History of the Human Sciences

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Richard Rorty's Pragmatism and the Social Sciences

Patrick Baert
History of the Human Sciences 2002; 15; 139
DOI: 10.1177/0952695102015001121

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HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES Vol. 15 No. 1

© 2001 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) pp. 139–149
[0952-6951(200202)15:1;119–138; 023121]

Richard Rorty’s Pragmatism

and the Social Sciences
PATRICK BAERT

Richard Rorty (1998) Achieving our Country. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press.
Richard Rorty (1999) Philosophy and Social Hope. Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
Robert B. Brandom (ed.) (2000) Rorty and its Critics. Oxford: Black-
well.
John Pettegrew (ed.) (2000) A Pragmatist’s Progress? Richard Rorty
and American Intellectual History. New York: Rowman & Little-
field.
Matthew Festenstein and Simon Thompson (eds.) (2001) Richard
Rorty: Critical Dialogues. Cambridge: Polity Press.

THE SYNTHESIZING INTELLECTUAL

In 1993 Edward Said was asked to give the Reith Lectures, an honour
bestowed on those intellectuals who occupy a prominent place in their field
of inquiry, but who are also able to transcend disciplinary boundaries. Reith
lecturers are meant to explain complex ideas in an accessible manner to a
broadly educated audience. Said decided to choose ‘representations of the
intellectual’ as the title of the series (Said, 1994). The lectures were meant to
explore the various ways in which intellectuals represent themselves to
themselves and to others, how they construct and project their persona. His
reflections soon drifted off to the Middle East, American politics and

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140 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(1)

contemporary academia, and his original theme was never developed fully,
which was a shame because the question of how intellectuals introduce and
position themselves is well worth exploring. It certainly provides an
interesting angle for looking at the writings of Richard Rorty.
There are, one may say, two ways in which intellectuals introduce
themselves. There are, on the one hand, those who represent their ideas as a
novel approach with little indebtedness to a broader intellectual tradition and,
in general, few references to others. In philosophy the likes of Nietzsche and
the later Wittgenstein epitomize this myth of the enfant terrible; in sociology
Goffman springs to mind. There are, on the other hand, those who portray
themselves as synthesizers, and purport to be capturing or anticipating the
Zeitgeist by linking various contributions. In social theory, one may think of
Parsons’ structural-functionalism or Habermas’ theory of communicative
action. One should not forget, however, that the difference, as articulated here,
is one of representation. It is frequently the case that enfants terribles have
borrowed more from others than they seem willing to acknowledge, and
conversely, synthesizers often have little in common with the traditions in
which they want to steep themselves. For instance, the impact of structuralism
and French history of science on the early Michel Foucault was stronger than
he ever admitted, whilst Giddens’ references to Heidegger as a fellow-traveller
seem far-fetched to anyone remotely familiar with the work of both.
This raises the question why some present themselves as lone geniuses and
others as standing on the shoulders of giants. One might, of course, be inclined
to refer to psychological dispositions – an increasingly fashionable hypothesis
in the light of the proliferation of popular biographies of intellectual figures.
This is, however, only part of the answer; another part surely lies in the nature
of the intellectual field in which the intellectuals operate. For instance, it is a
tradition of German (and, to a lesser extent, Anglo-Saxon) social theory to
locate oneself in a tradition, to build on the writings of past masters, and to
exhibit humility in the face of their accumulated wisdom. It is the tradition of
analytical philosophy not to do so, to deny a tradition, to mention past figures
only in so far as one has surpassed them so as to show the kind of progress
one has made. The two represent almost incommensurable worlds. To an
analytical philosopher, for instance, most of the 800 pages of The Theory of
Communicative Action are redundant; one does not need to read about how
Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Mead almost said what Habermas wants to say
in order to assess what he has to say. His central thesis could be formulated
in, say, a tenth of the current size of the two volumes. To the German social
theorist, on the other hand, analytical philosophers are misguided in locating
their technical problems outside language and tradition. They deny what
cannot be denied – the power of tradition.
Richard Rorty is undoubtedly a synthesizer. Philosophy and the Mirror of
Nature (1980) is a journey through both Anglo-Saxon and Continental

