Values, Valuations, and Axiological Norms in Richard Rorty's Neopragmatism: Studies, Polemics, Interpretations [Hardcover]

Richard Rorty is perhaps the most famous American philosopher internationally, and his later, neopragmatist philosophy is decidedly one of his most commented upon. Values, Valuations, and Axiological Norms in Richard Rorty's Neopragmatism proposes different themes in order to delve into the enormous potential that Rorty's later philosophical thought possesses, using the perspective of the axiological and normative dimensions. With reference to philosophers such as Kant, Dewey, Santayana, and Kolakowski, Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski argues that a democratic society is the basic axiological framework and that Rortys normative focus is the melioration of democratic society. The novelty of this philosophy is that it pays special attention to discourses, narratives, and story-telling as containing within themselves axiological and normative aspects. This book presents these discourses as a way of constructing and reconstructing social reality, rather than as a means of describing reality from a detached perspective. According to this framework, human activity, well-being, and solidarity with other people should be evoked by us much more than any reference to God, the Truth, or absolute Values. This book is written for anyone with interests in American philosophy, intellectual history, or political philosophy.Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski is associate professor at the Institute of Philosophy, Opole University.

Values, Valuations, and Axiological Norms is an excellent work. Skowronskis arguments, analyses, and insights are new and important. These arguments are not only interesting, but persuasive, and Skowronski offers, besides the well-known approaches, new insights for the readers. This is a major contribution to the overall picture of Richard Rorty, especially in the sense that the author shows main features of Rortys neopragmatismhis basic values, the principles of contingency and relativity, re-description, the public-private split, liberal utopia, etc.from Rortyl³R