Richard Rorty

2.1. Early Life and Education

Richard Rorty was born on October 4, 1931, in New York City. His parents, James Rorty and Winifred Rorty, were notable activists, writers, and social democrats. His maternal grandfather, Walter Rauschenbusch, was a central figure in the Social Gospel movement of the early 20th century, which sought to apply Christian ethics to social problems.

Rorty's childhood was marked by personal challenges. His father experienced two nervous breakdowns later in life, the second of which, in the early 1960s, was severe and included claims of divine prescience. These experiences contributed to Rorty's own struggles with depression as a teenager, leading him to undergo a six-year psychiatric analysis for obsessive-compulsive disorder starting in 1962. In his short autobiography, "Trotsky and the Wild Orchids," Rorty reflected on the beauty of rural New Jersey orchids and his desire to reconcile aesthetic beauty with social justice. His colleague, Jürgen Habermas, noted in Rorty's obituary that these early experiences led him to a vision of philosophy as a means to reconcile "the celestial beauty of orchids with Trotsky's dream of justice on earth." Habermas described Rorty as an ironist, stating that "Nothing is sacred to Rorty the ironist. Asked at the end of his life about the 'holy', the strict atheist answered with words reminiscent of the young Hegel: 'My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law.'"

Rorty began his higher education at the University of Chicago shortly before his 15th birthday, where he earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree in philosophy, studying under Richard McKeon. He then pursued his PhD in philosophy at Yale University from 1952 to 1956. His doctoral dissertation, "The Concept of Potentiality," was a historical study supervised by Paul Weiss.

2.2. Academic Career

After serving two years in the United States Army, Rorty began his teaching career at Wellesley College, where he taught for three years until 1961. He then joined the faculty at Princeton University as a professor of philosophy, a position he held for 21 years. In 1981, Rorty was among the first recipients of a MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the "Genius Grant." In 1982, he moved to the University of Virginia as the Kenan Professor of the Humanities, where he collaborated closely with colleagues and students across various departments, particularly in English.

In 1998, Rorty became a professor of comparative literature (and philosophy, by courtesy) at Stanford University, where he remained for the rest of his academic career. During this period, he enjoyed significant popularity and humorously referred to his role as "transitory professor of trendy studies."

Rorty's early work, including his first book as editor, The Linguistic Turn (1967), was firmly rooted in the prevailing analytic tradition, collecting seminal essays on the linguistic turn in philosophy. However, he gradually became deeply engaged with the American philosophical movement of pragmatism, particularly influenced by the writings of John Dewey. Significant shifts in his thinking were also prompted by the work of analytic philosophers such as Willard Van Orman Quine and Wilfrid Sellars, which were evident in his influential book, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979).

2.3. Personal Life

Richard Rorty's personal life included two marriages. He first married Amélie Oksenberg, an academic and professor at Harvard University, with whom he had a son, Jay Rorty, born in 1954. Following his divorce, Rorty married Mary Varney, a bioethicist at Stanford University, in 1972. They had two children, Kevin and Patricia (who later became Max). While Rorty was a self-described "strict atheist," Mary Varney Rorty was a practicing Mormon.

2.4. Death

Richard Rorty died on June 8, 2007, at his home, from pancreatic cancer. Shortly before his death, he wrote a piece titled "The Fire of Life," published in the November 2007 issue of Poetry magazine. In this reflective essay, he meditated on his diagnosis and found comfort in poetry. He concluded that he wished he had spent more of his life with verse, not because he believed poetry held truths incapable of prose, but because he would have lived "more fully" if his memory had been "amply stocked with verses." He believed that cultures with richer vocabularies are "more fully human" and that individuals are more fully human when their memories are rich with poetry.

