In these lectures Rorty is singing the same old (and good) song about what we must give up. We must give up our striving to be in touch with the really real, and we must give up the illusion that by paring away the accidental features of our temporal lives we can finally be in touch with our true, authentic, selves. The lesson is so bracing and so difficult because it is delivered in the context of a tradition–philosophy since Plato–that had been dedicated to the doing of these impossible things for centuries. Where is Richard Rorty when we need him? He is here.
–Stanley Fish, Davidson-Kahn Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Law, Florida International University, and Floersheimer Visiting Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School