Rating: 
Summary: even better than it aims to be
Review: This book is yet another good addition to the available texts by Rorty. As he says of debates on the matters he discusses, "I suspect that all either side can do is to restate its case over and over again, in context after context." This he has done, and done well, and it's badly needed.But, as far as I can tell, it remains flawed. No, I don't want to accuse Rorty of some shameful circularity, much less of the inanely conceived offense of "relativism." Rather, I believe that in misdecribing the relationship between philosophy and politics he understates the importance of what he is doing and provides readers wrongly with every reason to ignore it. "Most of what I have written in the last decade consists of attempts to tie in my social hopes - hopes for a global, cosmopolitan, democratic, egalitarian, classless, casteless society - with my antagonism towards Platonism." Thus does Rorty begin the Preface to this book, though like all of his books this one devotes much effort to minimizing any possible connection between Rorty's two fields of interest. By the time we get to page 18, he denounces "the idea that you can evaluate a writer's philosophical views by reference to their political utility." This comes after he has criticized the philosophy he opposes as wasting human energy that could serve better purposes, and after he has defined truth in pragmatist terms as what it is useful to believe. Rorty is correct, of course, that a Platonist or a pragmatist can be a democrat or a facsist. But, when he says on page 18 that he finds "the orthodox" to be "philosophically wrong as well as politically dangerous," I think he is mistaken if he believes this to be a coincidence. He is wrong to separate these two characteristics in the case of many Americans today. I think he does so simply because the two things have appeared separately in other people. Call it "contingent" or "historical" or any other number of bad words, but I think it remains the case that much of what is ugliest in American politics is connected in the minds of its proponents with much of what is most metaphysical and morally weak in the world today. People fail to look beyond their narrow groups, declare certain sexual habits improper, decree that "the market" not be interfered with or that the races not mingle, and that dollars constitute protected speech - and they do so, many of them, metaphysically. Homosexuality, they say, is evil because God said so. Of course the two can be separated. Atheists can condemn homosexuality and Platonists can - like many of the characters of the Dialogues - accept it. But the two ideas go together in many minds right now, and removing either one weakens the other. If you turn a Christian gaybasher into a pragmatist, you make him less likely to bash gays (and to accept the valuable teachings of Christianity as opposed to its theism). If you turn a Christian gaybasher into an acceptor of gays, you make him more able to question his theism. This is why Rorty is much more important than he lets on.
Rating:
Summary: Pragmatism, Utilitarianism and Democracy
Review: This is a meaningful book on Pragmatism and the American thinking of Dewey, James and visions of Emerson and Whitman. I find myself very much pragmatic and utilitarian with limitations and this book is very thought provoking.
The idea of pragmatism from Dewey, James and in Rorty, relate the idea of no absolute truths. No foundations. Truth is based on reasons; rationalism and rationalisms are only constructions of humanity. They do not convey the Platonic idea that truths represent reality, and that some truths are closer to the hierarchal arrangement of being closer to reality than others. What such truths really do is use reality as useful tools to work with, to construct ideas that conform to the desires of humanity, which relate to happiness and growth. Platonists manipulate their perceptions of reality to represent what it is not, as absolutes or ideas that attempt to get closer to such. Pragmatists and Utilitarians do not see any representations of reality in absolute forms, nor is there Plato's other eternal reality behind the world of appearances, nor is there another reality of archetypes, which the archaic man attempted to imitate or represent. None of this is truth, but justifications. And such justifications are built on customs of habit from linguistic and social constructions based on relational meanings to other ideas and objects. Truths are only difference justifications. we devise. We use reality, we do not know reality. We make reality to be what it is in the sense of definitions, social structure and language. There is no accurate knowledge, as all knowledge is based on common sense and all common sense is not from some divine or greater source, for common sense is the different sets of descriptions and re-descriptions that we use in our memory to form meaning and foundations. But the foundations are false, they are not absolute. There are no intrinsic natures or essences; there are only webs of relations that we use to describe such objects, as we will never know intrinsic nature. Truths do not represent reality but are habits of nature to describe what we see. Habits of nature to relate to others.
I can understand Allan Bloom's thoughts that relativism allows all ideas to be validated in that we must have immovable points to build on. But Rorty makes a clear distinction between irresponsible relativism and that of pluralism:
"Insofar as `postmodern' philosophical thinking is identified with a mindless and stupid cultural relativism - with the idea that any fool thing that calls itself culture is worthy of respect - then I have no use for such thinking. But I do not see that what I have called `philosophical pluralism' entails any such stupidity. . . . . The difference between pluralism and cultural relativism is the difference between pragmatically justified tolerance and mindless irresponsibility." P. 276
Rorty's views are also based on liberalism and leftist ideas that allow different views of thinking, recognizing that each group has their own web of relational meanings that determine their ideas and such pluralism is what is needed to overcome the intolerance of Platonic distinctions obligated to others. There are a series of essays on many thoughts from liberal democratic education, Marxism and religion, pluralism and utilitarianism in regards to religion, the social hope based on the ideals of Dewey and James pragmatism and Kuhn's ideas on paradigms, too much to write a small review on.
My only personal limitations on utilitarianism is the removal of the idea of the sacred, that is, the sacredness of nature and radical amazement and wonder that one sees in ordinary life as a divinity and holiness that renders our awe and reverence. It seems that when pluralism allows all of us to compartmentalize there is both the benefit of what can be a great democracy and equalitarian existence in all aspects including economics, which we most assuredly do not have in our world, but it's the lack of the awe, the mysterum tremendum, that is where I find a great deal lacking, which can most certainly be seen in the demystified and desacralized view of nature and the environment and lack of appreciative awe of existence.
What we see in America today is the lack of compartmentalization of ideas and the pragmatic belief that our truths are relative tools, that we must put aside our absolutes and use our common views towards peace, growth, liberty, rights and happiness together in the American dream of Richard Rorty, William James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman and John Dewey. But on the contrary, we have fundamentalism, religious intolerance and absolutism of the conservatives, who are taking power, causing wars and removing liberty as we know it. Dictatorial government is soon to be, hopefully after a century or so, we will return to pragmatistic democracy and equalitarianism that will not entail our current economic slavery.
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