This book is a discussion of the nature and import of Richard Rorty's philosophy, particularly as it relates to his reevaluation of American pragmatism. Rorty's thinking is assessed within the context of both modern and postmodern intellectual trends, and his thought is contrasted with that of his principal contemporaries in America and Europe, including Donald Davidson, W. V. O. Quine, J rgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida.