Rorty and Peirce

Abstract

This chapter presents a fuller, more accurate picture of Rorty’s early appreciation for and indebtedness to Peirce by establishing that Rorty was, by his own lights, at least for a time, a Peircean realist. This distinctive “Peircean” version of realism illuminates Rorty’s mature positions later expressed via a Davidsonian vocabulary. It also recounts how Rorty’s reading of Peirce’s end of inquiry and normative theory of self-controlled conduct enables him to grasp the dependence of epistemology on ethics and to see philosophical discourse as a rule-governed realm that necessitates choice of vocabulary and hence responsibility. Rorty turns out to be more of a realist, as traditionally understood, and Peirce less of one than we might expect. The “ethically-centered epistemology” aimed at the growth of knowledge Rorty sees in Peirce contrasts sharply with the view dominant among contemporary Peirceans, like Misak and Talisse, preoccupied above all with justification.