Lecture 10
Anti-Theory
Rorty and Williams
Prominent Anti-Theorists and
their Major Works
Bernard Williams
Richard Rorty
Annette Baier
Clarke’s Taxonomy of Anti-
Theorists Arguments
Theory is unnecessary
Theory is Theoretically Impossible
Theory is Undesirable
Williams as Anti-Theorist
English Modesty
Romantic Postmodernism
Objections to particular Theories
Williams on the impossible
goals of Ethical Theory
To make as altruistic
To resolve dilemmas
To Bind us with External Reasons
The Main Sins of Ethical
Theory
Reductionism
Abstraction
Themes in Rorty
“Priority of Democracy to Philosophy”
Articulation vs. Justification
Liberal Democracy can get along without
philosophy
“Staying on the surface, philosophically
speaking”, Rawls