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Rorty QOTD
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Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007): pragmatist, ironist, and panrelationalist.
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rortyquotes.bsky.social
The task of enlarging the canon takes the place, for the ironist, of the attempt by moral philosophers to bring commonly accepted moral intuitions about particular cases into equilibrium with commonly accepted general moral principles.
CIS p.81
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Criticism
In particular, ironists hope that critics will help them perform the sort of dialectical feat which Hegel was so good at. That is, they hope critics will help them continue to admire books which are prima facie antithetical by performing some sort of synthesis. We would like to be able to admire both Blake and Arnold, both Nietzsche and Mill, both Marx and Baudelaire, both Trotsky and Eliot, both Nabokov and Orwell. So we hope some critic will show how these men's books can be put together to form a beautiful mosaic. We hope that critics can redescribe these people in ways which will enlarge the canon, and will give us a set of classical texts as rich and diverse as possible. This task of enlarging the canon takes the place, for the ironist, of the attempt by moral philosophers to bring commonly accepted moral intuitions about particular cases into equilibrium with commonly accepted general moral principles.
December 8, 2025 at 3:02 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
Ironists hope that critics can redescribe authors who are prima facie antithetical in ways which will enlarge the canon, and will give us a set of classical texts as rich and diverse as possible.
CIS p.81
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Criticism
In particular, ironists hope that critics will help them perform the sort of dialectical feat which Hegel was so good at. That is, they hope critics will help them continue to admire books which are prima facie antithetical by performing some sort of synthesis. We would like to be able to admire both Blake and Arnold, both Nietzsche and Mill, both Marx and Baudelaire, both Trotsky and Eliot, both Nabokov and Orwell. So we hope some critic will show how these men's books can be put together to form a beautiful mosaic. We hope that critics can redescribe these people in ways which will enlarge the canon, and will give us a set of classical texts as rich and diverse as possible. This task of enlarging the canon takes the place, for the ironist, of the attempt by moral philosophers to bring commonly accepted moral intuitions about particular cases into equilibrium with commonly accepted general moral principles.
December 7, 2025 at 3:01 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
Ironists hope critics will help them continue to admire books which are prima facie antithetical by performing some sort of synthesis. We would like to be able to admire both Blake & Arnold, Nietzsche & Mill, Marx & Baudelaire, Trotsky & Eliot, Nabokov & Orwell.
CIS p.81
#Rorty
#Criticism
In particular, ironists hope that critics will help them perform the sort of dialectical feat which Hegel was so good at. That is, they hope critics will help them continue to admire books which are prima facie antithetical by performing some sort of synthesis. We would like to be able to admire both Blake and Arnold, both Nietzsche and Mill, both Marx and Baudelaire, both Trotsky and Eliot, both Nabokov and Orwell. So we hope some critic will show how these men's books can be put together to form a beautiful mosaic. We hope that critics can resdescribe these people in ways which will enlarge the canon, and will give us a set of classical texts as rich and diverse as possible. This task of enlarging the canon takes the place, for the ironist, of the attempt by moral philosophers to bring commonly accepted moral intuitions about particular cases into equilibrium with commonly accepted general moral principles.
December 6, 2025 at 3:01 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
Ironists are afraid that they will get stuck in the vocabulary in which they were brought up if they only know the people in their own neighborhood, so they try to get acquainted with strange people, strange families, and strange communities.
CIS p.80
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Vocabulary
For us ironists, nothing can serve as a criticism of a final vocabulary save another such vocabulary; there is no answer to a redescription save a re-re-redescription. ... Nothing can serve as a criticism of a person save another person, or of a culture save an alternative culture—for persons and cultures are, for us, incarnated vocabularies. So our doubts about our own characters or our own culture can be resolved or assuaged only by enlarging our acquaintance. The easiest way of doing that is to read books, and so ironists spend more of their time placing books than in placing real live people. Ironists are afraid that they will get stuck in the vocabulary in which they were brought up if they only know the people in their own neighborhood, so they try to get acquainted with strange people (Alcibiades, Julien Sorel), strange families (the Karamazovs, the Casaubons), and strange communities (the Teutonic Knights, the Nuer, the mandarins of the Sung).
December 5, 2025 at 3:02 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
Nothing can serve as a criticism of a person save another person, or of a culture save an alternative culture—for persons and cultures are, for us, incarnated vocabularies.
