Rorty: pragmatism, liberal ironism and solidarity

Abstract

The present essay relates to one of the major works of Rorty

–Contingency, irony and solidarity– in which it is possible to find the key to his ethical and political thoughts. The subject of Rorty is ‘‘the ironist’’, which represents the citizen of his liberal society, one who perceives the contingency of  moral deliberation language, those series of words which allows them to justify their actions, beliefs and life; words with which we narrate our lives prospectively and retrospectively, as an ultimate lexicon. From the neo-pragmatism of Rorty  are shown those conditions which have made it possible for societies to consider themselves as historical contingencies, before being an expression of an underlying non-historic nature; or, if  wished, the realization of suprahistorical goals. Rorty sustains that it is in fact  literature, and not  philosophy, which can promote a genuine sense of human solidarity,  beginning with the reading of novelists like Orwell and Nabokov. Thus, not  by seeking the description of  abstract formulas, but  concrete human experiences, like pain or treason, which when  shared, can generate the necessary empathy from which  solidarity and compassion can grow.