Yong Huang 
Rorty, Pragmatism, and Confucianism [PDF ebook] 
With Responses by Richard Rorty

Rorty, Pragmatism, and Confucianism offers a fascinating conversation between Confucianism, historically the dominant tradition in Chinese thought and society, and the contemporary philosophy of Richard Rorty. Well aware that his philosophical hero, John Dewey, has had a lasting influence among Chinese intellectuals, Rorty expressed a wish that his own books, which have been rapidly translated into Chinese, be read as an updated version of Dewey’s philosophy. In this book, twelve authors engage Rorty’s thought in a hermeneutic dialogue with Confucianism, using Confucianism to interpret and reconstruct Rorty while exploring such topics as human nature, moral psychology, moral relativism, moral progress, democracy, tradition, moral metaphysics, and religiosity. Rorty himself provides a detailed reply to each author.

Table of Content

Acknowledgments



1. Rorty and Confucianism: An Introduction


YONG HUANG




PART I Relativity, Contingency, and Moral Progress



2. Rorty, Confucius, and Intercultural Relativism


KUANG-MING WU



3. On Three Contingencies in Richard Rorty: A Confucian Critique


CHUNG-YING CHENG



4. Rorty’s Progress into Confucian Truths


YONG HUANG




PART II Morality and Human Nature



5. A Comparative Examination of Rorty’s and Mencius’s Theories of Human Nature


PEIMIN NI



6. Rorty and Mencius on Family, Nature, and Morality


JAMES BEHUNIAK JR.



7. Rorty Meets Confucius: A Dialogue Across Millenia


ROBERT ELLIOTT ALLINSON




PART III Postmodernism: Community, Literature, and Value



8. A Confucian Response to Rorty’s Postmodern Bourgeois Liberal Idea of Community


SOR-HOON TAN



9. Philosophy and Literature: Rorty and Confucianism


HANS-GEORG MOELLER



10. Coping with Incommensurable Pursuits: Rorty, Berlin, and the Confucian-Daoist Complementarity


CHENYANG LI




PART IV The “Other”: Nature, Reality, and Transcendence



11. Rortian Extremes and the Confucian Zhongyong


MAJORIE C. MILLER



12. Tradition and Transcendence in Masters Kong and Rorty


KELLY JAMES CLARK



13. Becoming Practically Religious: A Deweyan and Confucian Context for Rortian Religiousness


ROGER T. AMES




PART V Responses



14. Responses to Critics


RICHARD M. RORTY



Glossary

Contributors

Index

About the author

Yong Huang is Professor of Philosophy at Kutztown University and the author of
Religious Goodness and Political Rightness: Beyond the Liberal-Communitarian Debate.