Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature may be viewed as a sustained meditation on the philosophical significance and consequences of these remarks by Nietzsche. It is an iconoclastic book. But it is one that any person seriously interested in what philosophy is, how it came to be what it is and what it might eventually become should want to read, and re-read, whether or not they are disposed to agree with its controversial conclusions. In many ways, it is also a unique text. Certainly, no other book in recent times has launched such a detailed and extensive attack on the presuppositions and preoccupations of the dominant traditions of Western philosophy. Indeed, the closest competitor is probably Ernest Gellner's Words and Things (1966), which does not come very close at all. It generated heated controversy for a short time, especially in the Letters section of the London Times, but now pales by comparison in terms of depth of argumentation, degree of influence and overall historical scope and ambition.