Rorty, Richard: David R. Hiley

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Rorty, Richard
David R. Hiley
Richard Rorty (19312007) was educated at the University of Chicago and Yale
University, receiving his PhD in philosophy from Yale in 1959. He taught philosophy
at Wellesley College and Princeton University, was university professor of humanities
at the University of Virginia, and taught comparative literature at Stanford University
until his retirement. He received the prestigious McArthur Fellowship (19816);
and he held a number of important lectureships, including the Howison (Berkeley
1983), Northcliffe (University College London 1986), Clark (Trinity College,
Cambridge, 1987), Romanell (Phi Beta Kappa 1989), Tanner (Michigan 1990),
Oxford Amnesty Lecture 1993, Massey (Harvard 1997), and Donellan (Trinity
College Dublin 1998). While his earliest published work was in the tradition of analytic philosophy, writing on issues in epistemology and the philosophy of mind and
language, his most important and controversial book, Philosophy and the Mirror of
Nature (1979), sought to undermine foundationalist tenants of analytic philosophy
and the traditional view of philosophy of which it was a part. His subsequent
publications worked out the consequences of anti-foundationalism for philosophy,
science, ethics, and politics. This essay will begin with an overview of his critique of
traditional philosophy in order to draw out its implications for ethics.
In a biographical essay, Rorty wrote that, as a student, he was initially attracted to
philosophy in order to find some intellectual or aesthetic framework which would
let me in the thrilling phrase which I came across in Yeats hold reality and justice
in a single vision (1999: 7). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature can be interpreted
as arguing that such a Platonic framework is impossible and undesirable. Philosophy
and the Mirror of Nature is a challenging book. It has unusual historical sweep for a
work that is also filled with detailed and technical arguments within the literature of
analytic philosophy, arguments about foundational theories of knowledge, language
and meaning, theories of truth, and realist theories in the philosophy of science. The
thesis of the book, however, is relatively easy to state. Philosophy, since the time of
Plato and especially since Descartes and Kant, has been held captive by an image of
the mind as a mirror of nature. Within this image emerged a view of knowledge and
language as accurately representing in thought the world independent of mind.
Given this image, the task of philosophy was to secure the foundations of knowledge
by grounding ideas or language in something that was beyond doubt. The book
argued, however, that the image of mind as mirror, and the epistemology-centered
conception of philosophy that followed from it was a contingent development in the
history of philosophy that had outlived its usefulness. Analytic philosophy, he
argued, and its preoccupations with the nature of consciousness, knowledge, meaning, and truth, remained stuck in this image. Drawing out what he saw as the
The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Edited by Hugh LaFollette, print pages 46564661.
2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee345

consequences of three philosophers in that tradition Wilfred Sellars, Willard Van


Orman Quine, and Donald Davidson he argued that their work undermined the
foundational aspirations of the traditional conception of philosophy. The arguments
are complicated, and Rortys interpretation of them is controversial, but detailing
them is beyond the scope of this essay. See the Further Readings section below for
a detailed explanation of Rortys account. What is important for the purposes of this
essay is Rortys claim that their work undermined foundationalism and culminated
in recognition that knowledge or language functions not as a mirror for nature but
as useful social practices for coping with the world. On his reading, Sellars, Quine,
and Davidson arrived at the pragmatic path already marked out by John Dewey (see
dewey, john). Rorty was to develop this same point over the years in a series of
essays offering equally controversial interpretations of the early work of Martin
Heidegger (see heidegger, martin) andthe later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein (see
wittgenstein, ludwig). He argued that they too undermined the traditional image
of knowledge and philosophy, and that they too ended up in the place already
marked out by Dewey (1991b).
In addition to his claims that the traditional image of philosophy was contingent
and optional and that analytic philosophy culminated in pragmatism, he also claimed,
in the final part of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, that the traditional conception of philosophy had contributed to the freezing over of culture. It contributed to
the dehumanization of human beings (1979: 337) by seeking a single understanding
of ourselves and the world rather than opening up descriptive alternatives and possible ways of being. This last existentialist or humanist theme foundationalism in its
various forms dehumanizes became increasingly prominent in Rortys subsequent
work. It was central to Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (1989), Philosophy and Social
Hope (1999), and his final volume of collected essays, Philosophy as Cultural Politics
(2007). In the preface to this last volume of essays, he cited Deweys claim that philosophy should not be seen as a form of knowledge but rather as form of social hope
a working program of action, a prophecy of the future (2007: ix). The positive
outcome of his critique of epistemology-centered philosophy, then, was a different
image of the role of philosophy. What we need, he had argued, is a post-philosophical
outlook that favors pragmatic sensibilities about knowledge focused not on whether
we accurately represent the world but instead on what people do to successfully cope
with the world. Such an outlook should seek to replace the philosopher as adjudicator
of the rest of culture with the public intellectual. Rorty referred to such a public intellectual as an informed dilettante, the polypragmatic, Socratic intermediary between
various discourses (1979: 317), fostering freedom rather than grounding knowledge.
If we take care of freedom, he observed in a series of interviews, truth will take care
of itself (2006). This was the role Rorty, himself, often played.
Rortys anti-foundationalism and his pragmatist view about philosophy have
implications for ethics that will be sketched in the remainder of this essay. Similar to
his outlook about philosophy generally, there was both a critical and a positive strand
to his views about ethics. He was critical of moral theory insofar as it reflects the
traditional view of philosophy that he criticized. He found the view implicit in

