This is a collection of representative work from American philosopher Richard Rorty's entire career. It has been carefully selected and introduced with background information that provides context, both of Rorty's life and intellectual development and the history of American philosophy during the time he was active. As a survey of this important intellectual the collection is excellent.

A couple of flaws interferred with my full enjoyment--none the fault of the editors but still aggravating. There are a handful of misspelled words and sentence fragments (not present in Rorty's original work). Not a big deal in the larger scheme of things but they really turned my crank and convinced me that unemployment must be high among proofreaders in the publishing world.

Reading Rorty, I'll confess, leaves me flat. Although I find his work stimulating--imaginative and with a broad reach--at the end I'm always left with the feeling that he just said something like "All philosophy has been leading up to me, and now I've shown you the emptiness of the project, so go do something else." It's not that he's arrogant, just hopeless, despite the importance he ascribes to that very thing. ( )