Richard Rorty: Contingency, Irony and Solidarity / chapter 5

Richard Rorty: Contingency, Irony and Solidarity
Chapter 5 - Self-creation and affiliation: Proust, Nietzsche and Heidegger
In chapter 5, Rorty explores figures who pursued radical self-creation - remaking themselves through new metaphors rather than discovering a pre-given self. He's sympathetic to this as a private project but worries that Nietzsche and Heidegger mistakenly tried to universalise it, making self-overcoming a public or political programme. Proust, by contrast, is read as a more contained, less dangerous ironist.

Next week: Rorty on Derrida

Who are we?
We're a reading group that welcomes all - young, old, completely new to philosophy or well versed, from keen students to those who've never darkened the door of a lecture room. We read both long & short texts, but you don't need to join at the very start of our longer reads - you can come along at any stage of the journey. Our conversations are lively, wide-ranging & respectful.

We usually head to the pub to continue the discussion after our meetings.