Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:26:41.742Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Question for Richard Rorty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Christopher M. Duncan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay begins with the assumption that Richard Rorty means everything he says; its question, however, is ultimately why he says everything he means. Politically speaking, for someone who is unconstrained by metaphysical concerns about the “right” or the “good,” what counts is not being right, but being successful. Hence my question for Rorty is simply this: why be honest when deception might be more effective? I contend that in the context of American political culture that his honest practice of his philosophy undermines his politics. Unlike other critical accounts, mine focuses on his tactics and Rorty's own failure to accept the burdens and possibilities of his own theoretical work. I then offer Rorty a model of deception for his consideration from Miguel de Unamuno's short story “St. Emmanuel the Good, Martyr,” that he might have made use of had he been more interested in political results than in being thought honest.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 66 , Issue 3 , Summer 2004 , pp. 385 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

I would like to thank Kelly Harrington for help in preparing the final manuscript along with John Morris and Diane B. Moore, the editor and anonymous reviewers at The Review for their thoughtful and helpful comments. This work was originally presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in San Francisco, CA in 2001.

1. See Rorty, Richard, “Response to James Conant,” in Rorty and His Critics, ed. Brandom, Robert B. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd., 2000), p. 347Google Scholar.

2. Although this paper is presented as a question for Richard Rorty proper, its larger purpose is clearly to target his intellectual and political allies as well. While at certain points I have reinforced this purpose, there are others where, for stylistic reasons, I have simply allowed Rorty to remain the sole direct object of a particular claim. While he has never claimed to speak for a party or a movement that I know of, it would be the greatest disservice to Rorty himself to believe that he has no hope of influence regarding his forays into the world of political rhetoric, theory, and politics proper.

3. James Conant, “Freedom, Cruelty, and Truth: Rorty versus Orwell,” in Rorty and His Critics. See also Rorty, “Response.”

4. There is not space to provide a sustained argument on this point. Historically the argument is simple and self-evident and by and large accounts for the novelty of Rorty's own thought. Philosophically, I can only point to the tact that I would pursue if time allowed. That case would begin with the work of thinkers like Taylor, Charles, Sources of the Self (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989)Google Scholar, and The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992)Google Scholar, and Tinder, Glen, The Political Meaning of Christianity: An Interpretation (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989)Google Scholar. In Taylor's work on authenticity, he strikes out to “retrieve” the modern notion of individual authenticity from both its conservative detractors like Allan Bloom, who equates with a kind of deviant egoism, and its liberal defenders like Ronald Dworkin and Will Kymlicka, who mistakenly embrace a kind of “soft relativism” (Taylor, , The Ethics, chap. 2Google Scholar). Building on the work of Herder and the ideal that “each of us has an original way of being human,” Taylor argues that “I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else's.” In turn, “this gives new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life, I miss what being human is for me” (Taylor, , The Ethics, pp. 28–29Google Scholar). If we were to link Taylor's approach to the more religiously explicit notion found in the work of Glenn Tinder when he writes about the exalted individual who is called upon to transform fate into destiny in order to beget “the temporal and free unfoldment of a person's essential being” (Tinder, , The Political, p. 28Google Scholar), we have at least the foundation for arguing the utter necessity of the truthseeking enterprise. Less such a quest, not only does “meaning” fall to the wayside, but so too does significance, i.e., why does it even matter.

5. Conant, (“Freedom”) has done an excellent and thorough job in criticizing Rorty's work as it relates to the question of its own pragmatism from a philosophic perspective as he attempts to unearth some criticism that “might strike home” and elicit “something other than a verbal equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders” (p. 269). To wit, Conant focuses on “(i) a criticism which could succeed in demonstrating to him that his way of leaving philosophy behind fails to accomplish its purpose, and (ii) a criticism which could succeed in demonstrating to him that his way of rejecting philosophical problems does not enable us to care about the very sorts of goods that he thinks we should care about instead” (p. 269). My project shares a similar aim, but instead of worrying about whether Rorty's philosophy is good philosophy qua Rortyian philosophy, I ask whether it is a serviceable and fully realized philosophy as it relates to his politics. As I point out, this is a question that could not really be raised much before Rorty's “political turn” in the 1990s.

