Richard Rorty: Politics and Vision [Hardcover]

Christopher Voparil has written a very intelligent book on an essential but elusive political thinker: anyone interested in understanding the irony (and contingency) of Rortys vision of liberalism will want to read it.The writting is clean and direct, something not easily achieved in the field, and one finsihes the book wanting further conversation with both Rorty and Voparil. Recommended.A superb analysis of Rortys political thought and of the diverse sources that inform it. By reading thinkers such as Hume, Emerson, Dewey, Whitman, and Thoreau both with and against Rorty, Voparil makes a rich contribution to democratic theory and masterfully identifies the distinctive insights and limits of pragmatist political thought.This book offers a fresh perspective on Richard Rorty by situating his work in the arena of political theory. Reinterpreting Rorty's much-maligned antirepresentationalism as a Romantic affirmation of the power of imaginative writing, Voparil firmly grounds Rorty in an American tradition that includes not only James and Dewey, but Emerson, Whitman, and James Baldwin, and initiates an overdue reassessment of this important thinker's value to the political discourse of the 21st century.The first full-length work devoted to Richard Rorty from the perspective of political theory, this book offers a fresh assessment of the promise of the renowned pragmatist's project. Framing Rorty's discourse as one of meaning and persuasion rather than truth and accuracy of representation, Voparil sheds new light on many of Rorty's most misunderstood and maligned stances, including his practice of 'redescription' and disavowal of 'getting it right,' as well as his embrace of the novel and 'sentimental education.' As political theory, Rorty's perspective, not unlike Sheldon Wolin's, values the imagination, the ability to come up with new metaphors and angles of vision, and is driven by a deep desire to reinvigorate a moribund and detached contemporary left. Voparil's lă•