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REVIEW ARTICLE 141

philosophy. Anglo-Saxon philosophers like Quine, Davidson and Sellars

helped Rorty to climb the ladder of analytical philosophy all the way and
then kick it away (a Wittgensteinian metaphor used by Rorty himself [1999:
xxii]), whereas Continental philosophy enabled him to substitute an edifying
philosophy centred around Bildung for epistemology. Whereas Philosophy
and the Mirror of Nature suggested an eclectic taste, in Consequences of
Pragmatism (1982) Rorty located himself as deeply indebted to American
pragmatism. John Dewey had now come to the foreground, a position he has
been able to maintain since.2 In 1989 followed Irony, Contingency and
Solidarity, an appeal for an anti-foundational political theory, equally
synthesizing as the previous works, but reaching far beyond philosophy with
critical readings of various literary figures. In the course of the 1990s, Rorty
published the three volumes of Philosophical Papers (1991, 1995, 1998),
ranging from Habermas’ theory of truth to Clifford Geertz’s reflections on
ethnocentrism. Together with Charles Taylor, Rorty is one of the rare
philosophers with such wide range, commenting on and integrating so many
authors and viewpoints, not just in philosophy, but also in aligned disciplines.
It is unsurprising that he has not held a formal appointment in a philosophy
department since the early 1980s,3 not only because he preached ‘the end of
Philosophy’ (sic), but also because he treated other literary products as on a
par with philosophy, read widely and cut across disciplinary boundaries. The
way he writes, weaving threads through the writings of various authors, is at
odds with the dominant analytical tradition, which he, as we know, has been
trying to debunk and undermine ever since the 1970s. So his style and
content, self-presentation and thought are perfectly in harmony with one
another.
We should not forget, however, that the distinction between the enfants
terribles and synthesizers is one of presentation. Synthesizers have sometimes
remarkably little in common with their alleged inspirational sources, and they
are often far more innovative than the label may lead us to think. Both
qualifications hold for Rorty, which hint at both a negative and a more
positive assessment of his accomplishments. Firstly, a recurrent and probably
justified criticism of his writings is that they are weak on accuracy, especially
when it comes to reconstructing the ideas of others. One is always
invigorated after reading what Rorty wrote about what others had to say, but
this sensation is rapidly followed by a sneaking suspicion that one has learnt
more about Rorty’s world than about whom Rorty was writing. Hence,
Dennett coined the ‘Rorty factor’: ‘take whatever Rorty says about anyone’s
views and multiply it by .742 to derive what they actually said’. Secondly,
Rorty is also a true innovator, not simply skilful in re-articulating and
reassembling what others have written, but able to open up new worlds,
empowering us to see things very differently. There is probably an element
of truth in the accusation by some that Rorty’s views can hardly be called

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142 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(1)

‘pragmatist’, not in the least because their allegiance to the ‘linguistic turn’ in
philosophy is far removed from the philosophies of Peirce, James and even
Dewey. This is not a damning criticism, however. If anything, it demonstrates
the distinctiveness of Rorty’s position, his unique contribution to philo-
sophy, literary theory and, frankly, to the humanities in general.
The uniqueness of Rorty’s view meant that his writings, from Philosophy
and the Mirror of Nature to the last volume of the Philosophical Papers, have
been controversial, especially and predictably in professional philosophical
circles. After all, he asked us to abandon some widespread and deep-seated
conceptions about philosophy and epistemology. He requested that we
relinquish any transcendental forms of inquiry that supposedly provide
atemporal foundations for aesthetic, ethical and knowledge-related claims; it
is simply impossible to ‘step outside history’ because any position, whether
about beauty, morals or knowledge, is ‘situated’. He suggested that we
forsake philosophical debates if they do not have visible consequences,
targeting especially what he saw as pointless debates about the inner nature
of things where there was no way of deciding between competing views.
Rorty thought that it would also be better if we dropped the numerous
attempts at defining truth or presenting theories of truth if by truth is meant
something unconditional or a correspondence to an absolute reality. Taking
a leaf from James’ book, he decided we should only retain a notion of truth
if it is defined in terms of successful consequences. Rorty urged that we
abandon the ‘spectator theory of knowledge’, according to which knowledge
is about representing the essence of an outer world; it is highly misleading to
conceive of knowledge as mirroring the inner nature of the external realm.
Like Dewey, he suggested that we treat knowledge as a type of action, as a
way of meeting our desires. Denouncing the conspicuous position of epis-
temology in contemporary philosophy, Rorty proposed instead an edifying
form of philosophy, partly inspired by Gadamer’s hermeneutics, in which we
no longer search for atemporal foundations, but re-describe ourselves in
conversation with others.