CIS p.80
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Criticism
For us ironists, nothing can serve as a criticism of a final vocabulary save another such vocabulary; there is no answer to a redescription save a re-re-redescription. Since there is nothing beyond vocabularies which serves as a criterion of choice between them, criticism is a matter of looking on this picture and on that, not of comparing both pictures with the original. Nothing can serve as a criticism of a person save another person, or of a culture save an alternative culture—for persons and cultures are, for us, incarnated vocabularies. So our doubts about our own characters or our own culture can be resolved or assuaged only by enlarging our acquaintance. The easiest way of doing that is to read books, and so ironists spend more of their time placing books than in placing real live people. Ironists are afraid that they will get stuck in the vocabulary in which they were brought up if they only know the people in their own neighborhood, so they try to get acquainted with...
December 4, 2025 at 3:02 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
Since there is nothing beyond vocabularies which serves as a criterion of choice between them, criticism is a matter of looking on this picture and on that, not of comparing both pictures with the original.
CIS p.80
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Criticism
For us ironists, nothing can serve as a criticism of a final vocabulary save another such vocabulary; there is no answer to a redescription save a re-re-redescription. Since there is nothing beyond vocabularies which serves as a criterion of choice between them, criticism is a matter of looking on this picture and on that, not of comparing both pictures with the original. Nothing can serve as a criticism of a person save another person, or of a culture save an alternative culture—for persons and cultures are, for us, incarnated vocabularies. So our doubts about our own characters or our own culture can be resolved or assuaged only by enlarging our acquaintance. The easiest way of doing that is to read books, and so ironists spend more of their time placing books than in placing real live people. Ironists are afraid that they will get stuck in the vocabulary in which they were brought up if they only know the people in their own neighborhood, so they try to get acquainted with...
December 3, 2025 at 3:01 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
For us ironists, nothing can serve as a criticism of a final vocabulary save another such vocabulary; there is no answer to a redescription save a re-re-redescription.
CIS p.80
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Criticism
For us ironists, nothing can serve as a criticism of a final vocabulary save another such vocabulary; there is no answer to a redescription save a re-re-redescription. Since there is nothing beyond vocabularies which serves as a criterion of choice between them, criticism is a matter of looking on this picture and on that, not of comparing both pictures with the original. Nothing can serve as a criticism of a person save another person, or of a culture save an alternative culture—for persons and cultures are, for us, incarnated vocabularies. So our doubts about our own characters or our own culture can be resolved or assuaged only by enlarging our acquaintance. The easiest way of doing that is to read books, and so ironists spend more of their time placing books than in placing real live people. Ironists are afraid that they will get stuck in the vocabulary in which they were brought up if they only know the people in their own neighborhood, so they try to get acquainted...
December 2, 2025 at 3:01 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
The ironist thinks of final vocabularies as poetic achievements rather than as fruits of diligent inquiry according to antecedently formulated criteria.
CIS p.77
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Irony
Her description of what she is doing when she looks for a better final vocabulary than the one she is currently using is dominated by metaphors of making rather than finding, of diversification and novelty rather than convergence to the antecedently present. She thinks of final vocabularies as poetic achievements rather than as fruits of diligent inquiry according to antecedently formulated criteria.
December 1, 2025 at 3:04 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
The ironist's description of what she is doing when she looks for a better final vocabulary than the one she is currently using is dominated by metaphors of making rather than finding, of diversification and novelty rather than convergence to the antecedently present.
CIS p.77
#Rorty
#Irony
Her description of what she is doing when she looks for a better final vocabulary than the one she is currently using is dominated by metaphors of making rather than finding, of diversification and novelty rather than convergence to the antecedently present. She thinks of final vocabularies as poetic achievements rather than as fruits of diligent inquiry according to antecedently formulated criteria.
November 30, 2025 at 3:02 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
The opposite of irony is common sense. For that is the watchword of those who unselfconsciously describe everything important in terms of the final vocabulary to which they and those around them are habituated.
CIS p.74
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Irony
The opposite of irony is common sense. For that is the watchword of those who unselfconsciously describe everything important in terms of the final vocabulary to which they and those around them are habituated. To be commonsensical is to take for granted that statements formulated in that final vocabulary suffice to describe and judge the beliefs, actions and lives of those who employ alternative final vocabularies. People who pride themselves on common sense will find the line of thought developed in Part I distasteful.