3.1. Critique of Epistemology and Representationalism

Rorty fundamentally rejected the long-held philosophical idea that knowledge requires correct internal representations of an external, mind-independent reality. He argued that the central problems of modern epistemology are based on a flawed metaphor of the mind as a "mirror of nature," attempting to faithfully represent reality. For Rorty, knowledge is an "internal" and "linguistic" affair, meaning it relates only to our own language and the vocabularies we use.

He criticized both the notion that arguments can be based on self-evident premises within language and the idea that they can be based on non-inferential sensations outside language. Drawing on Willard Van Orman Quine's work, Rorty argued against the clear distinction between analytic and synthetic truths, suggesting that attempts to define analytical truths often rely on factual considerations, blurring the boundary. He also drew on Wilfrid Sellars's critique of the empiricist idea of a non-linguistic, epistemologically relevant "given" in sensory perception. Sellars argued that only language can serve as a foundation for arguments, and that "facts" are not passively "given" but actively "taken" by language-users after they have learned a language.

Rorty contended that these two critiques, when combined, are devastating to foundationalist epistemology. Without a privileged realm of truth or meaning to serve as a self-evident foundation, truth can only be defined as beliefs that are useful or "pay their way" in practice. He suggested that the actual process of inquiry is best understood through a Kuhnian account of disciplines oscillating between "normal" and "abnormal" periods, characterized by routine problem-solving and intellectual crises. Rorty believed that after rejecting foundationalism, a key role for philosophers is to act as intellectual gadflies, provoking revolutionary breaks with past practices. He observed that the success of modern science has led academics in philosophy and the humanities to mistakenly imitate scientific methods, a trend he sought to challenge.

3.2. Pragmatism and the Philosophy of Language

Rorty's philosophical approach is best described as neo-pragmatism. He embraced the pragmatist view that the meaning of a proposition is determined by its use in linguistic practice. He combined this with a later Wittgensteinian philosophy of language, which asserts that meaning is a social-linguistic product, and sentences do not "link up" with the world in a direct correspondence relation.

In Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), Rorty famously wrote: "Truth cannot be out there-cannot exist independently of the human mind-because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own unaided by the describing activities of humans cannot." This perspective led him to question many of philosophy's most basic assumptions and positioned him as a postmodern or deconstructionist philosopher.

Rorty argued that language is composed of vocabularies that are inherently temporary and historical. From this, he concluded that "since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are truths." This view implies that knowledge is not a reflection of an external reality but rather an internal, linguistic construct shaped by human practices and historical circumstances.

3.3. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity

Rorty's mature philosophical system is articulated through the interconnected concepts of contingency, irony, and solidarity.

• Contingency: This refers to the idea that our beliefs, languages, and "final vocabularies" (the words we use to justify our actions, beliefs, and lives) are not grounded in any objective, universal truth but are rather products of arbitrary historical and linguistic circumstances. There is no inherent, necessary connection between our language and the world; our ways of describing reality are contingent.
• Irony: An ironist, for Rorty, is a person who fully recognizes this contingency. They have "radical and continuing doubts about their final vocabulary," understanding that arguments phrased within their own vocabulary cannot ultimately resolve these doubts, and that their vocabulary is not inherently "closer to reality" than others. The ironist is aware of their "rootlessness," constantly questioning whether their socialization and language have led them to be the "wrong kind of human being." Despite this detachment from their own beliefs, Rorty argued that a belief can still regulate action and be "thought worth dying for, among people who are quite aware that this belief is caused by nothing deeper than contingent historical circumstance."
• Solidarity: This concept represents Rorty's ethical commitment. In a world without objective foundations for truth or morality, solidarity becomes the basis for human community. It is the ethical commitment to fellow humans, bound together not by abstract ideas like "justice" or "common humanity," but by a shared opposition to cruelty. Rorty explicitly stated that there is "no noncircular theoretical backup for the belief that cruelty is horrible," meaning this opposition is a matter of shared sentiment and empathy rather than a rational deduction from universal principles.