attempts, following Plato, to hold reality and justice in a single vision the phrase
he used in his autographical essay or more concretely, in attempts to formulate a
single framework to bring together the nature of our duties to others and care for
ourselves (1989: xiixvi). He also found it implicit in attempts by moral philosophers
to distinguish a specifically moral domain of concepts, distinct from considerations of
fact and prudence; or in attempts to ground moral judgments in something other
than the norms of our culture, in human nature, or the nature of reason itself (1999:
7290). Invoking Dewey, he claimed that these were vestiges of a craving for certainty
and instances of the brooding nest of dualisms that we should have outgrown (2007:
184202). Positively, he drew out the consequences of pragmatism, embracing
contingency and championing a liberal democratic (see liberalism) commitment to
reducing cruelty and expanding tolerance in our public lives; and, in the spirit of
Friedrich Nietzsche (see nietzsche, friedrich), championing possibilities for
freedom and self-creation in our private lives (1989: Parts II and III). In both strands
of his ethical outlook, Kant (see kant, immanuel) was his primary foil.
In his last published essay, Rorty characterized the Kantian view he thought
common to recent moral philosophy:
More than any other author in the history of philosophy, Kant gave currency and
respectability to notions like the nature of moral concepts and the logic of moral
argument. For he claimed that morality was like nothing else in the world that it was
utterly distinctive. He argued that there is a vast and unbridgeable difference between
the two realms the realm of prudence and that of morality. If one agrees with him
about this, as many moral philosophers do, then one will be predisposed to think that
one might make a professional specialty out of the study of moral concepts. (2007: 186)

Rorty claimed that Kants view had been useful in secularizing morality but Kanthad
replaced the authority of God with the authority of universal reason and categorical
duty. Rorty opposed any view that suggested an authority outside of ourselves and
social practices. He also claimed that the distinction between obligation and
prudence, central to Kant and subsequent philosophy, had outlived its usefulness.
He was dismissive of moral philosophers, whether strictly Kantian or not, who
continued to believe in a specifically moral domain of concepts and arguments. By
contrast, Rorty sought to blur the distinction between morality and prudence (see
prudence), to undermine appeal to reason as the source of moral obligation, to
question the separation of sentiment (see sentiments, moral) from reason in
moral decisions, and to downplay the role of moral principles in deciding what we
do and how we live. Drawing from Dewey and the tradition of pragmatism (see
pragmatic ethics), he claimed that the difference between morality and prudence
was no more than a difference of degree between beliefs that are relatively more
important to our sense of who we are and how we behave, and those that are useful but
not so central. In this sense, Rorty was a consequentialist (see consequentialism);
however, not as an ethical theory opposed to a duty-based theory (see deontology),
but in the pragmatic sense that the point of all reasoning is socially useful outcomes.
Similarly, following Hume (see hume, david) and Humeans such as Annette Baier, he

sought to rehabilitate the role of sentiment and cultivation of moral imagination in our
moral development. He argued, for example, against philosophical attempts to ground
human rights (see human rights and religion) norms in human nature and claimed
instead that sentimental education would be more useful in fostering human rights
than philosophical reasoning that Hume, in this regard, was more useful than Kant
for the human rights tradition (1998a: 16785). Additionally, he claimed that the role
of moral principles is not to derive our obligations but rather to sum up relatively
settled moral habits and past practices, and as such, they are not especially useful in
cases of unsettled indecision (1999: 72103). Consistent with his general attack on the
traditional concept of philosophy and its distinctive role, he was dubious of any claims
for a distinctive role for moral reasoning and moral philosophy (2007: 1845), and he
argued that literature (see literature and ethics) was perhaps more useful than
moral principles in fostering moral development (1989: Part III).
In Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, Rorty developed what he thought a moral
utopia might look like if we were to abandon attempts by philosophers to ground
morality in human nature or the nature of reason, or if we no longer sought a single
framework that could account for both public and private morality. The positive
project of the book was to show how things look if we drop the demand for a theory
which unifies the public and private, and are content to treat the demands of
self-creation and human solidarity as equally valid, yet forever incommensurable.
The book sketches a figure whom I call the liberal ironist. I borrow my definition
of liberal from Judith Shklar, who says that liberals are the people who think that
cruelty is the worst thing we can do. I use ironist to name the sort of person who
faces up to the contingency of his or her own most central beliefs and desires (1989:
xv). The liberal ironist accepts the consequences of contingency. Elsewhere, he
described his project as accepting, with Freud (see freud, sigmund), that
contingency and chance are not unworthy for determining our fate (1991b: 152).
In terms of this picture, Rorty claimed that Freud or philosophers such as
Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida (see derrida, jacques), and Foucault (see foucault,
michel) are helpful ironists, enlarging possibilities for private freedom, for
elaboration of a plurality of possible self-understandings. They are ironists insofar
as they recognize the contingency of ones final vocabulary, that is, the contingency
of those beliefs that are central to who we want to be. What makes an ironist a
liberal is that aversion to cruelty forms part of her final vocabulary, that being cruel
was the worst thing she could do. Rorty thought that there could be no noncircular
answer to the question Why is cruelty the worst thing we can do? just as he
thought that there was no noncircular answer to any such basic moral question.
That is what is involved in facing up to contingency. And, in this regard, the moral
philosopher does not have anything more distinctive to say than the novelist or
sociologist. The best that can be provided, and all that is needed, is ever-expanding
examples to expand our moral imaginations. However, Rorty claimed that ironists
are not much use for public morality, for reducing cruelty, and promoting solidarity.
For that, he thought we were better served by John Stuart Mill (see mill, john
stuart) or the novels of Vladimir Nabokov and George Orwell. Or, insofar as we

read them only as political rather than metaphysical liberals, the work of John Rawls
(see rawls, john) and Jrgen Habermas serve well the requirements of public
morality (1989; 1991a: 17596; 1998a: 30826). The consequence of contingency in
public morality is realizing that our commitment to and responsibility for others
comes not from discovering our common humanity but by enlarging our capacity
to recognize others like us. Rorty was frequently criticized for relativism (see
relativism, moral) for both his views about truth and morality and also the
ethnocentrism implied by his frequent use of phrases such as others like us, we
liberals, or we Western democracies. Rorty rejected the charge of relativism if it
amounted to the claim that nothing is any better to believe than anything else (1982:
Introduction). There is an inevitable and unapologetic ethnocentrism to Rortys
liberalism, but not, he would claim, a dogmatic ethnocentrism (1999: 20310).
Rather, it amounts to recognition that we can only begin with the contingent values
and loyalties we have as we seek to reduce cruelty and expand our loyalties. That
view is fully on display in Achieving Our Country (1998b), where he invoked Ralph
Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman in praising the idea of America while criticizing
the academic left for its cynicism. The idea of America he praised combined
patriotism, self-criticism, and the attempt to build a larger loyalty. For Rortys
liberal, justice (see justice) is the name for our largest current loyalty (2007: 44).
Finally, at a time when it has become fashionable to be cynical about the
Enlightenment ideal of moral progress, Rorty defended the ideal, though not as a
law of history or an inevitability, but as recognition of gains made in reducing
cruelty and as an expression of social hope.
Rortys critics have been many and varied, and he responded to them often. The
Further Readings section that follows includes several volumes of commentary,
works that place Rorty in the larger context of pragmatism, and collections of
criticism and his responses to critics.
See also: consequentialism; deontology; derrida, jacques; dewey, john;
foucault, michel; freud, sigmund; heidegger, martin; human rights and
religion; hume, david; justice; kant, immanuel; liberalism; literature
and ethics; mill, john stuart; nietzsche, friedrich; pragmatic ethics;
prudence; rawls, john; relativism, moral; sentiments, moral;
wittgenstein, ludwig

REFERENCES
Rorty, Richard 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.
Rorty, Richard 1982. Consequences of Pragmatism. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Rorty, Richard 1989. Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Rorty, Richard 1991a. Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers, vol. 1.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Rorty, Richard 1991b. Essays on Heidegger and Others: Philosophical Papers, vol. 2. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Rorty, Richard 1998a. Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Rorty, Richard 1998b. Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth Century America.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rorty, Richard 1999. Philosophy and Social Hope. London: Penguin.
Rorty, Richard 2006. Take Care of Freedom and Truth Will Take Care of Itself: Interviews with
Richard Rorty, ed. Eduardo Mendieta. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Rorty, Richard 2007. Philosophy as Cultural Politics: Philosophical Papers, vol. 4. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

FURTHER READINGS
Bernstein, Richard 2010. The Pragmatic Turn. Cambridge: Polity.
Brandom, Robert B. 2000. Rorty and His Critics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Guignon, Charles, and David R. Hiley (eds.) 2003. Richard Rorty. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hall, David L. 1994. Richard Rorty: Prophet and Poet of the New Pragmatism. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
Johnson, Peter 2004. Moral Philosophers and the Novel: A Study of Winch, Nussbaum and
Rorty. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kolenda, Konstantin 1990. Rortys Humanistic Pragmatism: Philosophy Democratized. Tampa:
University of South Florida Press.
Malachowski, Alan (ed.) 1991. Reading Rorty: Critical Responses to Philosophy and the Mirror
of Nature. Oxford: Blackwell.
Targaglia, James 2007. Rorty and the Mirror of Nature. London: Routledge.

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