This is an important collection of essays by one of America’s leading analytic philosophers. That said, what is remarkable about this book is its interest in history, in the disciplinary and institutional framework of contemporary thought, in 'continental' philosophy from Hegel to Foucault and Derrida. Those in American Studies should take note of the fact that Rorty not only defends the philosophical significance of the classical pragmatists but that he also suggests a way in which their thought ought to play a dynamic role in assessing American history and culture; he shows that American thought offers a distinctive method and not merely a subject matter to be investigated by other approaches.

Rorty’s dazzling tour through the history of modern philosophy, and his critical account of its present state (the best general introduction in print), is actually an argument that what we consider perennial problems-mind and body, consciousness and objects, the foundations of knowledge, the fact/value distinction-are merely the dead-ends this picture leads us into.

It can immediately be said that Consequences of Pragmatism must be read by both those who believe that they agree and those who believe that they disagree with Richard Rorty. He is far and away the most provocative philosophical writer working in North America today, and Consequences of Pragmatism should make this claim even stronger.

Philosophy, for Rorty, is a form of writing, a literary genre, closer to literary criticism than anything else, a criticism which takes for one of its major concerns the texts of the past recognized as philosophical: it interprets interpretations. If anyone doubts the continued vigor and continuing relevance of American pragmatism, the doubts can be laid to rest by reading this book.