6. See Anderson, Charles W., “Pragmatism & Liberalism, Rationalism and Irrationalism: A Response to Richard Rorty,” Polity 23 (1991): 357–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bernstein, Richard J., “One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward: Richard Rorty on Liberal Democracy and Philosophy,” Political Theory 15 (1987): 538–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Conant, “Freedom.” Connolly, William, “Mirror of Nature,” Raritan 3 (1983): 124–35Google Scholar. Fisk, Milton, “The Instability of Pragmatism,” New Literary History 17 (1985): 23–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. See Shusterman, Richard, “Pragmatism and Liberalism Between Dewey and Rorty,” Political Theory 22 (1994): 391–413CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Sidorsky, David., “Does the Left Still Have the Power to Speak?” Partisan Review 67 (2000): 122–130Google Scholar. Tomborino, John, “Philosophy as the Mirror of Liberalism: The Politics of Richard Rorty,” Polity 30 (1997): 57–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Topper, Keith, “Richard Rorty, Liberalism and the Politics of Redescription,” American Political Science Review 89 (1995): 954–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. For example, Elshtain, Jean Bethke, Real Politics (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997)Google Scholar. Goodheart, Eugene, “The Postmodern Liberalism of Richard Rorty,” Partisan Review (Fall, 1996): 223–35Google Scholar. Habermas, Jürgen, “Modernity versus Post-Modernity,” New German Critique 22 (1981): 3–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Habermas, Jürgen, The Philosophic Discourse of Modernity (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1987)Google Scholar. Schick, Fredric, “Liberty, Equality, and Diversity: Some Reflections on Rorty,” Social Research 59 (1992): 297–314Google Scholar. McCarthy, Thomas, “Private Irony and Public Decency: Richard Rorty's New Pragmatism,” Critical Inquiry 16 (1990): 355–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Wain, Kenneth, “Strong Poets and Utopia: Rorty's Liberalism, Dewey and Democracy” Political Studies 41 (1993): 394–407CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Wolin, Sheldon S., “Democracy in the Discourse of Postmodernism,” Social Research 57 (1990): 5–30Google Scholar.

9. See for example Johnson, Alan, “The Politics of Richard Rorty,” New Politics (Summer, 2000): 103–121Google Scholar.

10. See Foucault, Michel, “Polemics, Politics, and Problemizations: An Interview,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. Rabinow, Paul (New York: Pantheon, 1984)Google Scholar. Critchly, Simon, “Metaphysics in the Dark: a Response to Richard Rorty and Ernesto Laclau,” Political Theory 26 (1998): 803–817CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. See Maclntyre, Alasdair, “Moral Arguments and Social Contexts,” The Journal of Philosophy 10 (1983): 590–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. See Neuhaus, Richard John, “Joshing Mr. Rorty.” First Things 8 (1990): 124–26Google Scholar.

13. For a representative sample of such work, see Rorty, Richard, “Thugs and Theorists: A Reply to Bernstein,” Political Theory 15 (1987): 564–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Rorty, Richard, “Truth and Freedom: A Reply to Thomas McCarthy,” Critical Inquiry 16 (1990): 636–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. Rorty, Richard, “Intellectuals and Politics: Too Far In? Too Far Out?” Dissent (1991): 483–90Google Scholar. Rorty, Richard, “The Sins of the Overclass,” Dissent (Spring, 1996): 109–112Google Scholar.

15. Rorty, Richard, ed. The Linguistic Turn: Recent Essays in Philosophical Method (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967)Google Scholar.

16. Bernstein, , “One Step Forward,” pp. 541–42Google Scholar. Rorty, Richard, “Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism,” The Journal of Philosophy 80 (1983): 583–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. Rorty, Richard, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. xvCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. Ibid., p. xv.

19. Ibid., p.7.

20. Ibid. One of the more penetrating critiques of this particular line of reasoning in Rorty can be found in Elshtain's essay “Don't Be Cruel: Reflections on Rortyian Liberalism” in Real Politics where she asks him to “redescribe” a story of a Greek mother of three boys who is forced by a German soldier to choose one who is to be spared while the others are to be killed in a way that would render it anything but horrific (p. 328)

21. Rorty, , Contingency, p. 9Google Scholar.

22. Ibid., p. 20. For this terminology's origin, see Bloom, Harold, The Anxiety of Influence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973)Google Scholar.

