Online research in philosophy

This paper calls into question Richard Rorty's recasting of the traditional justifications of liberal political philosophy in an anti-foundationalist ironic mould. Rorty suggests not only that his irony is compatible with the liberal commitments to human flourishing but also that it can clear up many of the conceptual difficulties that liberal reformers face today. Two objections are raised against the Rortian approach to politics, one conceptual, the other practical. Conceptually, because Rorty does not wish to burden political irony and imagination with a constraining political theory, his proposal increases the likelihood that two liberal commitments that he judges essential, the separation of the public and the private, and the aversion of wilful cruelty, will clash with one another. Practically, the success of his anti-foundationalist irony among sophisticated liberal reformers is jeopardized by its potentially negative impact upon the non-ironic, metaphysically minded political actors who most need to be brought into the liberal debate. Key Words: irony • liberal imagination • political theory • pragmatism • social change • Third World.

O presente artigo examina o projecto ético-politico de Richard Rorty nas suas vertentes teórica (enquanto projecto ideal de sociedade - a democracia liberal) e prática (enquanto tentativa de efectivação dessa Utopia). Porém, uma análise atenta permite concluir que ele redunda no seguinte paradoxo: por um lado, Rorty argumenta que a democracia liberal é o 'melhor regime político', mas, por outro, admite que ele não é realizável na prática. O autor do artigo vai mais longe: se fosse realizável, tornar-se-ia num dos 'piores regimes políticos'. Sugere-se que as diflculdades no pensamento rortyano não estão tanto nos pressupostos, mas antes no modo como deriva as suas conclusões porque: algumas vezes as conclusões não são deriváveis das premissas; noutras são simplesmente contraditórias. /// This article examines Richard Rorty s ethical and political project both in its theoretical (as an ideal social project - a liberal democracy) and practical (as an attempt to implement this Utopia) aspects. However, a closer analysis permits us to conclude that it falls into the following paradox: on the one hand, Rorty argues that liberal democracy is the 'best political regime', but, on the other, he admits that it cannot be put into practice. The author of the article goes further: if it could be realized, it would be one of the 'worst political regimes'. It is suggested that the difficulties in Rorty's thought are not so much at the level of the presuppositions but rather in the way it derives its conclusions because: sometimes the conclusions are not derivable from the premises; at other times they are simply contradictory.

This paper examines Richard Rorty’s “ironic liberalism,” arguing that it has no rational justitication. Rorty’s neopragmatism is first taken into account, tracing its origin and development to the political education he received in his youth. As is well known, Rorty defines himself as a liberal democrat, claiming that Westem liberal thought has produced the best form of political and social life which has ever appeared on our planet. However, if one asks why he is so positive about that, no answer can be found in Rorty’s works. The paper goes on revealing Rorty’s political philosophy as a corollary of his overall meaning holism, which takes the social and political body to be a Quinean net with no center and no boundary. Resorting to a mental experiment, the paper eventually shows that Rorty’s ironic liberalism is not a position which facilitates human choice in dramatic conditions. Any totalitarian ideology rnight readily discard ironic liberalism, because it would be easy to show that its supporters cannot even argue in favor of their convictions.

The main question informing this paper is whether it is possible to extend democracy beyond its liberal forms. The paper reflects upon this question with regard to its implications for the individual. For the radicalization of democracy implies a need for self-transformation, if the everyday egoism of contemporary citizens is not to thwart reasonable discussion and participation. Theorists such as Richard Rorty argue that the philosophical resources required to guide such self-transformation can be made available only by sacrificing the political freedom and cultural diversity liberalism has been able to precariously establish. Other theorists insist that the thresholds of pluralism and tolerance that existing liberal democracies are struggling to maintain actually require an extension of democracy. The paper evaluates two different theoretical strategies that aim to identify potentials for democratization without falling prey to the dilemma identified by Rorty: a ‘ deliberative’ strategy explicated with reference to Jürgen Habermas and an ‘existential’ approach represented here by William Connolly. Key Words: Connolly • democracy • existential • Habermas • individual • proceduralism • Rorty.

