Essentially Contested America

Richard Rorty’s death has prompted well-deserved praise and appreciation for a public life well spent. There has been, however, little serious discussion of his political views. This is unfortunate, because politics is the radiating core of his philosophy. Rorty’s project replaces epistemology with politics and knowledge with warranted assertability which is achieved through political debate. More precisely, conversation–deliberative debate designed to achieve unforced inter-subjective agreement–is the goal of Rortyan politics. Similarly, deliberative conversation is the method for talking about politics and culture. By engaging in this multi-layered conversation, we may be able to agree about some critical features of social life. When we agree we achieve provisional closure of debate. When we disagree, the debate must continue until we achieve agreement. If agreement is improbable at the time, we can at least appreciate just what is at stake in our disagreement. Often underlying our disagreement are two incommensurable perspectives. When this occurs we must pause, but then return to “debate” through poetry–non-discursive suasion–which may help us to achieve agreement through edifying vocabularies that convert others to our point of view.

It’s not Rorty’s intention to try to refute the framework of truth, knowledge, reason, and reality, whatever that would be like. He doesn’t seek to demonstrate that this framework is self-contradictory, for example. On the contrary, he engages in kibitzing–a form of jocular coaching–about the usefulness of retaining this framework. Rorty urges us to imagine a new world where people were simply uninterested in philosophical justifications of the judgments that matter most to them. These new worlders are deadly serious about whether these judgments are true, but not about what is meant by “truth.” They seek true judgments, but not true judgments about the nature of truth. In this new world, the word “true” applies simply what other people let us get away with. It is the normative compliment awarded to the judgment that withstands criticism best. The nature of truth, knowledge, reason, and reality–these foundational justifiers–simply don’t turn new worlders on. In a similar fashion, the nature or existence of God leaves these new worlders cold. Instead, they are engaged in building a future dedicated to minimizing cruelty and suffering. They are always ready to argue whether a particular policy reduces cruelty and suffering. But they find it tedious to try to demonstrate why cruelty and suffering should be reduced in the first place. These new worlders have experienced cruelty and suffering themselves and just want them eliminated. Their experiences is all the proof necessary. For them, seeking a demonstration of whether cruelty and suffering should be eliminated is a fool’s errand. We have no guarantees or guarantors in trying to eliminate cruelty and suffering, just our own and others’ experiences, and a conviction that we can do better. Rorty suggests that these new worlders can be us.

Some critics insist that the above story makes Rorty a relativist or worse, a nihilist. Maybe. But perhaps these critics can only envision the framework of either-or: either God and foundational justifiers or relativism and nihilism. These critics should explain why we need to retain this framework. Rorty wants to kibitz long enough for us to take seriously that there are other possibilities. We can seek the framework best suited to achieve our goals. We don’t need guarantees (nor guarantors) that this framework will work. We just continue its promotion by experiencing and acting upon the world through an edifying vocabulary to see if it does.

Most people in contemporary society retain deeply held moral convictions while rarely asking whether these convictions are grounded in God or foundational justifiers. Sure, if challenged, they might attempt to defend their entire system of convictions by appealing to God or the foundational justifiers, but for the lion’s share of their everyday lives, they never give them a thought. Yet, these same people disdain cruelty, refrain from mayhem, and would never contemplate killing their neighbors. Rorty’s point stripped down is simply that God and all the foundational justifiers aren’t necessary for human society to be populated by people who passionately seek to create better opportunities for human liberation, where what’s deemed “better” isn’t completely known in advance.

When a critic asks how can “better” have any significance without tying it to “God” and “truth” Rorty’s might reply as follows: Imagine reading in tomorrow’s newspaper “God is dead and there is no such thing as truth.” Suppose you were convinced by this report. What would you do? Go out and murder your neighbor? Probably not. Instead, you would trudge along as before. Why? Because cruelty and suffering have their own experiential (avoidance) hold over us. Try excising them from your personality and psychological reactions. In short, go forth into the world and see cruelty, and suffering; then imagine no God and no foundational justifiers. Do you think for a moment the horror you feel when confronting, cruelty, and suffering would dissipate? You might be inclined to reply that the intelligibility of this hypothetical depends on the existence of God and the foundational justifiers both of which serve as the basis of morality. Without their existence or at least their intelligibility the hypothetical has no force. Yet, that is precisely the problem. Where Rorty sees a world in which people work together to create a better future, his critics see God and rationality creating and guiding the entire operation. However, if one is authentically moral, if morality is integrated in one’s personality in an Aristotelian fashion, no further grounding is necessary. Relativism and nihilism are not implausible because some remarkable philosopher refuted them. Rather, they are implausible because the hard and soft wiring of human personality invariably rejects them. Natural and environmental factors together contribute to make most people sensitive to cruelty and suffering, though some people ignore the suffering of others by compartmentalizing their experience of it. More tragically, some notorious and infamous cases exist of sadists who enjoy cruelty and suffering. But as it now stands, God and the foundational justifiers have not successfully prevented these moral monsters; so why should Rorty’s proposal be held to a higher standard?