November 29, 2025 at 3:01 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
A final vocabulary is "final" in the sense that if doubt is cast on the worth of these words, their user has no noncircular argumentative recourse. Those words are as far as he can go with language; beyond them there is only helpless passivity or a resort to force.
CIS p.73
#Rorty
#Vocabulary
All human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their lives. These are the words in which we formulate praise of our friends and contempt for our enemies, our long-term projects, our deepest self-doubts and our highest hopes. They are the words in which we tell, sometimes prospectively and sometimes retrospectively, the story of our lives. I shall call these words a person's "final vocabulary." It is "final" in the sense that if doubt is cast on the worth of these words, their user has no noncircular argumentative recourse. Those words are as far as he can go with language; beyond them there is only helpless passivity or a resort to force. A small part of a final vocabulary is made up of thin, flexible, and ubiquitous terms such as "true," "good," "right," and "beautiful." The larger part contains thicker, more rigid, and more parochial terms, for example, "Christ," "England," "professional standards," "decency,"...
November 28, 2025 at 3:03 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
(Quoting Swinburne)
The Fire of Life in The Rorty Reader p.521
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Holidays
“Hasn’t anything you’ve read been of any use?” my son persisted. “Yes,” I found myself blurting out, “poetry.” “Which poems?” he asked. I quoted two old chestnuts that I had recently dredged up from memory and been oddly cheered by, the most quoted lines of Swinburne’s “Garden of Proserpine”: We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea. (Quoting Swinburne)
November 27, 2025 at 3:03 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
I want to see common purposes against the background of an increasing sense of the radical diversity of private purposes, the radically poetic character of individual lives, and the merely poetic foundations of the "we-consciousness" which lies behind our institutions.
CIS p.67
#Rorty
#Poetry
I want to see freely arrived at agreement as agreement on how to accomplish common purposes (e.g. , prediction and control of the behavior of atoms or people, equalizing life-chances, de­ creasing cruelty), but I want to see these common purposes against the background of an increasing sense of the radical diversity of private purposes, of the radically poetic character of individual lives, and of the merely poetic foundations of the "we-consciousness" which lies behind our social institutions.
November 26, 2025 at 3:01 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
Habermas criticizes both me and Castoriadis for indulging in Lebenphilosophie; this charge means, roughly, that we both want to poeticize rather than rationalize.
CIS p.66
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Poetry
See, for example, Habermas's treatment of Castoriadis's idea of "the self-transparency of a society that does not hide its imaginary origin beneath extrasocietal projections and knows itself explicitly as a self-instituting society" (The "Philosophical Discourse of Modernity", p. 3 1 8). Habermas criticizes both me and Castoriadis for indulging in Lebenphilosophie; this charge means, roughly, that we both want to poeticize rather than rationalize. For my own (obviously more sympathetic) view of Castoriadis, see my "Unger, Castoriadis and the Romance of a National Future," Northwestern University Law Review (in press).
November 25, 2025 at 3:01 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
My "poeticized" culture is one which has given up the attempt to unite one's private ways of dealing with one's finitude and one's sense of obligation to other human beings.
Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity p.68
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Poetry
Abandoning universalism is my way of doing justice to the claims of the ironists whom Habermas distrusts: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida. Habermas looks at these men from the point of view of public needs. I agree with Habermas that as public philosophers they are at best useless and at worst dangerous, but I want to insist on the role they and others like them can play in accommodating the ironist's private sense of identity to her liberal hopes. All that is in question, however, is accommodation - not synthesis. My "poeticized" culture is one which has given up the attempt to unite one's private ways of dealing with one's finitude and one's sense of obligation to other human beings.
November 24, 2025 at 3:00 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
The ideal citizen will take for granted that it is the revolutionary artist and the revolutionary scientist, not the academic artist or the normal scientist, who most clearly exemplifies the virtues which she hopes her society will itself embody.
CIS p.61
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Liberalism
To see one's language, one's conscience, one's morality, and one's highest hopes as contingent products, as literalizations of what once were accidentally produced metaphors, is to adopt a self-identity which suits one for citizenship in such an ideally liberal state. That is why the ideal citizen of such an ideal state would be someone who thinks of the founders and the preservers of her society as such poets, rather than as people who had discovered or who clearly envisioned the truth about the world or about humanity. ... She will be commonsensically Bloomian enough to take for granted that it is the revolutionary artist and the revolutionary scientist, not the academic artist or the normal scientist, who most clearly exemplifies the virtues which she hopes her society will itself embody.