23. Rorty, , Contingency, pp. 21–22Google Scholar.

24. Ibid., p. 44.

25. A certain kind of pragmatist would argue that I have misconstrued the obvious, since what is “true” is the same thing as what “works” for the pragmatist thus rendering the operative dichotomy a false one, and he or she would have a point. However, that same pragmatist would not, on my reading, be able to embrace the public/private distinction that Rorty offers up as his own starting point for political discourse. If what “works” was the byproduct of the strong poet's personal revelation or some such thing it too would be legitimate. Pragmatism in its more standard form could be both prudential and revolutionary depending on the circumstances. It could also be thought of as a truth-seeking philosophy insofar as greater deliberation and critical thought could lead to a more fully realized conception of the human good. In Rorty's Neitzchean variant, however, society must be cordoned off from its radical possibilities whether they are generated from the Left or the Right regardless of whether such possibilities might be what ultimately “works.” Hence, it is fair to say that my argument is with a particular brand of pragmatism and not with an entire school of thought per se. For a thorough accounting of the development and the important distinctions within pragmatism itself please see Diggins, John Patrick, The Promise of Pragmatism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), especially chap. 10Google Scholar.

26. Rorty, , Contingency, p. 52Google Scholar. The standard and immediate criticisms of this position have, from my vantage point, all been made and responded to by Rorty. Indeed, one of his strengths as a thinker is his ability to anticipate criticism and respond to it before it can be made by others. In any case, I will not rehash those larger arguments here since my purpose is ultimately to claim that Rorty is not Rortyian enough rather than to claim that he is incorrect in his position.

27. Ibid., p. 34.

28. Ibid., p. 61.

29. Ibid., p. 63.

30. Ibid., pp. 60–61.

31. Rorty, Richard, “The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy,” in The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, ed. Peterson, Merrill D. and Vaughan, Robert C.. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 270Google Scholar.

32. Ibid., p. 270

33. Ibid., p. 272.

34. Ibid.

35. For a definition, see Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 127Google Scholar. Arendt, Hannah, On Revolution (New York: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 130Google Scholar.

36. In his essay, “The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy,” Rorty's early discussion focuses on the relationship between rights and metaphysics arguing that we can enjoy the former without recourse to the latter by turning our attention to particular communities, cultures, and traditions. In that discussion, he claims that “we shall still need something to distinguish the sort of individual conscience we respect from the sort we condemn as ‘fanatical’” (p. 259). The use of that term as opposed to something less provocative and antagonistic is, I believe, important to note as it calls to mind Rousseau's famous dictum about forcing some citizens to be free in its worst and most dangerous socio-political sense.

37. See Duncan, Christopher M., Fugitive Theory: Political Theory, the Southern Agrarians, and America (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2000)Google Scholar.

38. For a discussion, see Duncan, Christopher M., The Anti-Federalists and Early American Political Thought (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

39. Shusterman, , “Pragmatism,” p. 406Google Scholar, makes this point well when he writes: “However, between the Great Community [of Dewey] and the private individual, there is the notion of smaller communities or publics that are small enough to be real communities of meaningful interpersonal relations and yet large and powerful enough to connect the individual to the wider social world and afford him a true arena to enact and enhance his freedom” (p. 406).

40. Rorty, , Contingency, p. 83Google Scholar

41.. Ibid.

42. See Abbott, Philip, Political Thought in America: Conversations and Debates (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

43. Rorty, Richard, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

44. Rorty, , “Thugs,” p. 567Google Scholar.

45. See Bernstein, , “One Step Forward,” pp. 538–63Google Scholar.

46. Ibid., pp. 564–65.

47. Ibid., p. 574.

48. See Topper, , “Richard Rorty, Liberalism,” p. 961Google Scholar. Flathman, Richard E., “Review of Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity” Political Theory 18 (1990): 311–12Google Scholar. Anderson, , “Pragmatism,” pp. 357–71Google Scholar. Wain, , “Strong Poets,” p. 399Google Scholar.