Rorty urges us to imagine a world where our passion for creating a better society does not depend on first rationally demonstrating that we possess a better way, just that it’s worth a try. Of course, in the “wrong” hands, danger might result. But in the “right” hands danger results now. For Rorty, we should continually strive to seek novel ways to cope with life’s vagaries. Imagine if talented undergraduate intellectuals spent less time trying to discover whether God exists or what reason demands and redirected their efforts to figure out how to reduce homelessness, war, brutality, and as so forth. “Devote yourself to first-order problems, not second-order ones” is the pragmatist’s advice. Let’s abandon a framework which requires us to first seek permission from an external authority before we try to follow where commonsense and passion suggest it’s more profitable to go. This search for a better world here and now–a utopian and more liberated America if you will– prompts Rorty to reject the panoply of “authorities” standing in our way.

Summarizing, Rorty embraces conversation–a type of fancy kibitzing–designed to formulate provisional solutions to social problems, but it is a kibitzing that should never end. We’re ready to terminate kibitzing only if we’re ready to give up freedom. The first photograph of Rorty was taken by Suhrkamp Verlag.

Richard Rorty is guaranteed a prominent place in the pantheon of great Western thinkers, especially for his role in reviving American pragmatism, long moribund or at least dormant throughout the vast wasteland of analytic philosophy. From time to time ECA will post some items on Richard Rorty’s views on justification, politics, and society. The first installment follows below.

Richard Rorty breathed new life into pragmatism, arguably America’s unique contribution to Western philosophy. Have you ever wondered what pragmatism is? Pragmatism is difficult to understand, partly because it can mean almost anything. Indeed, it is far from clear whether “pragmatism” stands for a discrete, set of views. Too often pragmatism simply refers to anti-foundationalist views without making clear just how it differs from “foundationalism,” whatever that is. So then, how do you know whether you’re a pragmatist? Since pragmatism has few, if any, well-demarcated doctrines, it might be better to try to figure out whether you’re not a pragmatist. Here goes.

You know you’re not a pragmatist if only “justification[s] from on high”–justifications which stand external to human experience–are your cup of tea. If you need to grasp the essence of such foundational justifications as Truth, Knowledge, Reason, and Reality before you can take a stand on whether we should legitimize same-sex marriage, you’re not a pragmatist. If practical judgments–judgments about what to do–need some authority beyond offering a particular solution to a particular problem, turn in your pragmatist credentials, if you still have them. If “true” and “right” must signify “a relation to some antecedently existing thing–such as God’s Will, or moral Law, or the intrinsic Nature of Objective Reality,” you’re most certainly not a pragmatist. If progress means getting closer to that antecedently identifiable value, forget trying to pass the pragmatist litmus test.

Richard Rorty rejected justifications on high. For Rorty, justification involves finding “a solution to a problem: a problem which may someday seem obsolete.” There are no guarantees in Rorty’s world, only discrete, incremental solutions. And don’t, for a minute, think that these solutions form a system, which needs a justification. Such thoughts will get you barred from the pragmatist club house. The only sort of justification for these solutions is political and political solutions are always contestable.

What implications do Rorty’s views have for contemporary American society? Take the same-sex marriage controversy. I suspect Rorty would ask whether instituting same-sex marriage solved any problems gay and lesbian couples experience living in relationships without the title “marriage.” Would same-sex marriage benefit or hurt children? A Rortyan would also attempt to ascertain whether extending marriage to gays would create unforeseen problems. All that’s remains now is to evaluate the pros and cons of same-sex marriage and then decide.