Rorty also distinguished between two kinds of philosophers: those occupied with "private" matters and those concerned with "public" issues. Private philosophers, drawing inspiration from figures like Friederich Nietzsche, Marcel Proust, and Vladimir Nabokov, focus on individual self-creation and the ability to redefine oneself. Public philosophers, such as John Rawls or Jürgen Habermas, address societal problems and political arrangements. While Habermas believed his theory of communicative rationality updated rationalism, Rorty thought that such universal pretensions should be abandoned, viewing Habermas as a "liberal who doesn't want to be an ironist."

3.4. Political and Social Philosophy

Rorty's political and social philosophy is deeply intertwined with his pragmatist and anti-foundationalist views. He described himself as a "postmodern bourgeois liberal," advocating for a progressive, democratic left.

His notion of human rights is grounded in sentimentality and empathy, rather than universal reason or abstract principles. Rorty contended that throughout history, humans have devised ways to dehumanize certain groups, and rationalist approaches alone cannot solve this problem. He advocated for the creation of a global human rights culture through a "sentimental education," which would foster a sense of empathy and understanding of others' suffering.

Rorty championed what philosopher Nick Gall characterized as a "boundless hope" or "melancholic meliorism." This perspective replaces foundationalist hopes for certainty with a commitment to perpetual growth and constant change, enabling new directions in conversation and hope that are currently unimaginable. In his 1982 book Consequences of Pragmatism, Rorty articulated this by stating, "It is the doctrine that there are no constraints on inquiry save conversational ones-no wholesale constraints derived from the nature of the objects, or of the mind, or of language, but only those retail constraints provided by the remarks of our fellow inquirers."

Rorty was a vocal critic of what he termed the "cultural Left," exemplified by post-structuralists like Michel Foucault and postmodernists like Jean-François Lyotard. He argued that while these thinkers offered insightful critiques of society, they failed to provide viable alternatives, leading to defeatist, anti-liberal, and anti-humanist positions. Rorty felt these positions were embodied by figures such as Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Foucault, whom he accused of an "inverted Platonism" by attempting to craft overarching, metaphysical philosophies that contradicted their own claims to ironism and contingency. In contrast, Rorty championed a "progressive Left," drawing inspiration from figures like John Dewey, Walt Whitman, and James Baldwin, who prioritized hope for a better future and acted in the philosophical spirit of pragmatism. He argued that without hope, social change is spiritually inconceivable, and the cultural Left had begun to foster cynicism.

For Rorty, social institutions should be regarded as "experiments in cooperation rather than as attempts to embody a universal and ahistorical order." He also defended John Rawls against communitarian critics, arguing that liberalism can function "without philosophical presuppositions" while acknowledging that a conception of the self constituted by community aligns well with liberal democracy. He even compared Rawls to an American version of Habermas, an Enlightenment figure who believed in communicative and public reason as means for collective living and defining the public good.

3.5. Bridging Analytic and Continental Philosophy

Throughout his career, Rorty made significant efforts to bridge or find common ground between the analytic and continental traditions, which are often seen as distinct or even opposed. From the late 1980s through the 1990s, Rorty focused on the continental philosophical tradition, engaging with the works of figures such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Lyotard, and Jacques Derrida.

In works like Essays on Heidegger and Others: Philosophical Papers II (1991) and Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers III (1998), Rorty argued that European "post-Nietzscheans" shared much with American pragmatists, particularly in their critique of metaphysics and their rejection of the correspondence theory of truth. He suggested that Derrida, for instance, is most usefully understood as a playful writer who sought to circumvent the Western philosophical tradition, rather than as the inventor of a new philosophical "method." Rorty criticized Derrida's followers, such as Paul de Man, for taking deconstructive literary theory too seriously.

