Philosophy and politics, or about a romantic and a pragmatist

Abstract

We would like to go on to the terrain which is perhaps the most difficult to catch and describe, which may lie at the origin of the most serious criticism, which, finally, requires one’s own choice - in a word (to paraphraze the young Habermas from a famous review of Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics), which requires thinking "with Rorty against Rorty". We will follow here the path of numerous texts, grouping and separating them depending on attempts of answers given over the years to some basic questions, and some basic tensions that are born. The question we want to discuss here pertains to the fundamental - both for Rorty and for his critics as well - issue of the relation between philosophy and politics which makes Rorty bashed from all sides, philosophical and political, radical, leftist, postmodern, feminist as well as neoconservative and rightist (whatever the above labels were to mean, what is significant is their opposition). Let us say in the most general terms: Rorty in his philosophical and political choices is an exceptional figure (for his attitude to the philosophy/politics relation, to the theory/practice distinction etc. etc. is exceptional). Philosophically, he is in accordance with contemporary French postmodern philosophy, with Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard - despite numerous more or less specific differences revealing themselves over the years, as well as changing over the years - therefore he is often referred to as "postmodernist".