November 23, 2025 at 3:01 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
To see one's language, one's conscience, one's morality, and one's highest hopes as contingent products, as literalizations of what once were accidentally produced metaphors, is to adopt a self-identity which suits one for citizenship in such an ideally liberal state.
CIS p.61
#Rorty
#Hope
To see one's language, one's conscience, one's morality, and one's highest hopes as contingent products, as literalizations of what once were accidentally produced metaphors, is to adopt a self-identity which suits one for citizenship in such an ideally liberal state. That is why the ideal citizen of such an ideal state would be someone who thinks of the founders and the preservers of her society as such poets, rather than as people who had discovered or who clearly envisioned the truth about the world or about humanity. ... She will be commonsensically Bloomian enough to take for granted that it is the revolutionary artist and the revolutionary scientist, not the academic artist or the normal scientist, who most clearly exemplifies the virtues which she hopes her society will itself embody.
November 22, 2025 at 3:01 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
A liberal society is one whose hero is the strong poet & the revolutionary [P & R] because it recognizes that it is what it is, has the morality it has, not because it approximates the will of God or the nature of man but because certain [Ps & Rs] of the past spoke as they did.
CIS p.61
#Liberalism
A liberal society is one whose ideals can be fulfilled by persuasion rather than force, by reform rather than revolution, by the free and open encounters of present linguistic and other practices with suggestions for new practices. But this is to say that an ideal liberal society is one which has no purpose except freedom, no goal except a willingness to see how such encounters go and to abide by the outcome. It has no purpose except to make life easier for poets and revolutionaries while seeing to it that they make life harder for others only by words, and not deeds. It is a society whose hero is the strong poet and the revolutionary because it recognizes that it is what it is, has the morality it has, speaks the language it does, not because it approximates the will of God or the nature of man but because certain poets and revolutionaries of the past spoke as they did. To see one's language, one's conscience, one's morality, and one's highest hopes as contingent products...
November 21, 2025 at 3:03 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
An ideal liberal society is one which has no purpose except freedom, no goal except a willingness to see how free and open encounters of present linguistic practices with suggestions for new practices go and to abide by the outcome.
CIS p.60
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Liberalism
A liberal society is one whose ideals can be fulfilled by persuasion rather than force, by reform rather than revolution, by the free and open encounters of present linguistic and other practices with suggestions for new practices. But this is to say that an ideal liberal society is one which has no purpose except freedom, no goal except a willingness to see how such encounters go and to abide by the outcome. It has no purpose except to make life easier for poets and revolutionaries while seeing to it that they make life harder for others only by words, and not deeds. It is a society whose hero is the strong poet and the revolutionary because it recognizes that it is what it is, has the morality it has, speaks the language it does, not because it approximates the will of God or the nature of man but because certain poets and revolutionaries of the past spoke as they did. To see one's language, one's conscience, one's morality, and one's highest hopes as contingent products...
November 20, 2025 at 3:03 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
A liberal society is one whose ideals can be fulfilled by persuasion rather than force, by reform rather than revolution, by the free and open encounters of present linguistic and other practices with suggestions for new practices.
CIS p.59
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Liberalism
A liberal society is one whose ideals can be fulfilled by persuasion rather than force, by reform rather than revolution, by the free and open encounters of present linguistic and other practices with suggestions for new practices. But this is to say that an ideal liberal society is one which has no purpose except freedom, no goal except a willingness to see how such encounters go and to abide by the outcome. It has no purpose except to make life easier for poets and revolutionaries while seeing to it that they make life harder for others only by words, and not deeds. It is a society whose hero is the strong poet and the revolutionary because it recognizes that it is what it is, has the morality it has, speaks the language it does, not because it approximates the will of God or the nature of man but because certain poets and revolutionaries of the past spoke as they did. To see one's language, one's conscience, one's morality, and one's highest hopes as contingent products...
November 19, 2025 at 3:02 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
We cannot see Christianity or Newtonianism or the Romantic movement or political liberalism as a tool while we are still in the course of figuring out how to use it. For there are as yet no clearly formulatable ends to which it is a means.
