does so by turning to the thematic o…Read more
  •  150
    Alive Beyond Death! Ricoeur and the Immortalizing Narrative of the Self
    Philosophical Frontiers: A Journal of Emerging Thought 5 (1): 37-42. 2010.
    -
  •  55
    Richard Rorty and the concept of redemption
    International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1-16. 2016.
    It is curious why a secular pragmatist like Richard Rorty would capitalize on the religiously-laden concept of redemption in his recent writings. But more than being an intriguing idea in his later work, this essay argues that redemption plays a key role in the historical development of Rorty’s thought. It begins by exploring the paradoxical status of redemption in Rorty’s oeuvre. It then investigates an overlooked debate between Rorty, Dreyfus and Taylor that first endorses the concept. It then…Read more
  • All Things Shining (review)
    Kritike 6 (1): 119-125. 2012.
  •  28
    Of Private Selves and Public Morals: Philosophy and Literature in Modernity
    In Philippa Kelly, Emily Finlay & Tom Clark (eds.), Worldmaking: Literature, Language, Culture, Fillm Studies in Languages and. pp. 77-86. 2017.
    What is the moral, spiritual, and educative function of philosophy and literature in modern lives? Such a large question is rarely posed by philosophers or literary theorists these days, but one philosopher who has put it at the top of his agenda is Richard Rorty. His general answer is that both literature and philosophy serve distinct ends: the private end of personal fulfilment through the redescription of experiences and the possibility of self-creation, and the public end of expanded horizon…Read more
  •  932
    Coming to Grips with Realism (review)
    Critical Horizons 18 (3): 281-288. 2017.
    Retrieving Realism renders the joint philosophical goals of Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor into what is probably their final and most concise form. It has two main objectives: first, it aims to deconstruct the mediationalism that undergirds Western philosophy, and second, it endorses contact theory, or embodied/embedded coping, as an alternative. In this essay, I present the book’s most salient themes and reveal areas that are ripe for further philosophical consideration. I also direct the re…Read more