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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 401
EAN num: 9780521367813
ISBN number: 0521367816
Label: Cambridge University Press
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 224
Printing Date: February 24, 1989
Publishing house: Cambridge University Press
Sale Popularity Level: 61945
Studio: Cambridge University Press
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In this book, major 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.
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Rated by buyers 
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Richard Rorty's work has caused waves in the philosophical community for decades. He challenges the views that have driven philosophy for over two millenniums in a way that will appeal to anyone interested in the questions of philosophy. His pragmatism is a very idiosyncratic version of it, and he wouldn't have it any other way. His approach to philosophy is deeply historical and he almost takes a stance similar to Thomas Kuhn's view of science in regards to all of philosophy and culture.
Still, Rorty's work is original and for those trained in the analytic tradition he offers a great entry-point for beginning study of the continental figures (they aren't that different!). His views of Wittgenstein and Heidegger are quite similar and any scholar of either could take a great deal away from this book, regardless of their views of his conclusions. His views on Derrida and Davidson are similarly enlightening. He engages with a great deal of philosophy and literature in his study, and the studies of Nabokov and Orwell are worth their weight in gold: any fan or student of their literature will be amazed by Rorty's analysis of them.
His method precludes him from arguing strongly (irony), and so if you fit into his Kantian mold you will definitely be forced to think quite differently. Those who sense something wrong with the philosophical enterprise as such will resonate with his arguments, though not necessarily agree with them (I'd argue that there are still philosophical problems, even if I think that his ideas are compelling and useful). He doesn't ask that you agree, but that you listen and continue the conversation without discriminating against thinkers.
The political contents are deeply integral, and in many of his other non-political works his language is still political. Such a sensibility is refreshing in philosophy and it seems that his idea of philosophy as political begins here. Conservatives will cringe at his lighthearted ironism, and liberals will fail to see the point in his writing. He isn't writing for a primarily political audience, but at a philosophical one who is rarely engaged in politics.
Rorty's work begins and ends well, showing us why he is one of the best thinkers around, trying to free us of the presumptions of metaphysics that have taken root again in the latter-half of the twentieth century via philosophers like Saul Kripke and Jean-Paul Sartre. This should be read by anyone trained or interested in the topics of philosophy, but especially by students of philosophy as it can provide a way to liberate yourself from the presumptions of academic philosophy. Even if you disagree, his questioning is invaluable and will provoke much thought in many quarters.
Rated by buyers -
I've noticed a trend that various reviewers on philosophy books use this cyberspace as an opportunity to display their understanding and mastery over the work in question. This is, in ways, an interesting and useful phenomenon, but it can also be misleading. This is especially the case for thinkers like Richard Rorty, whose work is often read with the prejudice of traditional, less radical philosophical thought. I am in no way asserting that there is one true way of interpreting this text (a suggestion Rorty himself would abhor). I merely recommend that if you have an interest in contemporary analytic and continental philosophy, or even an interest in literary criticism, you should purchase this very stimulating book. It is stimulating because, like Kant and the other metaphysicians Rorty will challenge, he offers a vocabulary and set of terminology unique (at least in organization and inter-relation) to this work. To master Rorty's somewhat idiosyncratic use of words like "vocabulary" or "irony" or "metaphysics" one has to place oneself in a bit of a hermeneutic circle. Only then will one acquire and master this particularly useful, fecund philosophical language. Many of the reviews here seem written from outside that language, which is discouraging. This is an active read so don't be afraid to get more than your toes wet. This is an important book and is very useful for understanding the desire for autonomy as well as for solidarity. I hope Rorty's poignant writing will be as useful in your life as it has been in mine.
Rated by buyers -
Probably the best thing about "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" is that it is written so well. Like Rorty's other books it has a way of making philosophy less arcane than it otherwise appears. Other raters here have outlined his project better than I can and illustrate how Rorty builds upon his ideas in the book "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature." I only want to add the observations that, (1) it is no surprise Rorty feels he has to address religion's influence in this book, and that (2) philosophical objection to Rorty appears quasi-religious in nature. Philosophical critics of both books who are consumed with the nagging perception that physical facts of reality seem indeed to hold up well to the correspondence theory of truth are steeped in a Western religious world view.
That world view and its implications for Rorty's concept of solidarity carries critical import for understanding his project. For many of his critics that world view seems to be validated by epistemology. As some have pointed out, we do the math and the rockets fly. So some correspondence is working, apparently. In the realm of ethics, the same relationship of language to reality has apparent truth as well. In assigning verbal names to these correspondences, we superimpose a chimerical essence we call "Truth," if Rorty is right. But that "Truth" we assign has no real correspondence to what is out there in the world, in his argument. This "Truth" constitutes an unverifiable relationship because we do not know how reliable the "mirror" is, our cognitive door to perception, and this reliability is the crux of philosophical disagreement with Rorty and Dewey and other pragmatists.