R O RT Y A N D T H E H U M A N S C I E N C E S

With these ideas, it is hardly surprising that Rorty has tended to be a philoso-
pher for non-philosophers. Stopping short of making analytical philosophers
unemployable, his writings were dismissed by them as ‘slapdash’ (Williams,
1990: 26). The less welcome in American philosophy departments, the more
Rorty became widely read and admired in literature and cultural studies
departments, and once Irony, Contingency and Solidarity came out, several
political theorists joined in and decided to take seriously his ideas. The last
decade has seen a flurry of edited books on Rorty’s work, starting with

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REVIEW ARTICLE 143

Reading Rorty (1990) by Malachowski, and recently Brandom’s Rorty and its
Critics, Pettegrew’s A Pragmatist’s Progress?, and Festenstein and Thomp-
son’s Richard Rorty. Not only these edited collections, but also Rorty’s
Achieving our Country and Philosophy and Social Hope, which are written
in a remarkably jovial, accessible and non-technical manner, may help to
introduce the Rorty phenomenon to an even wider audience.
The edited books certainly fill some gaps in the literature. Analysing the
philosophical side of Rorty’s argument, Brandom’s volume is closest to
Malachowski’s, but it manages to present 13 contributions by leading
philosophers with thoughtful replies by Rorty on each. Also, whereas the
Malachowski collection, which came out more than a decade ago, centred on
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and Consequences of Pragmatism, the
contributions to Brandom cover all major works of Rorty in the 20th century.
The contributors to Pettegrew’s collection are mainly historians, and it is
probably the first collection to treat the relevance of Rorty to intellectual
history. The timing of this book is important, coming out a couple of years
after Rorty’s own Achieving our Country, which in turn presents an
intellectual history of the American Left. Several contributions to A
Pragmatist’s Progress? engage with the arguments put forward in Achieving
our Country. There is a chapter by Rorty himself at the end of A Pragmatist’s
Progress? in which he supposedly discusses the various papers; in fact he
hardly engages with them. Festenstein and Thompson’s book is different
again in that several of its chapters explore the relevance of Rorty to social
and political theory. Rorty replies to each contribution with great wit and
intelligence, and completes the collection with a previously unpublished
paper. For the uninitiated, Brandom’s and Festenstein’s succinct and lucid
introductions will be especially welcome.
Based on his Massey lectures at Harvard, Achieving our Country is an
attempt to define a viable and vibrant position for the American Left. The
lectures also entail a two-stage history of the American Left in the 20th
century, in which the ‘Reformist Left’ of enlightened liberals such as John
Dewey dominated the scene until the 1960s, and were succeeded by the
Marxist ‘New Left’ of C. Wright Mills and Christopher Lash (Rorty, 1998:
1–72). It is very clear where Rorty’s sympathies lie. Whereas the Reformist
Left was liberal, tolerant and democratic, the New Left was Marxist and doc-
trinaire. The achievements of the New Left should, of course, not be under-
estimated. For example, it is difficult to imagine Nixon’s disengagement from
the Vietnam War without the tremendous efforts of left-wing scholars and
activists in the late 1960s and early 1970s, or at least one can expect the war
to have taken much longer if it was not for the New Left (Rorty, 1988: 65–8).
But the failure of the New Left was to not recognize the radical potential of
the ‘Deweyan, pragmatic participatory Left’ and so to be unable to appeal to
a broader liberal tradition. In the end, the New Left culminated in the

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144 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(1)

