Philosophy and the mirror of nature is a 1979 book by the american philosopher richard rorty in which the author attempts to dissolve modern philosophical problems instead of solving them by presenting them as pseudo problems that only exist in the language game of epistemological projects culminating in analytic philosophy in a pragmatist gesture rorty suggests that philosophy must get past these pseudo problems if it is to be productive the work was considered controversial upon publicatio. Philosophy and the mirror of nature includes index 1 philosophy 2 philosophy modern and body 4 representation philosophy philosophy 6 civilization philosophy b53r68 190 79 84013 isbn 0 691 07236 1 isbn 0 691 02016 7 pbk 3 mind 5 analysis i title publication of this book has been aided by a grant from. When it first appeared in 1979 philosophy and the mirror of nature hit the philosophical world like a bombshell in it richard rorty argued that beginning in the seventeenth century philosophers developed an unhealthy obsession with the notion of representation comparing the mind to a mirror that reflects reality. Rortys philosophy and the mirror of nature presents the most thorough and sustained critique of western epistemology and foundationalism in the second half of the twentieth century the work deconstructs philosophy as an autonomous discipline generating a neutral matrix to assess knowledge truth and rationality offering philosophical analyses