Rorty contended that while analytic philosophy might not have fulfilled its grand aspirations or solved all its self-imposed puzzles, its process of questioning and setting aside those pretensions helped secure its important place in the history of ideas. He believed that by abandoning the quest for apodicticity and finality-a quest shared by thinkers like Edmund Husserl, Rudolf Carnap, and Bertrand Russell-and by finding new reasons why such a quest would never succeed, analytic philosophy paved a path beyond scientism, much as the German idealists had navigated around empiricism.

4.1. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

Published in 1979, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is Rorty's foundational critique of traditional philosophy. In this work, he argues that the central problems of modern epistemology are based on a pervasive metaphor: the idea of the mind as attempting to faithfully "represent" or "mirror" a mind-independent, external reality. Rorty contends that if we abandon this "mirror" metaphor, the entire enterprise of foundationalist epistemology simply dissolves.

Rorty criticized the notion that knowledge can be founded on self-evident premises within language, drawing on Willard Van Orman Quine's work on analytically true sentences. Quine argued that the attempt to convert identity-based but empty analytical truths (e.g., "no unmarried man is married") into synonymity-based ones (e.g., "no bachelor is married") fails because proving synonymity requires considering facts, thus blurring the line between analytic and synthetic truths. Quine concluded that the boundary between analytic and synthetic statements "has not been drawn" and is an "unempirical dogma of empiricists, a metaphysical article of faith."

Rorty also critiqued the empiricist idea of a non-linguistic, epistemologically relevant "given" in sensory perception, drawing on Wilfrid Sellars's arguments. Sellars maintained that only language can serve as a foundation for arguments, and non-linguistic sensory perceptions are irrelevant. In Sellars's view, the claim of an epistemologically relevant "given" is a myth; a fact is not something "given" to us, but something we "take" as language-users. Only after learning a language can we interpret sensory input as "empirical data."

Rorty claimed that these two critiques, when combined, are devastating to traditional epistemology. Without a privileged realm of truth or meaning to serve as a self-evident foundation, truth becomes defined by beliefs that are useful or "pay their way." He suggested that the only valuable description of inquiry is a Kuhnian account of disciplines progressing through "normal" and "abnormal" periods, oscillating between routine problem-solving and intellectual crises. Rorty proposed that a philosopher's role, after rejecting foundationalism, is to act as an intellectual gadfly, prompting revolutionary breaks with past practices. He observed that the success of modern science had led philosophers and humanists to mistakenly imitate scientific methods.

4.2. Consequences of Pragmatism

Published in 1982, Consequences of Pragmatism is a collection of Rorty's essays from 1972 to 1980. This work further established his distinctive brand of pragmatism, building on the themes introduced in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. The essays explore the implications of rejecting foundationalism for concepts like language, truth, and inquiry. Rorty elaborates on the pragmatist view that the meaning of a proposition is determined by its use in linguistic practice, aligning with a later Wittgensteinian philosophy of language that sees meaning as a social-linguistic product.

In this book, Rorty also articulates his concept of "boundless hope" or "melancholic meliorism." He suggests that by replacing foundationalist hopes for certainty with an embrace of perpetual growth and constant change, we can open conversations and hopes in new, currently unimaginable directions. He encapsulates this by stating that pragmatism is the doctrine that "there are no constraints on inquiry save conversational ones-no wholesale constraints derived from the nature of the objects, or of the mind, or of language, but only those retail constraints provided by the remarks of our fellow inquirers."

4.3. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity

Released in 1989, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity represents Rorty's mature philosophical system and his first explicit attempt to articulate a political vision consistent with his anti-foundationalist philosophy. In this book, Rorty argues that there is no single, worthwhile theory of truth beyond the non-epistemic semantic theory developed by Donald Davidson (based on the work of Alfred Tarski).

Rorty introduces the concepts of contingency, irony, and solidarity as central to understanding human existence and liberal society. He distinguishes between "private" philosophers, who focus on individual self-creation (drawing from Nietzsche, Proust, and Nabokov), and "public" philosophers, who address societal problems (like Rawls and Habermas). While acknowledging Habermas's work, Rorty criticizes his adherence to "universal" rationalism, viewing him as a "liberal who doesn't want to be an ironist."

