The Ironist and the Romantic: Reading Richard Rorty and Stanley Cavell

by Áine Mahon

Overview

At the time of his death in 2007, Richard Rorty was widely acclaimed as one of the world's most influential contemporary thinkers. Stanley Cavell, who has been a leading intellectual figure from the 1960s to the present, has been just as philosophically influential as Rorty though perhaps not as politically divisive. Both philosophers have developed from analytic to post-analytical thought, both move between philosophy, literature and cultural politics, and both re-establish American philosophical traditions in a new and nuanced key.

The Ironist and the Romantic: Reading Richard Rorty and Stanley Cavell finds the sound of Rorty's cheerful pragmatism strikingly at odds with the anxious romanticism of Cavell. Beginning from this tonal discord, and moving through comprehensive comparative analysis on the topics of scepticism, American philosophy, literature, writing style and politics, this book presents the work of its central figures in a novel and mutually illuminating perspective. Á?ine Mahon's unique and original comparative reading will be of interest not only to those working on Rorty and Cavell but to anyone concerned with the current state of American philosophy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474265898
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/19/2015
Series:	Bloomsbury Studies in American Philosophy
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Áine Mahon is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar in the Department of Philosophy at The New School for Social Research, New York, USA.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Returban of the Invisible Tomato
2. What's the Use of Calling Cavell a Pragmatist?
3. The Turban to Literature
4. Stylists of the Philosophical
5. The Personal and the Political
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"In different ways, Stanley Cavell and Richard Rorty each argued that in philosophy at its highest levels of accomplishment voice and sensibility are inseparable from content and argument. Áine Mahon's comparative study situates and assesses their claims in relation to wider issues about knowledge, literature, politics, and public life, pitting Cavell's pursuit of intense exemplarity against Rorty's commitment to ironically qualified solidarity. Her work will be indispensable to anyone concerned to think about American philosophy's pasts, publics, and prospects." --Richard Eldridge, Charles and Harriett Cox McDowell Professor of Philosophy, Swarthmore College

"Ranging from Emerson to Wittgenstein, and from pragmatism to postmodernism, with many other topics and themes in between, The Ironist and the Romantic reveals just how rich and varied the American philosophical conversation has been, and, perhaps even more importantly, just how necessary it is to keep the conversation going." --Martin Woessner, Associate Professor of History & Society, The City College of New York, USA and author of Heidegger in America.

"Charting separate tracks through the perilous thickets of philosophizing after Wittgenstein, both Richard Rorty and Stanley Cavell have refused the hollow clichés and boastful promises by which far too much of contemporary philosophy lets itself off the hook. How can we fully confront the unmooring of foundations, the persistence of disagreement, and other fraying problems of our cultural present? In launching a comparative study of Cavell and Rorty, Áine Mahon has her finger on the pulse of the humanities today in all of their strange rhythms. With clear prose and catchy phrase, Mahon develops productive engagements with Rorty, Cavell, literature, film, and the philosophy of philosophy. In so doing, she motivates our engagement with two of the best options available to us in the philosophical present, and she shows how these options both refract and resist one another." --Colin Koopman, University of Oregon, author of 'Pragmatism as Transition' and 'Genealogy as Critique', USA.

From the Publisher

Ranging from Emerson to Wittgenstein, and from pragmatism to postmodernism, with many other topics and themes in between, The Ironist and the Romantic reveals just how rich and varied the American philosophical conversation has been, and, perhaps even more importantly, just how necessary it is to keep the conversation going.

Martin Woessner

Charting separate tracks through the perilous thickets of philosophizing after Wittgenstein, both Richard Rorty and Stanley Cavell have refused the hollow clichés and boastful promises by which far too much of contemporary philosophy lets itself off the hook. How can we fully confront the unmooring of foundations, the persistence of disagreement, and other fraying problems of our cultural present? In launching a comparative study of Cavell and Rorty, Áine Mahon has her finger on the pulse of the humanities today in all of their strange rhythms. With clear prose and catchy phrase, Mahon develops productive engagements with Rorty, Cavell, literature, film, and the philosophy of philosophy. In so doing, she motivates our engagement with two of the best options available to us in the philosophical present, and she shows how these options both refract and resist one another.

Colin Koopman

In different ways, Stanley Cavell and Richard Rorty each argued that in philosophy at its highest levels of accomplishment voice and sensibility are inseparable from content and argument. Áine Mahon's comparative study situates and assesses their claims in relation to wider issues about knowledge, literature, politics, and public life, pitting Cavell's pursuit of intense exemplarity against Rorty's commitment to ironically qualified solidarity. Her work will be indispensable to anyone concerned to think about American philosophy's pasts, publics, and prospects.

Richard Eldridge