On a Man Who Died from Reading Too Much Heidegger, or Richard Rorty as a Reader

If, as is sometimes held, Wittgenstein wrote as if he had read nothing, while Heidegger wrote as if had read everything, then the common opinion about Richard Rorty is that he wrote as if he had misread everybody. In my paper, I will try to show that in order to assess whether that opinion is right, it is imperative to have at least some knowledge of the different hermeneutic strategies Rorty distinguished, endorsed, and deployed. What I am also going to do is explain what reading Heidegger had to do with Rorty's death.