Stanley Fish writes on a wide range of topics -- John Milton, contract law, deconstruction, campus politics, free speech, affirmative action -- but his argument is always the same: our understanding and values derive from a set of historically constructed background assumptions, and that's nothing to be alarmed about.
Reading Fish is a lot like reading the philosopher Richard Rorty. They are both fervent anti-foundationalists with clear and entertaining prose styles (for those with a tolerance for academic writing), and both come across as too proud of being provocative. I agree with most of what Fish says, even when it is frustrating. (It's frustrating to be stuck without a neutral bias-free perspective.)
My introduction to Fish was his collection There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech (and it’s a good thing too), and I would recommend that book over this one. The Stanley Fish Reader may provide a wider and more accurate portrait of Fish's career, but it's not as thought-provoking. The introductory notes for each essay are uniformly weak; I would much prefer a book titled Fish and His Critics (on the model of Rorty and His Critics), where Fish responds to original critical essays.
Reading Fish is a lot like reading the philosopher Richard Rorty. They are both fervent anti-foundationalists with clear and entertaining prose styles (for those with a tolerance for academic writing), and both come across as too proud of being provocative. I agree with most of what Fish says, even when it is frustrating. (It's frustrating to be stuck without a neutral bias-free perspective.)
My introduction to Fish was his collection There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech (and it’s a good thing too), and I would recommend that book over this one. The Stanley Fish Reader may provide a wider and more accurate portrait of Fish's career, but it's not as thought-provoking. The introductory notes for each essay are uniformly weak; I would much prefer a book titled Fish and His Critics (on the model of Rorty and His Critics), where Fish responds to original critical essays.
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