[Richard McKay Rorty (1931–2007)] matriculated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, and he spent his early career trying to reconcile his personal interests and beliefs with the Platonic search for Truth. His doctoral dissertation, “The Concept of Potentiality,” and his first book, The Linguistic Turn (1956) were firmly in the prevailing analytic mode. However, his discovery of the American philosophical movement known as pragmatism, especially the writings of John Dewey...caused a shift in his thinking. Pragmatists generally hold that the worth of an idea should be measured by its usefulness or ability to cope with a given problem, not by its correspondence to some antecedent 'Truth.'...

...In his major opus, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Rorty...argues that epistemology, the study of knowledge, is in fact the product of the mistaken view that the mind is a glassy essence, of which the main function is to faithfully reproduce external reality. He attacks ‘universal’ philosophical investigations, such as the Mind/Body Problem, by historicizing them and exposing their contingency. Rorty argues for hermeneutics, the explaining of texts by other texts, rather than the search for an ultimate interpretation that would be validated by a higher force.

Rorty’s other major work, Contingency, irony, and solidarity, was published in 1989. In it, Rorty abandons the attempt to explain his theories in analytic terms and creates an alternative conceptual schema to that of the “Platonists” he rejects. This schema is based on the belief that there is no ‘truth’ higher than the human being’s ability to recreate her/himself...This book also marks his first attempt to consciously articulate a political vision consonant with his philosophy, the vision of a diverse community bound together by opposition to suffering, and not by abstract ideas such as ‘justice,’ ‘common humanity,’ etc.

Because of the clarity and humor of his writing style, and his ability to undermine cherished assumptions, Rorty is one of the most widely-read contemporary philosophers. His political and moral philosophies have been under almost constant attack both from some on the Right, who call them relativist and irresponsible, and some on the Left, who believe them to be insufficient frameworks for social justice....

"...In the last fifteen years of his life, Rorty continued to publish voluminously, including four volumes of philosophical papers; Achieving Our Country, a political manifesto partly based on readings of John Dewey and Walt Whitman in which he defended the idea of a progressive, pragmatic left against what he feels are defeatist positions espoused by the so-called critical left personified by figures like Michel Foucault; and Philosophy and Social Hope, a collection of essays for a general audience. His most recent works focus on the place of religion in contemporary life and philosophy as 'cultural politics'.

Having held teaching positions at Wellesley College, Princeton University, and the University of Virginia, Rorty lived out his last years as professor emeritus of comparative literature and philosophy, by courtesy, at Stanford University. On June 8, 2007, Rorty died in his home of pancreatic cancer." (from Wikipedia.com)