‘Cultural Left’, a strange mixture of postmodern and Marxist theory, that

became immensely popular in literature and cultural studies departments.
Drawing on the work of Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, the members
of the Cultural Left see themselves as a progressive force, as the vanguards of
an imminent politico-cultural revolution. But nothing is further from the
truth. They adopt a highly self-referential discourse that is devoid of social
significance. Their writings are hopelessly abstract, and ultimately without
political vision, let alone hope (Rorty, 1998: 75–107).
This is not a carefully argued academic volume, but a passionate piece
about his dreams of a better society. These dreams, so we learn, have not
changed substantially from those of the young Rorty. Inspired by John
Dewey and Walt Whitman, they intimate a secularized and classless America
with an overpowering sense of social justice (Rorty, 1998: 1–38). This is an
America of agency rather than contemplation, of policy rather than abstract
theorizing. It is an America of socially responsible individuals who act in the
world so as to make it better rather than theorize so as to become a more
sophisticated spectator. It is an America that is proud of its origins and its
project rather than one that is self-loathing, one of hope rather than one that
regards itself as irredeemable. Needless to say, the United States has deviated
from that course for a long time, cultivating a large underclass and deficient
welfare provisions, and adopting pernicious strategies abroad. But this
should not lead Americans to abandon hope in the poetry and vision that
once directed the country. There is still a possibility for them to ‘achieve’ their
country.
Whereas Achieving our Country has a clear agenda, Philosophy and Social
Hope is an eclectic selection of articles about various topics, ranging from
Umberto Eco’s semiotics to Thomas Kuhn’s history of science. The articles
were originally published between 1989 and 1997. A couple of chapters
include lucid expositions of Rorty’s views on science and ethics and, given
their non-technical nature, they are bound to be useful introductions for
those unfamiliar with his ideas. The other chapters have remarkably little in
common with each other, but they are all accessible and easy to read. What
is most striking about this collection of essays is that some of the central
ideas of Achieving our Country are already present, though in an embryonic
form. In ‘Trotsky and the Wild Orchids’, originally published in 1992, he
already accused the postmodern Left of presenting an unnecessarily bleak
picture of contemporary American society as if irredeemably poisoned by
instrumental rationality and exploitation (Rorty, 1999: 3–22). He rejoins in
the same optimistic way as six years later: ‘I see America pretty much as
Whitman and Dewey did, as opening a prospect of illimitable democratic
visas. I think that our country – despite its past and present atrocities and
vices, and despite its continuous eagerness to elect fools and knaves – is a
good example of the best kind of society so far invented’ (Rorty, 1999: 4).

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REVIEW ARTICLE 145

Like Achieving our Country, ‘Trotsky and the Wild Orchids’ has an auto-
biographical flavour. We learn about his socialist-cum-pragmatist back-
ground at home and the anti-pragmatism of his teachers at Chicago and Yale.
We learn about his hopes as a student to enter the Platonic guild of King
Philosophers and his subsequent despair in realizing that there is little value
in that urge (Rorty, 1999: 5–14).
The similarities between the two books do not end there. Both books
devote relatively large sections to the state of contemporary academia, in
particular the humanities. In ‘The Pragmatist’s Progress: Umberto Eco on
Interpretation’, which originally came out in 1992, Rorty attacks those
uninspiring literary critics who read texts through a rigid framework with the
intention of demonstrating the applicability of the frame of reference, and
with the effect of reinforcing the framework (Rorty, 1999: 131–47). Whether
the framework is feminist, deconstructionist or otherwise, there is no scope
in this cynical game for being surprised or affected by the text. In this
ritualistic act, the text is reduced to a medium through which the framework
gets reproduced rather than a source of inspiration or novelty. Against this
practice, Rorty appeals for critics to embark on ‘unmethodical criticism’,
which ‘. . . uses the author or text not as a specimen reiterating a type but as
an occasion for changing a previously accepted taxonomy, or for putting a
new twist on a previously told story’ (Rorty, 1999: 145). In Achieving our
Country, Rorty continues his crusade against the majority of contemporary
literary and cultural critics, denouncing members of the Cultural Left for
being spectators rather than players. They are spectators because they tend
to ‘Gothicize’: they invoke preternatural forces, ubiquitous Foucauldian
power networks that supposedly transcend people’s ability to counteract
them. They are also spectators because they erroneously take Derrida-
inspired readings, the ones that ‘problematize familiar concepts’, to be
political acts (Rorty, 1999: 75–107).
Both books are remarkably harsh on Marx and Marxist theory. I already
mentioned the extent to which a critical assessment of the Marxist Left is
central to Rorty’s argument in his Achieving our Country. One of the essays
in Philosophy and Social Hope, ‘Failed Prophecies, Glorious Hopes’ (Rorty,
1999: 201–9), originally published in the same year as Achieving our Country,
continues this line, and explores the similarities between Marxism and
Christianity. This time Rorty acknowledges the achievements of Marxist-
inspired political movements, but deplores the 19th century urge to discover
the iron laws of societal development, the mythical belief that knowledge of
historical patterns will enable us to anticipate future developments. He
laments this strongly held conviction that the past somehow holds the key
for a glorious future, that the laws will hold tomorrow and the day after
tomorrow as they have always done so in the past. If only Marxists would
have been more sensitive to the pragmatist’s insistence on what George

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146 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(1)

Herbert Mead called the ‘incurable openness of the future’, they might not
have succumbed to an enticing, but deeply flawed, eschatological view of
history. If only Marxists had taken critical rationalism more seriously, they
would have been aware and wary of the irrefutable nature of Marx’s
prophecies, and they would have realized that a theory that does not exclude
much ultimately does not explain anything. If only Marxists had understood
a glimpse of Dewey’s piecemeal views of policy, they might have concluded
that the various totalitarian regimes under the name of Marxism cannot be
dismissed as unfortunate aberrations, mere accidents of history, but are
strong indications that there is something wrong with the creed itself.

