Oakeshott and Rorty on the Nature of Philosophy

Abstract

1. PREAMBLE Oakeshott was one of the philosophers Rorty acknowledged in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature in his effort to rethink the nature of philosophy, following his rejection of traditional epistemology and its associated concept of philosophy as the ground of all disciplines. More than Twenty years before the appearance of Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Oakeshott had introduced the category of conversation in conceptualizing the nature of philosophy, treating it as one of the many voices in the conversation of mankind. In adopting Oakeshott’s category in making his case for a new concept of philosophy Rorty, like Oakeshott, accentuates the claim of the voice of poetry, without affirming the special privilege of philosophy as moderator of other voices.