CIS p.55
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Vocabulary
I can perhaps make this abjuration of philosophical neutrality in the interest of political liberalism more palatable by referring yet again to the Wittgensteinian analogy between vocabularies and tools. I said in the first chapter that the problem with this comparison is that the person who designs a new tool can usually explain what it will be useful for - why she wants it - in advance; by contrast, the creation of a new form of cultural life, a new vocabulary, will have its utility explained only retrospectively. We cannot see Christianity or Newtonianism or the Romantic movement or political liberalism as a tool while we are still in the course of figuring out how to use it. For there are as yet no clearly formulatable ends to which it is a means. But once we figure out how to use the vocabularies of these movements, we can tell a story of progress, showing how the literalization of certain metaphors served the purpose of making possible all the good things that have recently...
November 18, 2025 at 3:00 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
We should see allegiance to social institutions as no more matters for justification by reference to familiar, commonly accepted premises—but also as no more arbitrary—than choices of friends or heroes.
Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity p.54
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Relativism
To sum up, the moral I want to draw from my discussion of the claim that Berlin's position is "relativistic" is that this charge should not be answered, but rather evaded. We should learn to brush aside questions like "How do you know that freedom is the chief goal of social organization?" in the same way as we brush aside questions like "How do you know that Jones is worthy of your friendship?" or "How do you know that Yeats is an important poet, Hegel an important philosopher, and Galileo an important scientist?" We should see allegiance to social institutions as no more matters for justification by reference to familiar, commonly accepted premises—but also as no more arbitrary—than choices of friends or heroes. Such choices are not made by reference to criteria. They cannot be preceded by presuppositionless critical reflection, conducted in no particular language and outside of any particular historical context.
November 17, 2025 at 3:04 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
A poeticized culture would be a culture which, precisely by appreciating that all touchstones are merely cultural artifacts, would take as its goal the creation of ever more various and multicolored artifacts.
Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity p.53
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Poetry
From the point of view I have been commending, any attempt to drive one's opponent up against a wall in this way fails when the wall against which he is driven comes to be seen as one more vocabulary, one more way of describing things. The wall then turns out to be a painted backdrop, one more work of man, one more bit of cultural stage-setting. A poeticized culture would be one which would not insist we find the real wall behind the painted ones, the real touchstones of truth as opposed to touchstones which are merely cultural artifacts. It would be a culture which, precisely by appreciating that all touchstones are such artifacts, would take as its goal the creation of ever more various and multicolored artifacts.
November 16, 2025 at 3:00 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
A poeticized culture would be one which would not insist we find the real wall behind the painted ones, the real touchstones of truth as opposed to touchstones which are merely cultural artifacts.
Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity p.53
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Poetry
From the point of view I have been commending, any attempt to drive one's opponent up against a wall in this way fails when the wall against which he is driven comes to be seen as one more vocabulary, one more way of describing things. The wall then turns out to be a painted backdrop, one more work of man, one more bit of cultural stage-setting. A poeticized culture would be one which would not insist we find the real wall behind the painted ones, the real touchstones of truth as opposed to touchstones which are merely cultural artifacts. It would be a culture which, precisely by appreciating that all touchstones are such artifacts, would take as its goal the creation of ever more various and multicolored artifacts.
November 15, 2025 at 3:02 PM
rortyquotes.bsky.social
An ideally liberal polity would be one whose culture hero is Bloom's "strong poet" rather than the warrior, the priest, the sage, or the truth-seeking, "logical," "objective" scientist.
Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity p.53
#Pragmatism
#Rorty
#Liberalism
This appreciation is summed up in the vague, misleading, but pregnant and inspiring thought that truth is made rather than found. I also said that literature and politics are the spheres to which contemporary intellectuals look when they worry about ends rather than about means. I can now add the corollary that these are the areas to which we should look for the charter of a liberal society. We need a redescription of liberalism as the hope that culture as a whole can be "poeticized" rather than as the Enlightenment hope that it can be "rationalized" or "scientized." That is, we need to substitute the hope that chances for fulfillment of idiosyncratic fantasies will be equalized for the hope that everyone will replace "passion" or fantasy with "reason." In my view, an ideally liberal polity would be one whose culture hero is Bloom's "strong poet" rather than the warrior, the priest, the sage, or the truth-seeking, "logical," "objective" scientist.
November 14, 2025 at 3:04 PM