ABSTRACT
The chapter deals with Rorty’s “linguistic pragmatism”, as involving a strong focus on language and conversation, and a criticism of the concepts of representation and experience. Specifically, I discuss the different critical arguments concerning Rorty’s refusal of Dewey’s concept of experience and of its metaphysical implications. The dialectical relation with Dewey and Davidson is presented as the core of Rorty’s “cultural naturalism”, and, finally, I try to show the entanglement of his anti-reductionism and the issues of truth and justification. My proposal is to consider this entanglement as an epistemological point of view that does not lead either to an absolute or trivial relativism, or to mere conventionalism. Rather, I try to show how it represents the framework of Rorty’s ethnocentric and melioristic perspective.