49. Rorty, , “Postmodernist,” pp. 583–89Google Scholar.

50. Ibid., p. 585

51. Ibid.

52. Rorty, , Achieving, p. 13Google Scholar.

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid., p. 14.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid., p. 18

59. See Anderson, , “Pragmatism,” pp. 357–71Google Scholar. Shusterman, “Pragmatism,” pp. 391–413Google Scholar. Malachuk, Daniel S., “Loyal to a Dream Country: Republicanism and the Pragmatism of William James and Richard Rorty,” Journal of American Studies 34 (2000): 89–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60. Rorty, , Achieving, p. 22Google Scholar

61. Ibid., p. 25.

62. Ibid., p. 27

63. Ibid., p. 30.

64. Ibid., p. 43.

65. Quoted in Rorty, , Achieving, p. 47Google Scholar.

66. Ibid., p. 66

67. Ibid., p. 59

68. Ibid., p. 79

69. Ibid., p. 80.

70. Ibid., p. 82.

71. Ibid., p.91

72. Ibid.

73. Ibid., p. 97.

74. Ibid., p. 101.

75. Ibid.

76. Ibid.

77. While a defender of Rorty would be quick to point out that for Rortyians you cannot get America “right” or “wrong” given the emphasis on accentuating or deaccentuating “stories,” their claim would be incorrect in the context of this essay. Although such an argument might hold philosophically speaking, it is significantly weakened by the fact that political success ultimately hinges on the degree to which one's assertions resonant with American voters and reflect their primary convictions and concerns, however they are derived or divined, In a telling essay on Carter's, Stephen, The Culture of Disbelief (New York: Anchor Books, 1994)Google Scholar. Rorty provides a critical snapshot that implicitly acknowledges the validity of the argument being put forth here when he writes: “We atheists … think it bad enough that we cannot run for public office without being disingenuous about our disbelief in God … no uncloseted atheist is likely to get elected anywhere in the country” (Rorty, Richard, “Religion as Conversation Stopper,” in Philosophy and Social Hope, ed. Rorty, Richard [New York: Penguin, 1999], p. 169)Google Scholar. If my reading of his philosophy is on track, said “disingenuousness” need not be seen as a burden or limit on Rortyian politics any longer. In still another instance, the same implication can be drawn from Rorty's own condemnation of student protestors who he claims “lost the respect and sympathy of union members” when “they began to spell ‘America’ with a ‘k’” (Rorty, Richard, “Back to Class Politics,” in Philosophy and Social Hope, ed. Rorty, Richard [New York: Penguin, 1999], p. 260)Google Scholar. In other words, Rorty himself seems to suggest that you can get America “wrong” in at least a political sense.

78. Berkowitz, Peter, “Can Liberalism Be Saved?” Commentary 105 (06, 1998): 75–78Google Scholar. Goodheart, , “The Postmodern,” pp. 223–35Google Scholar. Malachuk, , “Loyal,” pp. 106–110Google Scholar, especially. McCarthy, , “Private,” pp. 355–70Google Scholar. Schick, , “Liberty,” pp. 297–314Google Scholar. Topper, , “Richard Rorty, Liberalism,” pp. 954–65Google Scholar. Wain, , “Strong Poets,” pp. 394–407Google Scholar.

79. Bernstein, , “One Step Forward,” pp. 538–63Google Scholar. Bernstein, Richard J., “Rorty's Liberal Utopia,” Social Research 57 (1990): 31–72Google Scholar. Bernstein writes: “I do not see any evidence that Rorty faces up to the challenge that Marx poses for us in his critique of ideology, namely, that the structural dynamics of bourgeois society systematically undermine and belie liberal ideas… It is made by Weber—in a different way—when he argues that the spread and institutionalization of zweckrationalitiat, and increasingly disenchantment of the world (which Rorty favors and wants to further), has the consequence of undermining the very social conditions required for individual autonomy and freedom” (p. 552).