SOME CRITICAL COMMENTS

It is difficult not to have sympathy with the political views expressed so

vividly in Achieving our Country. Not only does its semi-autobiographical
style help the reader to identify with the author and his ideas; it is simply
difficult to reject utopian ideals such as that of a ‘. . . cooperative common-
wealth . . . which ensures equality of opportunity as well as individual liberty’
(Rorty, 1998: 8). A closer look, however, finds the book wanting, even for
someone like me who is on the whole sympathetic to Rorty’s pragmatist
philosophy. Whitman’s and even Dewey’s romantic visions of American
society were notoriously obscure, and Rorty does not add much to specify
them. It is difficult to see how these ideas, if at all, differ from the ones
expressed by John Stuart Mill and other progressive liberals. In contrast with,
say, Habermas, Rorty does not make any effort to outline how these prag-
matist ideas can provide a stepping stone towards a critical assessment of
society. It is also not clear why a progressive agenda for American intellec-
tuals needs to be embedded in an American intellectual tradition, let alone
why it needs to be associated with the patriotic outlook that Rorty is pro-
moting. Does Rorty wholeheartedly believe that it is possible to develop a
truly progressive agenda for the 21st century that remains deeply embedded
in an overtly nationalistic outlook? Rorty is probably right that we need
some pride in ourselves in order to be constructive political agents, and it is
equally true that belief in ourselves may rest upon allegiance to a collective
entity, but it is unclear to me why this entity has to be the nation.
Equally unconvincing is his view that the New Left made a fatal error in
embracing Marxism. It is, of course, unfortunate that some fractions of the
New Left subscribed to the totalitarian, non-democratic features of Marxist
thought, but the fascination of the New Left with Marxist philosophy
was on the whole intellectually well-founded. Marxist theory provided a
perspicacious economic and sociological theory of society, unmatched by any
pragmatist contribution to date, and crucial in providing both intellectual

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REVIEW ARTICLE 147

structure to and motivational energy for agency. It is probably true that

philosophy, educational science and social psychology would have been
poorer if it was not for the contributions of Dewey and G. H. Mead, but their
social theories do not compare with that of Marx. Combined with psycho-
analysis, the Marxism of Herbert Marcuse, Eric Fromm and others provided
imaginative and penetrating analyses that fed into political action. The fact
that these ideas are no longer as innovative as they were then does not take
away their value at the time. Reading through Philosophy and Social Hope
only confirms the view that Rorty’s knowledge of Marx is limited, and he
says so much himself (Popper, 1999: 210–11). The essay ‘Failed Prophecies,
Glorious Hopes’ seems to reduce the whole of Marx’s corpus to the
Communist Manifesto. Like Karl Popper, Rorty has an unfortunate tendency
simply to reduce Marxism to an unhappy alliance of historicism and
totalitarianism, and again like Popper, he fails to recognize the immense depth
and breadth of a Marxist framework and what a powerful tool it is for
dissecting and ultimately changing society. At least Popper wrote his political
pamphlets against Marxism in a highly-charged socio-political context.4
Rorty does not have that excuse.
The most fruitful passages in both books are, for me, the ones devoted to
the current state of the humanities, the ones in which he exposes the sterile,
repetitive scholarship that is often conducted under the banner of ‘theory’ or
‘critical theory’. These reflections are not simply relevant to literature
departments, because ‘theory’ is equally misused in sociology and other
social sciences. The system of research grants, as currently in place in several
countries, does not help: from the outset researchers are requested to commit
themselves to a theoretical framework that is supposed to ‘guide’ or ‘inform’
the research. However, ‘guiding’ or ‘informing’ here means a blinkered way
of seeing things – reading the social so as to reinforce the very pre-
suppositions that fuel the research. Researchers are encouraged to use
recognizable frameworks, the ones associated with names of celebrated
theoreticians. Whether the theory is Foucauldian or inspired by Pierre
Bourdieu, whether the object of research is a soap opera or the welfare state,
the assumption is that a piece of research is successful if it shows conclusively
that the framework can be applied here as well. Whereas research in the
humanities should enhance our imaginative capacities and open up new
futures, this form of ‘theory-inspired research’ does precisely the opposite: it
closes off new experiences. However risqué or avant-garde this research
would like to present itself as, it is in the end intellectually deeply
conservative, using the object of study not to learn something new, but to
reinforce what is already presupposed.
Rorty is right to believe that a plausible solution to the impasse may lie in
pragmatism, but he is plainly wrong that this answer means abandoning
theory altogether (Rorty, 1998: 91). Even if we tried to do so, we would not

