View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Queen Mary Research Online Pragmatism, liberalism and the conditions of critique: the connection between philosophy and politics in the work of Richard Rorty Chin, Clayton The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author For additional information about this publication click this link. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/8378 Information about this research object was correct at the time of download; we occasionally make corrections to records, please therefore check the published record when citing. For more information contact [email protected] PRAGMATISM, LIBERALISM AND THE CONDITIONS OF CRITIQUE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS IN THE WORK OF RICHARD RORTY Clayton Chin Queen Mary, University of London A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF PH D - OCTOBER , 2012 - ABSTRACT In the context of a global crisis, it is necessary to ask what are the philosophical limitations of political critique? This thesis addresses this broad question through a critical reading of the work of Richard Rorty and his theorization of the connection between philosophy and politics. Rorty’s philosophy dissociates philosophical questioning and political thinking. Through a critique of foundationalism, Rorty establishes new limits to philosophy which prescribe its involvement in politics. However, the critical literature fails to connect these two aspects. They accept Rorty’s position that his philosophical pragmatism is unconnected to his political liberalism. In contrast, this thesis is a critical account of Rorty’s theorization of the connection between philosophy and politics that explicitly links his pragmatism to his liberalism. It refutes Rorty’s wider philosophical claim from within a reading of his own work. By situating Rorty within his critique of epistemology and his relation to the philosophy of John Dewey, and confronting him with an alternative, ontological line of thinking that runs from the work of Martin Heidegger to that of Herbert Marcuse, this thesis exposes the mechanisms by which Rorty reduces philosophical and political thinking. It reveals that rather than opening thinking and providing a basis for political criticism, Rorty’s political pragmatism restricts thought to the present range of options. What Rorty offers is not a method for cultural change, as he claims, but a self-reinforcing mode of thought for contemporary liberalism. The implications of this analysis exceed Rorty scholarship. Rorty attempts to theorize the implicit assumptions of the liberal West. While he could never exhaust that culture, he does reveal a real set of pragmatic assumptions and justifications for liberal democracy. As such, he offers a opportunity to critically engage a particular form of liberalism that informs much of the dominant discourse about democracy today. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................................. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................................................ 3 ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................................................................................... 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................................................. 7 INTRODUCTION . PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS : THE PROBLEM OF RORTY ’S PHILOSOPHY ....................................... 9 Introduction: Questioning Rorty ......................................................................................................................... 9 The State of Political Philosophy: Questioning the Role of Thought ................................................ 10 Rorty’s problematic: Philosophy and Politics ............................................................................................. 15 Assuming the Divide: Rorty’s Critical Reception ....................................................................................... 19 The Critical Role of Ontology and Mastery: Questioning the Frame ................................................ 23 Conclusion: Charting the Way ........................................................................................................................... 24 CH1: PHILOSOPHY AND AUTHORITY : RORTY , THE PRAGMATIC DISPOSITION AND THE OPENING OF THOUGHT 26 Introduction: The Question of Pragmatism and the Task of Instrumentalism ............................ 26 Rorty, Analytic Philosophy and the Anti-ontological Turn ................................................................... 27 The Early Rorty: Eliminating Ontology ..................................................................................................... 28 Epistemological Behaviourism: A Sociological Critique of Philosophy ......................................... 32 Dewey and Instrumentalism: The Method of Modernity ...................................................................... 42 The Quest for Certainty: The Division between Knowledge and Action ........................................ 43 Dewey’s Social Instrumentalism: Method and Experience ................................................................. 48 Method and Disposition: Rorty’s (Mis)Appropriation of Dewey ....................................................... 57 A Divided Dewey: Rorty’s Two Readings ................................................................................................... 58 Rorty’s Perversion of Dewey: Critical Readings ...................................................................................... 61 The Living and the Dead: Rorty’s Defence ................................................................................................ 62 Pragmatism and Hermeneutics: The Attitude of Method ...................................................................... 64 Conclusion: ................................................................................................................................................................. 71 3 CH. 2 MASTERING CONTINGENCY : LANGUAGE AND THE REJECTION OF ONTOLOGY ............................................. 73 Introduction: ............................................................................................................................................................. 73 The Approach (to Ontology) ............................................................................................................................... 76 Rorty, the Critique of Epistemology and the Ontological Priority of the Social ......................... 77 Connolly and the Inevitability of Ontology ............................................................................................... 81 Contingency vs. Contestability: Mastering a Tool and the Ambiguity of Being ........................... 89 Language as Medium and as Tool: Rorty on Davidson ........................................................................ 90 Rorty on Heidegger: Pragmatism and Power ......................................................................................... 95 Connolly and Contestability: Mastery and the Production of Global Contingencies ................ 99 Conclusion: .............................................................................................................................................................. 107 CH3. MASTERY AND ITS VEIL : NATURALISM AND HISTORY ............................................................................... 110 Introduction: .......................................................................................................................................................... 110 Naturalism and Technology: Nature and its Veil ................................................................................... 111 Rorty’s Nod to the Material: Darwin, Naturalism and the Limits of the Causal ..................... 112 Heidegger: Ontology, Technology and the Veil .................................................................................... 123 History and Modernity: Humanity at the Center.................................................................................... 133 History, Hegel, and Modernity: Rorty and the Pragmatic Self-Assertion of Reason ............. 133 Truth and Ice: Connolly, Modernity and Mastery ............................................................................... 141 Conclusion: .............................................................................................................................................................. 149 CH.4. RORTY ’S POLITICAL LIBERALISM : PRAGMATIC PROCEDURES AND ROMANTIC NARRATIVES .................. 151 Introduction: .......................................................................................................................................................... 151 Foundations and Method: Rorty’s Political Problematic .................................................................... 153 Two Divisions: Philosophy and Methodology ....................................................................................... 154 The Priority of Democracy and