The New Fuzziness: Richard Rorty and Education is an examination of the works of Richard Rorty, focusing on his impact on education. Richard Rorty is "one of the most provocative and influential of contemporary thinkers writing in English." This unpublished manuscript is written by Dr. Philip E. Devine, Professor of Philosophy at Providence College.

Eschewing conventional candidates, like Plato's Republic or Machiavelli's Prince, Richard Rorty praises Aldous Huxley's Brave New World as "the best introduction to political philosophy," because it shows us "what sort of human future would be produced by a naturalism untempered by historicist Romanticism, and by a politics aimed merely at alleviating mammalian pain."1 Huxley's celebrated dystopia is thus a poignant warning to our modern utilitarian political projects. Yet Rorty also suggests that utopian literature can play a positive and inspirational role for liberal politics, and even dubs his own political ideal, "liberal utopia." Rorty's liberal utopia is not an impossible society bereft of political ..

Certain features of Richard Rorty's account of liberal irony have provoked serious moral criticisms from some of his peers. In particular, Rorty's claim that anything can be made to look good or bad by being redescribed has struck some philosophers, such as Richard Bernstein and Jean Bethke Elshtain, for instance, as morally outrageous. In this article, I examine these criticisms and clarify the meaning and implications of Rorty's position. I argue that a more careful reading of Rorty reveals that his position is not morally objectionable or depraved. Instead, the idea that anything can be made to look good or bad by being redescribed is an important insight that fosters tolerance, moral imagination and novel self-creation. In the concluding sections of this article, I address as well possible tensions between Rorty's account of redescription and his endorsement of truthfulness and the role that his private–public split plays in alleviating these tensions. Key Words: contingency • democracy • irony • public–private distinction • redescription • Richard Rorty • self-creation • truthfulness.

Richard Rorty, with his tendency to shock, to provoke, and to seize on Continental fashions, might be thought an unlikely liberal. Nevertheless, Rorty illustrates very well some of the characteristic weaknesses of contemporary liberalism. To the extent that he draws upon postmodern and deconstructionist sources, he highlights, and radicalizes, the liberal urge to break out of frozen identities and to destabilize static roles and fixed stations in life. His distinctive version of pragmatism yields a (novel) way of drawing liberal boundaries between private and public, culture and justice. And his antifoundationalism helps to legitimize a typical liberal reluctance to engage in any very ambitious social criticism. What distinguishes Rorty's liberalism is its higher degree of candor, which at least acknowledges that a liberal vision of things, far from being ?neutral? toward rival ideas of the good, is implicated in the defense of a particular way of life.

At first sight it would seem difficult to find two philosophers as different as Brian Barry and Richard Rorty. It is widely held that the former is one of the most forceful proponents of liberal universalism, whereas the latter is typically viewed as the quintessential relativist. In this essay, different usages of the term univeralism are considered, and it is argued that Rorty's position is much closer to that of Barry than is generally supposed. Indeed, the article concludes by suggesting that it is Rorty who offers the less question-begging philosophical account of political liberalism.

The PRC has often criticized Western human rights policies based in part on the claim that liberal democracy and human rights are nothing more than the culturally contingent by-product of Enlightenment Europe incompatible with China's cultural and political traditions and out of step with contemporary circumstances in the PRC. Recently, Richard Rorty has offered a pragmatic alternative to liberal democracy and human rights founded on the universal claims and metaphysical assumptions of the Enlightenment. At the same time, Rorty remains unabashedly ethnocentric, asserting the superiority of ironic liberalism and "our" culture of rights. Whether his liberalism and rights culture stripped of its foundational and universal baggage will prove any more congenial to the development of liberal democracy and individual rights in China than its Enlightenment parent is examined here.