One Cheer for Representationalism?†

When Dewey declared in  that pragmatism would ‘give the coup de grace to representationalism ’, he had (to say the least) underestimated the tenacity of the intended victim. Even as he wrote, Russell was at work on the waggons which were to carry so much of philosophy into new lands—regions where Frege’s referentialism was part of the bedrock (or so it seemed). A century later, despite renewed resistance by such giants as Wittgenstein and Richard Rorty himself, representationalism seems to many to be not only alive but unassailable—part of the constitution of the analytic republic, and almost too obvious to challenge. †For R. Auxier, ed., The Philosophy of Richard Rorty (Library of Living Philosophers, , ). From a letter quoted by Menand : . Anti-representationalism often meets with something close to incomprehension, as in these remarks from Frank Jackson, for example: