Rorty on Science and Politics

• Authors: Alexander Kremer
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In my paper I will prove my overall thesis that Rorty consistently enforces his politically saturated liberal ironic standpoint in the fields of science and politics from his "Contingency" book (1989). As a neopragmatist thinker he gives priority to politics in the sense of a liberal democracy over everything else. Even philosophy as "cultural politics" serves this purpose. He did not want to create a detailed political philosophy, but the main motive of his philosophy is political. He is charged with complacency, relativism and misinterpreting traditional pragmatism, but I show that this is mistaken. Rorty offers "only" a non-systematic, but logical and permanently developed interpretation of our present world on the basis of knowledge he appropriated and improved by building bridges between pragmatism, analytic and continental philosophy. I will analyze briefly in the first part his neo-pragmatist thoughts on science in connection with his political views. In the second part I will interpret Rorty as a liberal ironist who regards almost everything as contingent, except democracy. He outlines a liberal utopia that means first of all a just society in a Rawlsian sense, but he also develops his idea further in a neo-pragmatic way.

Keywords

EN

Democracy; liberal; politics; solidarity; truth

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Human Affairs
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 68-77

Dates

published

2009-06-01

online

2009-03-21

Contributors

author

Alexander Kremer

• Department of Philosophy, University of Szeged, Faculty of Arts, 6722 Szeged, Petőfi Sándor sgt. 30-34, Hungary

References

• Brandom, R. B. (Ed.).Rorty and His Critics. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
• Mendieta, E. (Ed.).Take Care of Freedom and Truth Will Take Care of Itself. Interviews with Richard Rorty. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006.
• Rawls, J.A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972.
• Rorty, R.Solidarität oder Objektivität? Drei Philosophische Essays. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1988.
• Rorty, R.Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
• Rorty, R.Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• Rorty, R.Philosophy and Social Hope. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1999.
• Rorty, R. Justice as a Larger Loyalty. In M. Festenstein, S. Thompson (Eds.). Critical Dialogues. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001.
• Rorty, R.Philosophy as Cultural Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge: University Press, 2007.
• Saatkamp, H. J. Jr. (Ed.).Rorty and Pragmatism-The Philosopher Responds to His Critics. Nashville-London: Vanderbilt University Press, 1995

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10023-009-0022-z