It is the old debate about the relationship between fact and truth on a new level, with Nietzsche's "mobile army of metaphors" winning if you assert there can be no "truth" without words, without language, and there is therefore no "Truth." Rorty is saying the resulting epistemological uncertainty is never going away even though there is no doubt about the practical efficacy of science and phenomenology.
I disagree with critics who think he is espousing moral relativism. Epistemological uncertainty about ethics does not translate into moral relativism. Rorty, like Dewey before him, is saying moral values have to be ultimately pragmatic because there is no epistemological absoluteness about them as there is none about physical facts, even when the rockets work properly. It is a meta-ethical claim, not a claim about the truths of morality. So the assertion that Rorty's concept of solidarity amounts to espousing moral relativism makes no sense. Some critics want to label him "dangerous" in the same way Russell called Dewey's pragmatism "dangerous." Dangerousness does not make them wrong.
Regarding this dangerousness, Rorty does not think theorizing about what level or lack of epistemological surety underlies moral values changes our interaction with them, at least not in a morally or politically detrimental way. He's saying epistemology is never going to get us to certainty, so there is no point trying to mold the polis on the assumption we do know. What works is not only good enough but also it's all that we have.
So pragmatists like Dewey and Rorty are "dangerous" in the same way Nietzsche was dangerously misunderstood by ignorant Nazis. Some are inclined to exclaim "this cannot be" because they want absolute ontological certainty, the moral clarity of solidarity not being strong enough for us. That impulse arises from a psychological approach produced by a world view (the "mirror" at work) grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition (as Genesis says "and God saw all that he made") and Plato's "forms" as the ultimate "True" reality ("seeing" the Truth of forms when emerging from the Republic's metaphorical cave). At its core Plato's theory is as religious as Genesis. These two traditions represent the bedrock of Western epistemological and scientific thinking.
Not everyone thinks that way though, which is why I think Rorty was on to something when he left philosophy. In the East people do not use ocular metaphors as a very first resort, for instance, and they have no trouble with the idea that fact is somehow ontologically independent of truth. The Taoist roots of Zen existentialism may be more "scientific" in the pragmatist's perspective (to continue with the habit of ocular metaphors) because those ideas stress bare awareness without reflection as apprehending what we call "Truth," not seeing it and naming it so. The ultimate exact relationship between fact and truth, as Rorty suggests, is likely ineffable, but that doesn't mean we do not know facts of reality exist. That is an idea with which the Taoists, most famously Lao-tzu or Chuang-tzu, would readily agree. Rorty is sure enough about the facts of cruelty to write what he does, but that doesn't mean he or anyone else possesses ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
Rorty's book is an articulate and very clearly written endeavor to deal with one major modern philosophical question, namely:
"If nothing (or everything) is true (or real), what grounds are there for developing a system of values?"
Rorty starts by summarising the problems of modern philosophy (relativism rules, or "nothing is true"). He then moves into a discusion of how-- in the absence of God, or of concrete proof of the value and meaning of scientific research-- values might be articulated. Rorty's answer (which he takes to some extent from Sartre) is that it is literature (and the arts in general) which allow us to imagine the human context of ideas. Through this imagining we can create the title's "solidarity" with others against ideas (or governments) which are cruel.
Rorty's book is forceful, well-written and clear. Anybody without a philosophy background can get his ideas. There are a few gaps. Rorty, of the blank-slate ("nurture") school of human nature, ignores much evidence from neuroscience, anthropology and other disciplines which basically says that, no, there ARE inherent human universals. We aren't jsu tcreated by culture, and we cannto simpy adopt ANY set of social ideas and build a society around them. It would be interesting to see Rorty argue ethics with, say, Steven Pinker. Rorty also takes relativism one step too far. As Allan Bloom put it, he makes the mistake of turning epistemological relativism into MORAL relativism (in human language, that means he starts with "we don't know anything for sure" and uses that to argue "there is no way to have moral standards").
Those interested in this book would also enjoy the following--
Charles Taylor's THE SOURCES OF THE SELF. A history of how Westerners came to see themselves (in philosophical and political terms). Opens with a fascinating indirect rebuttal to Rorty. Taylour writes beautifully for an educated but non-specialist audience.
Steven Pinker's HOW THE MIND WORKS. The very first half is the computational theory of mind; the second looks at gene-based human universals and makes a fascinating counterpoint to Rorty.
Rated by buyers 
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Contingency, Irony and Solidarity is great book if you are in neopragmatism, linguistic relativity or other neo-something. But if you think more in depth you will see that Rorty's basic statement that new vocabulary that replace old vocabulary is still recognized as entity "vocabulary". Without broader idea that language "Is" that vocabulary changing concept wouldn't be possible. Rorty is definitively interesting philosopher as philosopher which clearly shows 20th century spirit, but to be one's final station is as dangerous as to hold Nietzsche as definitive philosopher.
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