The Revival of Pragmatism: New Essays on Social Thought, Law, and Culture (Post-Contemporary Interventions)

Rating:
Summary: important
Review: This is an excellent and important book of well-written positions from a variety of perspectives. A fan of pragmatism may be turned off by the 2nd through the 6th essays, but of the following 25 at least 23 or 24 are well worth reading. The section on law debates the question of whether philosophy influences or "supports" law. I came away, as I'd been before, convinced that moving to pragmatism in philosophy is likely to have a good effect on legal opinions and that Rorty is absurdly unfair to the value of his own work by stressing that law can get on without traditional philosophy. Of course it can, but what needs to be said is that we would be better off if it did. The concluding essay by Stanley Fish is wonderful and makes a point I've been trying to find someone to agree with for years, namely that religious tolerance is a contradiction in terms; tolerance is a restriction on religion.