Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher who taught at Princeton, the University of Virginia, and Stanford. He began as an analytic philosopher formed in the Wittgenstein-Sellars tradition, but Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979) projected him as one of the most radical critics of the Western epistemological tradition. Rorty is the principal representative of neopragmatism, which combines the American pragmatist heritage (Dewey, James) with elements of continental philosophy (Heidegger, Derrida) and late analytic philosophy (Wittgenstein, Quine, Sellars).
Key Concepts
Critique of Epistemology (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 1979): Rorty argues that the entire Western epistemological tradition — from Descartes through Kant to logical positivism — rests on the metaphor of the mind as a “mirror of nature”: the mind as a surface that reflects the world. This metaphor is contingent, historical, non-necessary. The “crisis” of modern philosophy resulted from trying to ground knowledge in “privileged representations” — indubitable intuitions (Descartes) or sense data (empiricism). Rorty proposes abandoning this metaphor and all the problematisation it generates.
Edifying vs. Systematic Philosophy: In place of philosophy that seeks foundations, Rorty proposes edifying philosophy (edifying philosophy): conversation that opens up possibilities, challenges dominant presuppositions, and enlarges vocabularies. Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Dewey are “edifying philosophers” who, each in their own way, dissolve rather than solve philosophical problems.
Neopragmatism — Truth and Justification: Truth is not a property of propositions that “correspond” to reality. For Rorty, following Dewey and James, truth is what is good for us to believe, what works, what withstands criticism. There is no neutral vantage point (“the God’s Eye view”) from which we could compare our beliefs with naked reality. There is only belief and justification within practices and vocabularies.
Contingent Vocabularies (Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, 1989): Everything is contingent — our language, our self, our community. There are no necessary essences or foundations. The liberal ironist is one who: (a) has radical doubts about their own final vocabulary; (b) recognises that these vocabularies cannot be grounded in arguments; (c) does not believe their vocabulary is closer to reality than others’. This is combined with liberal solidarity — expanding the circle of “we” to include others who suffer.
Anti-Essentialism: There is no fixed human nature, no Reason with a capital R, no privileged method for reaching truth. Moral progress is a process of imaginative expansion of empathy — learning to see others as “one of us” — not a derivation from principles.
Philosophy and Literature: Rorty rejects the rigid boundary between philosophy and literature. Novels, poems, and personal narratives can expand our solidarity as much as — or more than — philosophical arguments.
Influenced by
- Dewey, James, Peirce — American Pragmatism
- Wittgenstein — Philosophical Investigations; dissolution of philosophical problems
- Heidegger — critique of the Western tradition
- Wilfrid Sellars — critique of the “given” in knowledge
- Quine — holism and naturalism
Influenced
- Neopragmatism (Robert Brandom, among others)
- Literary theory and cultural studies
- Debates on relativism, democracy, and pluralism
Works
The Linguistic Turn (ed., 1967); Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979); Consequences of Pragmatism (1982); Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989); Objectivity, Relativism and Truth (1991); Essays on Heidegger and Others (1991); Achieving Our Country (1998); Philosophy and Social Hope (1999); Philosophy as Cultural Politics (2007).
See also
Analytic Philosophy Twentieth-Century Philosophy
Recommended books:
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature — Richard Rorty
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Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity — Richard Rorty
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