80. Malachuk, , “Loyal,” pp. 106–110Google Scholar. Malachuk argues that Rorty and his heros like Dewey and James rely on the language of classical republicanism to construct their political visions. However, he points out importantly that their use of that language is itself a pragmatic rather than a principled decision writing: “because pragmatism is an antifoundationalist philosophy concerned with accomplishing things in (American) historical contexts, the republican vocabulary—while logically as arbitrary a choice as Nazism—usually works the best” (p. 105). He goes on to argue that Rorty's failing is that he does not plumb the depths of the vocabulary he utilizes as thoroughly and, therefore, as effectively as he could have by ignoring the “cosmic” dimension of the republican idiom (p. 106).

81. Rorty, , “Postmodernist,” p. 584Google Scholar.

82. McCarthy, “Private,” offers a solid critique on this point arguing that Rorty as a “self-professed pragmatist” does not seriously consider that his position “could seriously weaken the glue holding our institutions together and thus might not be ‘good in the way of belief’ after all.” He goes on to note one of the more persistent problems with Rorty's political science so to speak, namely, “he does not back up his sanguine prognosis with any large-scale analysis of contemporary society, of its history and its prospects, for he emphatically denies the usefulness of such a genre” (p. 366).

83. Buscemi, William I., “The Ironic Politics of Richard Rorty,” Review of Politics 55 (1993): 157CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84. See note 26.

85. Rorty, , “Contingency,” p. 45Google Scholar.

86. Bloom, Harold, The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992)Google Scholar.

87. Duncan, Christopher M., “Christianity, Secularism, and the American Public Square,” The McNeese Review 40 (2002): 28–39Google Scholar.

88. Bloom, , American Religion, p. 257Google Scholar.

89. Ibid.

90. Buscemi, , “Ironic Politics,” p. 153Google Scholar.

91. Ibid.

92. McCarthy, , “Private,” p. 367Google Scholar.

93. I am quite aware of the practical difficulty here given Rorty's age, prominence, and written record, hence the “advice” rendered may be more appropriately directed at his students and political-fellow travelers and to Rorty as he relates to them in private.

94. For the classic account of this methodology please see Strauss, Leo, Persecution and The Art of Writing (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

95. See Hartz, Louis, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1983)Google Scholar.

96. Kerrigan, Anthony, “Introduction,” in Able Sanchez and Other Stories, by Unamuno, Minguel de (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1956), p. ixGoogle Scholar.

97. Reese, W. L., Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1980), p. 595Google Scholar.

98. Ibid.

99. Rorty, , “Contingency,” p. 52Google Scholar.

100. Unamuno, Minguel de, “Saint Emmanuel The Good, Martyr,” in Able Sanchez and Other Stories, trans. Kerrigan, Anthony (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1956), p. 207Google Scholar.

101. Ibid., p. 209.

102. Ibid., p. 211.

103. Ibid.

104. Ibid., p. 212.

105. Ibid., p. 217.

106. Ibid.

107. Ibid.

108. Ibid., p. 216.

109. Ibid., p. 227.

110. Ibid.

111. Ibid., pp. 227–228.

112. Ibid., p. 229.

113. Ibid., p. 230.

114. .Ibid.

115. Ibid., p. 231.

116. Ibid.

117. Ibid., p. 233.

118. Ibid., p. 235.

119. Ibid., p. 237.

120. Ibid., p. 258.

121. Ibid., p. 259.

122. McCarthy, , “Private,” p. 366Google Scholar.

123. Sidorsky, , “Does the Left,” p. 130Google Scholar.

124. Salvatore, Nick, Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1982)Google Scholar. Abbott, , “Political,” pp. 213–215Google Scholar.

125. McElvaine, Robert S., The Great Depression: America 1929–1941 (New York: Times Books, 1984): 238Google Scholar. See also Brinkley, Alan, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin & The Great Depression (New York: Vintage Books, 1982)Google Scholar.

126. Rorty, , “The Priority,” p. 258Google Scholar.

127. Ibid., p. 267.

128. Quoted in Jayne, Allen, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998), p. 166Google Scholar.

129. Quoted in Barber, Benjamin, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), p. 1Google Scholar.

130. Meyerson, Harold, “Actors on an Empty Stage,” Dissent (Spring, 1998), p. 108Google Scholar. See also Malachuk, , “Loyal,” pp. 106–107Google Scholar.

131. Goodheart, , “The Postmodern,” p. 229Google Scholar.