Contingency, irony, and solidarity

Bibliographic Data

ID6523573
AuthorsRichard Rorty
Year1989
Pages201
Publication date1989-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueContingency, irony, and solidarity (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
Open LibraryOL2046258M
ISBN9780521367813, 9780521353816
LanguageEN
Citations received83

American philosopher Richard Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature, or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable but it cannot advance Liberalism's social and political goals. In fact, Rorty believes that it is literature and not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense of human solidarity. Specifically, it is novelists such as Orwell and Nabokov who succeed in awakening us to the cruelty of particular social practices and individual attitudes. Thus, a truly liberal culture would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. Rorty uses a wide range of references - from philosophy to social theory to literary criticism - to elucidate his beliefs

20th century · Contingency (Philosophy) · Contingentie · Filosofia contemporanea · Ironie · Irony · Langage et langues · Language and languages · Literature · Literature and society · Long Now Manual for Civilization · modern · Philosophie du langage · Philosophy · Pragmatisme · Social aspects · Solidarity · Taalfilosofie