First a bit more general description. Stanley Fish is, along with Richard Rorty and Martha Nussbaum, the most provocative writer in political philosophy in the United States today. He, as they, swims in post-modernism's mainstream. But Fish is no clown. He mounts here a strong pragmatic case for policies, including affirmative action, to improve the lives of the poor and powerless.
Fish debunks a reverence for a Western literary canon that squelches new voices.
Above all, he makes the compelling case that all academic behavior, indeed all social behavior, is inescapably political. But here Fish throws us a curve. He argues that political philosophy will go on just as it has, for all it will ever have are its own constructed traditions. And it follows that we should read Fish to find out where he is wrong and where we may, consequently, aspire to retool political philosophy. I. Mainstream Social Science Positivists.