What Rorty most certainly would not do would be to appeal to external justifications for or against same-sex marriage. God, the true nature of sexuality and marriage, or an abstract appeal to equality would all be rejected. Pragmatist justification is unconcerned with the fundamental principles alleged to underlie this controversy or how such principles might have generated the controversy in the first place. No existing authoritative foundation dictates the solution to this problem. Forget about past-looking inquiries. For Rorty, the controversy needs to be resolved by looking to the future. Will same-sex marriage benefit gays and lesbians, children, and society in general? That’s the question for Rorty, and the answer lies in ordinary experience, not in justifications on high. In sum, pragmatists don’t seek whole-sale solutions to societal problems; they’re content in shopping retail.

Richard Rorty, one of the most influential philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century, died last Friday from pancreatic cancer. He was 75. His death represents a colossal loss to American political culture. The only conceivable antidote is for Americans to reconsider the now completed corpus of Rorty’s writings. Rorty possessed an uncanny and startling ability to redescribe old terrain in a way the keeps the seeds of liberal hope alive. He did this, in part, by integrating what he deemed useful in the contributions of past (and present) philosophical giants and then melding them into his own unique pragmatist vision of how to carry on. Rorty was able to provocatively work both analytic and continental philosophical audiences. In his work, one can detect the ideas of such English speaking philosophers as William James, John Dewey, W.V.O. Quine, Donald Davidson, Thomas Kuhn, and Wilfrid Sellars. Ludwig Wittgenstein also greatly influenced the development of Rorty’s pragmatism. His work was influenced also by such continental philosophers, as Jacques Derrida, G.W.F. Hegel, Martin Heidegger, and Frederick Nietzsche.

Although often in disfavor, unjustifiably in my view, with large segments of analytic philosophy, at the beginning of his career he was an analytic philosopher’s analytic philosopher. In abandoning analytic philosophy, Rorty rejected Western philosophy’s obsession with epistemology and such modernist terms as “truth,” “knowledge,” “reason,” “reality,” “mind,” and “human nature.” In Rorty’s view, these concepts have no currency, or put differently, they are empty vessels that prevent us from seeing language as a pragmatic tool for improving the world. This pragmatic turn drew Rorty to the idea of philosophy as conversation–a notion partly inherited from Michael Oakeshott–about our intellectual and practical challenges. And the goal of conversation is unforced inter-subjective agreement at least provisional agreement. Language, for Rorty, is a form of social behavior used to help us cope with our environment. The pursuit of “truth,” “reality,” and “reason” simply obscure the daily quest to envision new ways to reduce cruelty and suffering. Modernist notions such as truth should be rejected, in his view, because they simply get in the way of achieving our goals. Truth, for instance, is nothing more than warranted assertability. We should be happy if we can achieve inter-subjective consensus because then we are warranted–at least provisonally–in offering these assertions as solutions to our political and cultural problems. In short, we are warranted in these assertions because they assist us to realize our goals; they have, in other words, utility. To insist that the utility of a sentence depends upon its truth is, for Rorty, question-begging in the extreme. Let me present a brief example of the difference between Rorty’s approach and the approach of the analytic philosopher, Bernard Williams.

Williams was not enamored with Rorty’s idea of conversation. In fact, Williams thought that “[u]nless a conversation is very relentless–for instance, one between philosophers–it will not be held together by “so” or “therefore” or “but,” but rather by “will then” and “that reminds me,” and come to think of it.” In these remarks Williams contrasts logical connectors with rhetorical ones. The former reveals the muscular, rigorous (logically) argumentative status of philosophy, while the latter represents linguistic connectors which we insert in a conversation with an insouciant air. The former potentially gets us truth, while the latter gives us only autobiography. For Williams Rorty’s notion of conversation obscures this distinction, and thus must be rejected.

The problem with Williams’ view is that it begs the very question at issue between him and Rorty. Rorty deliberately collapses argument and rhetoric and instead evaluates conversational conclusions by how well they help us to cope with various challenges in living. This defense does not mean that Williams’ view is wrong. It just means before distinguishing different types of linguistic operators as a means of discrediting Rorty, as William does, one must first establish that there is a formidable dichotomy exists between truth and warranted assertability, between logic and rhetoric. But it is precisely this type of issue that divides Williams and Rorty. To insist that Rorty’s idea of conversation transmogrifies argument into autobiography might be a valid criticism of Rorty’s view. But its validity depends upon first showing that the distinction between argument and autobiography is as stark as Williams thinks it is, and that’s precisely what Rorty denies. Our goal should be to swap truth for inter-subjective agreement, which, in the most interesting cases, is itself difficult enough to achieve. In the end, what members of our community let us get away with saying is what influences the world for good or ill.

