Philosophy of Richard Rorty

This study will examine the ideas of radical philosopher Richard Rorty, focusing on the views underlying his concept of the "poeticized culture," and specifically investigating Rorty's notions on reason, truth and justice. The thrust of this study will be general agreement with Rorty's views in these and other areas.

The best way to understand Rorty before we agree or disagree with him is to take him on his own terms. Despite the fact that some critics of Rorty have focused on contradictions among those terms, it remains generally true that Rorty remains loyal to his basic tenets about culture.

The first point which is worthy of note about Rorty in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, for example, is his openness about the experimental nature of some of his work, the tentative playfulness even: "Parts of this book skate on pretty thin ice--the passages in which I offer controversial interpretations of authors whom I discuss only briefly- This is particularly true of my treatment of Proust and Hegel--authors about whom I hope someday to write more fully, but in other parts of the book the ice is a bit thicker" (Rorty, 1989, p. xi).

So we are dealing here with a man who does not take himself as seriously as most philosophers take themselves or as seriously as all of Rorty's critics take themselves.

The basis of Rorty's unique philosophy is his belief that previous efforts to understand human nature have failed, failed to discover the truth and failed to have a signif

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is surely going to seem pretty trivial on his account if it is simply the ability to recognize that one's viewpoint is one among many which could be taken up" (Malachowski, 1990, p. 325). So far, so good, we might say, considering that Burrows is basing her criticism of Rorty on Rorty's own argument for "standing back" and "reflecting" and not pinning ourselves down to one "Truth." Rorty opens himself up to such a criticism of "over-relativizing" when he dismisses the possibility of discovering that single "Truth." However, when Burrows tries to offer a solution to the problem she raises, she exhibits the very philosophic flaw of which Rorty writes when he describes the effort to create a theory which covers all contingencies. Burrows writes first that Rorty "needs to make more of his notion of 'contingency' if he is to distinguish it from 'everyday' relativism . . . ." On the very next page, however, she switches her view dramatically: "Perhaps Rorty does not have to make more out of 'contingency'--perhaps his position should be assimilated to the 'commonsense' perspective" (Malachowski, 1990, pp. 325-326). This is not to say that all critics of Rorty get lost on the very slopes of theoretical and analytical slipperine

Category: Philosophy - P