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148 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(1)

be able to because, as Rorty himself has pointed out, our presuppositions are
sine qua non to any knowledge whatsoever. It is better to be aware of what
theory we use, rather than deny what cannot be denied: that we are holding
one. A coherent pragmatist response, for me, culminates in the view that it
ought to be intrinsic to the vocation of researchers always to remain open-
minded enough so that their presuppositions and expectations can be affected
by the studies they embark upon. Success is then no longer measured by the
extent to which a theory has been shown to ‘fit’ the data neatly, the extent to
which the various components of the theory are shown to weave easily into
the myriad of empirical experiences. Instead, it is the ability to see things
differently, to form a Gestalt switch, that is a sign of success. As early as the
late 19th century, Nietzsche had already anticipated this Gadamerian view
when he introduced the genealogical method of history. What is the point of
sitting in archives from dawn until dusk, Nietzsche asks historians, if the data
collected do not somehow affect the present, if they do not help to invigorate
us? Anticipating Rorty’s own appeal for a conversational and edifying
philosophy (Rorty, 1980: 357–94), genealogy confronts the past so as to help
create distance from our present presuppositions, so as to help people
imagine future alternatives to present conditions. Foucault aptly called this
approach a ‘history of the present’ in that the confrontation with an
unfamiliar past is used to gain access to and erode a familiar present (see also
Baert, 1998).

NOTES

1 My thanks to Alan Shipman and Darin Weinberg for commenting on an earlier

draft.
2 For the sake of accuracy two points are worth clarifying. First, we are not
suggesting that Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is a non-pragmatic text, only
that the link with the historical legacy of Dewey is not as clearly accentuated as it
is in Consequences of Pragmatism. Secondly, neither are we suggesting that all the
articles in Consequences of Pragmatism antedate Philosophy and the Mirror of
Nature. As a matter of fact, most of them predate the publication of Philosophy and
the Mirror of Nature.
3 Rorty left the Philosophy Department at Princeton in 1984 to become Professor of
Humanities at the University of Virginia. He has been occupying a similar position
at Stanford University since 1999.
4 Popper’s Poverty of Historicism (1991) was originally published as a set of articles
in 1944. The two volumes of The Open Society and its Enemies (1971a, 1971b) were
originally published in 1945.

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REFERENCES

Baert, P. (1998) ‘Foucault’s History of the Present as Self-Referential Knowledge

Acquisition’, in Philosophy and Social Criticism 24(6): 111–26.
Malachowski, A. (ed.) (1990) Reading Rorty. Oxford: Blackwell.
Popper, K. (1971a) The Open Society and its Enemies, Volume I: The Spell of Plato.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Originally published 1945.)
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Prophecy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press. (Originally published 1945.)
Popper, K. (1991) The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routledge. (Originally
published 1957.)
Rorty, R. (1980) Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Oxford: Blackwell.
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Rorty, R. (1989) Irony, Contingency and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge
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Rorty, R. (1991) Philosophical Papers Volume 1: Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth.
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Rorty, R. (1995) Philosophical Papers Volume 2: Essays on Heidegger and Others.
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

PATRICK BAERT studied at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Oxford

University, Nuffield College, where he obtained his doctorate in sociology.
He is currently University Lecturer in Social and Political Sciences at the
University of Cambridge, where he is also a Fellow of New Hall and
Director of Studies at King’s College. He is the author of Time, Self and
Social Being (Ashgate, 1992) and Social Theory in the Twentieth Century
(Polity Press and New York University Press, 1998), which has been
translated into Spanish, Italian and Chinese. He edited Time in Contempor-
ary Intellectual Thought (Elsevier, 2000). He has also published a number
of articles in various journals and has held several visiting professorships in
Europe, North America and South America, in addition to holding the
Henri Jeanne Chair at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles for 2000–01.

Address: Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cambridge,

Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RQ, UK. [email: pjnb100@cam.ac.uk]

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