Rorty was a public intellectual, in the finest sense of the term. He was extraordinarily well-read, though one complaint against his work is that he tended to misread, or read for his own purposes, the giants of analytic and continental philosophy. But this complaint is unfair. Rorty never presented himself as a philosopher devoted to textual exegesis. He took from the greats what he thought helpful even if, in doing so, he strayed from the conventional interpretation of their work. In brief, Rorty was saying “Let’s just try understanding Dewey in this way because doing so might be helpful in resolving challenging practical problems.”

In the final analysis, Rorty did more to challenge analytic philosophy’s dogmas than any other English speaking philosopher. To his credit, Rorty broke free from the confines of analytic philosophy and was rewarded by having his work read by intellectuals in such varied disciplines as social science, law, history, and literary theory. Rorty was intent upon showing that analyzing pursuing the “correct” analysis of “indexicals” or “vagueness” or “mass nouns”–or whatever other arcane concepts were fashionable in analytic philosophy–represented an especially crabbed view of intellectual discourse and any philosophical categories left standing after Rorty’s critique. (Are there any philosophical categories left standing after Rorty’s critique?)

For me, Rorty’s greatest contribution was to suggest that there exists a form of intellectual discourse–call it “ironist and collegial kibitzing,” if you will–freed from the traditional analytic philosophical categories and that this mercurial discourse, with luck, can be used to illuminate a range of problems across diverse academic and practical categories. For Rorty, inquiry dedicated to how things are prevents us–sometimes permanently–from creating a better world, one whose overriding promise is to reduce cruelty and suffering. When philosophers eschew attempting to realize this promise, their work becomes jejune and largely irrelevant to novel, collective solutions to problems of political and social organization.

Rorty was the faculty adviser to philosophy graduate students when I was a doctoral student at Princeton in the late sixties. In my fourth and final year, I recall Rorty telling us “No more reading, it’s time to write.” Some of us heeded his advice better than others, but the advice itself was right on the money. He was a soft-spoken, complex man, who was admired by those students who knew him. The more I think of Rorty’s life and death, the greater is my sense of loss for American political culture.

An ocean of sights, sounds, spins, and hype inundate the lives of many Americans. There’s cable TV, IPods, MP3 players, PDAs, Blogs, online media outlets, You-Tube, and other types of “conveniences” that render information of all sorts just a moment away. We can communicate with people around the world while opening our car door. Computers, gadgetry and gimmicks have infiltrated our work place, our home life, and our solitude. Sanctuary has gone the way of all flesh. The current generation, generation X, or Y, or XY, takes all this for granted, acting as if it is an unqualified good. But what’s the down side? Have we lost anything valuable, anything vital?

Do we think about values, the meaning of life, or the meaning of death anymore? Why bother when you can look them up online? Screech! That’s just the problem. We’re probably more informed, more research-ready, more connected to other people and groups, and nations, than ever before. But do we ever think anymore? How would one tell whether thinking continues to exist in the world? Intellectuals, artists, and writers have all become pitch men. If you don’t like the talk-show circuit, don’t write a book? Your publisher will drive you as brutally as any plantation foreman drove the slaves under his domination with a whip just as cutting. Are we freer or have we become enslaved by our own capacity for innovation.

What does it mean to say you’re thinking? Not researching, communicating, or exchanging information. Just thinking! Or is it more important to pretend your email,. blog, or book is the result of thinking than actually thinking yourself. Richard Rorty and other nouveau pragmatists contend that when particular concepts or descriptions no longer serve any useful explanatory purposes, we should jettison them, replacing them with language that serves our needs and desires more faithfully–recognizing that by jettisoning old vocabularies we might also be acquiring a new set of needs and desires. Say goodbye to the old and welcome the new. Could that happen to “thinking”? Is it possible that we live in a world where seniors may be the last generation to think, or even to know what thinking is, or to appreciate its importance? Could conceivably be that after the Baby Boom generation, thinking might pass from our vocabulary? There will no longer be even a ghost in the machine. Goodbye thinking. You were a joy while you lasted, but like reason, realism, and truth–those virtues of modernity–we’re better off without you. Are we? What will take thinking’s place? What has taken thinking’s place? I’m beginning to get very worried. Oh well, I’ll just try not to think about it.