The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method

by Richard Rorty (Editor)

The Linguistic Turn provides a rich and representative introduction to the entire historical and doctrinal range of the linguistic philosophy movement. In two retrospective essays titled "Ten Years After" and "Twenty-Five Years After," Rorty shows how his book was shaped by the time in which it was written and traces the directions philosophical study has taken since.

"All too rarely an anthology is put together that reflects imagination, command, and comprehensiveness. Rorty's collection is just such a book."— Review of Metaphysics

Genres: Philosophy, Linguistics, Language, Essays

416 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1967

About the author

Richard Rorty (1931–2007) developed a distinctive and controversial brand of pragmatism that expressed itself along two main axes. One is negative—a critical diagnosis of what Rorty takes to be defining projects of modern philosophy. The other is positive—an attempt to show what intellectual culture might look like, once we free ourselves from the governing metaphors of mind and knowledge in which the traditional problems of epistemology and metaphysics (and indeed, in Rorty's view, the self-conception of modern philosophy) are rooted. The centerpiece of Rorty's critique is the provocative account offered in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979, hereafter PMN). In this book, and in the closely related essays collected in Consequences of Pragmatism (1982, hereafter CP), Rorty's principal target is the philosophical idea of knowledge as representation, as a mental mirroring of a mind-external world. Providing a contrasting image of philosophy, Rorty has sought to integrate and apply the milestone achievements of Dewey, Hegel and Darwin in a pragmatist synthesis of historicism and naturalism. Characterizations and illustrations of a post-epistemological intellectual culture, present in both PMN (part III) and CP (xxxvii-xliv), are more richly developed in later works, such as Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989, hereafter CIS), in the popular essays and articles collected in Philosophy and Social Hope (1999), and in the four volumes of philosophical papers, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth (1991, hereafter ORT); Essays on Heidegger and Others (1991, hereafter EHO); Truth and Progress (1998, hereafter TP); and Philosophy as Cultural Politics (2007, hereafter PCP). In these writings, ranging over an unusually wide intellectual territory, Rorty offers a highly integrated, multifaceted view of thought, culture, and politics, a view that has made him one of the most widely discussed philosophers in our time.

Reviews

[Hamed Ghadiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

رورتي در اين كتاب مقالاتي را كنار هم گذاشته تا چرخش زباني در فلسفه قرن بيستم را نشان مان دهد. اين كتاب چندتا جذابيت دارد. يكي خود ماجراي چرخش زباني است كه باعث شد فلسفه بر زبان متمركز شود. دوم اينكه مقالات نوعي فلسفه ي فلسفه يا متافلسفه ارائه ميدهند. از همه مهم تر نويسنده رورتي است كه از اردوگاه تحليلي ها به اردوگاه قاره اي ها رفته است. مقالات هم به همين ترتيب چيده شده اند. از مقاله هاي پوزيتيويستي شليك و كارناپ شروع ميكند و دست آخر مقاله هاي خودش را گذاشته است.

[Zoonanism · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a few classic essays here. Carnap & Ryle were a delight

Of more interest to me were the pieces written in response to others,
like Gustav Bergmann's response to Irving Copi and his subsequent reply to Bergmann.
The back and forth draws one's attention to aspects of an essay one tends to overlook.

So much of 20th century philosophy appears to be a series of recoveries from very bold assertions made early on in the century. This collection contains many responses to ones made by early Wittgenstein in particular exposing the circularity of his assertions and the futility of his project.

Despite being the editor of this volume apart from the introduction Rorty makes no contribution, which is a blessing.

[Nabil]

I've read the introduction and a couple of pieces; this is a useful and significant work.

[Leonardo]

Este libro popularizaría el término "giro lingüístico", aunque la expresión original es de Gustav Bergman.