ABSTRACT

Richard Rorty is the University Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia. He attempts to lay out his ideas concerning a visionary postmodernism, which dispenses with distinctions between knowledge and opinion. Rorty’s aim is to demonstrate that rather than a pointless search for metaphysical truths, we should undertake an effort to be more “pragmatic” after the philosopher John Dewey and soften the distinction between subjective and objective. For Rorty, liberal hope is a condition which the ironist can achieve if only “reciprocal loyalty” can be implemented. Along this vein Rorty’s thought resembles that of one of the most acerbic critics of postmodernity, Jurgen Habermas. Rorty believes that humans can achieve a certain measure of solidarity, and thus a “just” and benevolent form of government, through consensus. An affirmative postmodernist, Rorty wishes to circumvent the eternal return of foundational, epistemological queries.