The book outlines a political vision of a diverse community united by its opposition to cruelty, rather than by abstract ideals such as "justice" or "common humanity." Rorty asserts that there is "no noncircular theoretical backup for the belief that cruelty is horrible," emphasizing that this shared sentiment is the foundation of moral action. He defines the "ironist" as someone who recognizes the contingent nature of their own beliefs and language, constantly questioning their "final vocabulary" without seeking an ultimate criterion for correctness. Despite this radical doubt, Rorty maintains that contingent beliefs can still motivate action and be worth defending.

4.4. Philosophical Papers (Volumes I-IV)

Rorty's collected essays, published in four volumes as Philosophical Papers, trace the evolution of his thought and his engagement with various philosophical debates.

• Volume I: Objectivity, Relativism and Truth (1990)

This collection aims to provide an "anti-representationalist account of the relation between natural science and the rest of culture." A notable essay, "The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy," defends John Rawls against communitarian critics. Rorty argues that liberalism can "get along without philosophical presuppositions" while acknowledging that a conception of the self as constituted by community aligns well with liberal democracy. He suggests that social institutions should be viewed as "experiments in cooperation rather than as attempts to embody a universal and ahistorical order." Rorty saw Rawls as a kind of American Habermas, an Enlightenment figure who believed in communicative and public reason for collective decision-making.

• Volume II: Essays on Heidegger and Others (1991)

In this volume, Rorty focuses primarily on continental philosophers Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida. He argues that these European "post-Nietzscheans" share common ground with American pragmatists in their critique of metaphysics and their rejection of the correspondence theory of truth. Rorty suggests that Derrida is most valuable when seen as a playful writer who sought to circumvent the Western philosophical tradition, rather than as the creator of a new philosophical method. He criticizes Derrida's followers, such as Paul de Man, for taking deconstructive literary theory too seriously.

• Volume III: Truth and Progress (1998)

This volume continues Rorty's efforts to bridge the perceived divide between analytic and continental philosophy. He argues that these two traditions, rather than opposing each other, can be seen as complementary, each contributing to a broader understanding of philosophical inquiry by challenging outdated assumptions and opening new intellectual paths.

• Volume IV: Philosophy as Cultural Politics (2007)

Published shortly before his death, this volume further explores Rorty's views on the role of philosophy in contemporary society. It addresses topics such as the place of religion in modern life, the nature of liberal communities, and the intersection of comparative literature and philosophy as a form of "cultural politics."

4.5. Achieving Our Country

Published in 1998, Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America is a political manifesto where Rorty articulates his vision for revitalizing American progressive politics. Drawing on figures like John Dewey and Walt Whitman, Rorty differentiates between two distinct factions within the American Left: the "cultural Left" and the "progressive Left."

He criticizes the cultural Left, which he associates with post-structuralists like Michel Foucault and postmodernists like Jean-François Lyotard. Rorty argues that while this faction offers insightful critiques of society, it often fails to provide concrete alternatives, or its alternatives are too vague to be actionable. He contends that these intellectuals, despite their critical insights into societal ills, sometimes deny the very possibility of progress, leading to a "defeatist, anti-liberal, anti-humanist" stance. Rorty also accused them of an "inverted Platonism," attempting to construct grand, metaphysical philosophies that contradicted their own claims to ironism and contingency.

In contrast, Rorty champions the "progressive Left," exemplified by the pragmatist tradition of Dewey, Whitman, and James Baldwin. This faction, for Rorty, prioritizes hope for a better future. He argues that without hope, meaningful social change is spiritually inconceivable, and he warns that the cultural Left's cynicism risks undermining the very possibility of progress. Rorty sees the progressive Left as embodying the true philosophical spirit of pragmatism, focused on practical reform and the pursuit of a better society.

