Self, mind and the recovery of metaphysics

Abstract

Our purpose is to suggest that it is not inevitable that philosophy (and philosophers) are blinded by the spirit of their age, so that they are unable to question prevalent beliefs. To this end, we evaluate a number of Rorty’s key ideas, specifically those which are integral to his narrative redescribing the mind-body problematic, and its corollaries as regards traditional and non-traditional views about access to Truth. By examining Rorty’s historicism, the difficulties which Cartesian dualism has put historicists and non-historicists in alike, and perhaps most poignantly, the narrative of pre- and post-Cartesian (as well as fictitiously Cartesian) epistemology, we are lead to wonder about both the restrictions of vocabulary in navigating us through these strictures, as well as the pragmatic effectiveness that metaphysics may afford us.