Richard Rorty Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

A leading philosopher of his time, American Richard Rorty (1931–2007) challenged the foundations of modern Western philosophy. His work is most often linked with American pragmatism—that is, to the work of such individuals as Charles Sanders Pierce, William James, John Dewey, Wilfred Sellars, W. O. Quine, Donald Davidson, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida. His challenges to widely accepted aspects of philosophy both garnered a large audience outside the discipline and were met with widespread criticism within it.

Beginning in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979) and continuing throughout his career (perhaps most clearly in Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth [1991]), Rorty criticized the epistemological tradition of modern philosophy. This tradition stated that under the right conditions subjects were said to accurately “mirror” reality. However, Rorty argued that having any such accurate representations of reality would entail some specifically epistemological process between subjects and objects for which a coherent philosophical account would be needed, and such an account, he asserted, continued to prove elusive.

Influenced by Darwinian naturalism, late nineteenth– and early twentieth–century pragmatism provided the seeds for an alternative approach. Instead of characterizing the relations between people and the things in their environment in representational terms, they could be characterized as practical “habits for action,” the latter being understood as causal and behavioral capacities, or virtual instruments. If what were taken to be representations of reality were re-described as habits for action, and if the processes of “acculturation” involved in habit acquisition were taken seriously, then a shift beyond the traditional epistemologically based paradigm would begin. What is called truth would no longer have anything to do with a subject’s representations of reality (because such representations would no longer be entertained). Rather, truth would be a term of endorsement or caution with respect to the effectiveness of the habits for action by which subjects are acculturated. Of course, representationalism has been privileged by the great tradition of Western philosophy, a tradition outside of which it remains difficult to think for most. Nevertheless, as rich as the tradition has been, Rorty recommended shifting the paradigm, because it seems to have failed to provide the required coherent account of a mediating epistemological process.

Rorty’s view entails the centrality of acculturation, but individuals’ acculturation precedes them, he argues, there is no independent—that is, cultureless—access to some “essential” reality “out there” by means of which acculturation may be assessed or grounded. The beliefs held by individuals are thoroughly “contingent.” Nevertheless, their activities and conversation are both enabled by and address the beliefs in the midst of which individuals find themselves. If conversation becomes more inclusive—if the beliefs of new interlocutors are woven into it—it will become more open and democratic, increasing the scope of ethical and political “solidarity.” Here lies Rorty’s reformist and inclusive liberalism, detailed in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989). Although no beliefs whatsoever may be assessed objectively (that is, standing outside one’s acculturation), what has resulted are sets of beliefs by means of which, and about which, individuals converse, and which they may revise. Rorty recommends that the open conversation about and revision of habits for action be taken seriously, while the countless unsuccessful attempts to ground them in putative foundations or essences be abandoned. Thus the liberal “ironist” engages in an “anti-foundationalist” or “anti-essentialist” “cultural politics.”

Bibliography:

Murphy, John P. Pragmatism: From Pierce to Davidson. Boulder, Colo.:Westview Press, 1990.
Rorty, Richard. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Volume 1. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.

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