5.1. Influence

Rorty's ideas have profoundly shaped the work of many contemporary philosophers, literary critics, and public intellectuals, fostering new intellectual currents. His philosophy has been a central point of discussion in numerous anthologies, such as Robert Brandom's Rorty and His Critics, which features discussions of Rorty's philosophy by prominent thinkers including Donald Davidson, Jürgen Habermas, Hilary Putnam, John McDowell, Jacques Bouveresse, and Daniel Dennett.

John McDowell, in particular, was strongly influenced by Rorty, especially by Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), stating that Rorty's work was "central for the way I define my stance here." In the realm of Continental philosophy, Rorty's thinking has influenced authors such as Jürgen Habermas, Gianni Vattimo, Jacques Derrida, Albrecht Wellmer, Hans Joas, Chantal Mouffe, Simon Critchley, Esa Saarinen, and Mike Sandbothe, albeit in diverse ways. Beyond academia, American novelist David Foster Wallace titled a short story in his collection Oblivion: Stories "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature," and critics have noted Rorty's influence in some of Wallace's writings on irony.

5.2. Criticisms

Despite his significant influence, Rorty's philosophy has faced substantial criticism from various quarters.

One prominent critic of Rorty's neo-pragmatism is Susan Haack. Haack questioned Rorty's claim to be a pragmatist at all, illustrating her point in a short play titled We Pragmatists, where Rorty and Charles Sanders Peirce engage in a fictional conversation using only direct quotes from their own writings. For Haack, the only connection between Rorty's neo-pragmatism and Peirce's original pragmatism is merely the name. She views Rorty's approach as anti-philosophical and anti-intellectual, arguing that it makes people more susceptible to rhetorical manipulation.

Roger Scruton criticized Rorty in 2007, stating that Rorty was "paramount among those thinkers who advance their own opinion as immune to criticism, by pretending that it is not truth but consensus that counts, while defining the consensus in terms of people like themselves." Ralph Marvin Tumaob also suggested that Rorty was influenced by Jean-François Lyotard's metanarratives, and that "postmodernism was influenced further by the works of Rorty."

Rorty's political and moral philosophies, despite his self-identification as a liberal, have been attacked by commentators from the Left, who often argue that his frameworks are insufficient for achieving social justice. For example, Terry Eagleton criticized Rorty's philosophy as inadequate in the fight against powerful corporations. Rorty also faced criticism for his rejection of the idea that science can objectively depict the world, with Daniel Dennett remarking that such a stance showed "flatfooted ignorance of the proven methods of scientific truth-seeking and their power."

A common criticism, particularly regarding Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, is that Rorty's philosophical hero, the ironist, is an elitist figure. Rorty himself acknowledged that most people would be "commonsensically nominalist and historicist" but not ironist. He defined an ironist as someone who "has radical and continuing doubts about their final vocabulary"-the set of words they use to justify their actions, beliefs, and lives-and who realizes that arguments within their vocabulary cannot resolve these doubts, and that their vocabulary is not inherently "closer to reality" than others.

Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo and Spanish philosopher Santiago Zabala, in their 2011 book Hermeneutic Communism, criticized Rorty's view that the quest for a cooperative commonwealth should be scientific rather than utopian or romantic. They argued that hermeneutics, unlike scientific knowledge, embraces postmodern particularism and thus contains the utopian and romantic features Rorty dismissed.

Rorty often drew upon a wide range of other philosophers to support his views, and his interpretations of their work have been contested. However, Rorty was not interested in "accurately" portraying other thinkers in a historical sense; rather, he used their ideas in a way a literary critic might use a novel. His essay "The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres" describes this approach. In Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Rorty attempted to preemptively disarm his critics by arguing that their philosophical criticisms were often based on axioms explicitly rejected within his own philosophy. For instance, he defined allegations of irrationality as mere affirmations of vernacular "otherness," suggesting such accusations should simply be brushed aside in a truly open conversation.