Politics (1994) 14(3) pp. 143-148

Rorty’s Poetic Politics Craig Ross

I n reading Rorty as political theorists we must separate his critique of epistemology )om his advocacy of a new style ofpbiloso- phy. If we concentrate on the detail and pre- suppositions of the latter, we will Jtnd insuficient reason to grant that his political project is coherent or that it derives any sup- port )om his attack on ‘Enlightenment’philo- sophy. We will see that historicist accounts can never reasonably compel belie& that no- one (save the epistemologist manque craving a role) could accept that there is a compel- ling social need for poetic and litera y excla- mations; and that great men cannot be allowed to set our political agenda.

Richard Rorty’s principal claim in his attack on the contemporary practice of philosophy is that philosophy mistakes the character of knowledge when it seeks the ‘method’ of a practice (to wit, science). This case has been made both by the later Wittgenstein and by Oakeshott, among others, and today verges on being a commonplace. However, this (well-founded) criticism does not itself point towards a (meaningful or liberating) socially influential philosophy, and it is this I wish to demonstrate. It is not possible to view Rorty’s rejection of hermeneutics as marking the abandonment of his belief in a social role for intellectuals (Wain, 1993, p.401). Rather it marks the end

of his attempt to argue for such a role. More- over, as our political order rests on the jud- gements of citizens, a devotion to poetically inspired self creation cannot be a purely pri- vate matter (Rorty, 1991b, pp.127, 154, 197- 198).

An overview of the emergence of our ‘predicament’

Rorty’s principal target is the notion of ‘the mirror of nature’, or rather, that philosophy which is predicated on those beliefs for which this a shorthand. Broadly, the belief is that we both ‘track the world and that this process can in some way be contemplated from without. It is a belief in an ‘eye’ of the mind. In truth, we cannot perceive perception and ‘adjust’ for its influence: pull ourselves up by our philosophical bootstraps (Rorty, 1991a, pp.7, 9, 12).

The scepticism which led to the attempt to solve this ‘problem’ began with Plato (Rorty, 1991a, p.211, but received a major fillip from Descartes, who asked how we could be sure that the mental represented the corporeal (Rorty, 1980, p.14). Philosophers attempted to answer this question by making use of our knowledge of ourselves; broadly ‘if we can

Craig Ross, University of Glasgow.

0 Political Studies Association 1994. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 LIF, UK and 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. 143

Rorty‘s Poetic Politics 0 Craig Ross Politics (1994) 14(3) pp. 143-148

know ourselves reflexively and indubitably from the inside, surely the “eye” that sees that it is indeed us can also see how the world makes its shape on our mind; and thus the shape of the world?’. They became fasci- nated by the apparent certainty of science, and thus, ‘Science, rather than living, became philosophy’s subject, and epistemology its center’(Rorty, 1980, p.61). bcke and Kant were also culpable in this regretted shift of attention, Locke through believing that knowledge was non-proposi- tional; the impact of an outer ‘it’ on an inner ‘you’ (Rorty, 1980, p.141, 1991a, p.811, Kant similarly looking for ‘. . . causes of, rather than merely reasons for, claims to empirical knowledge’(Rorty, 1980, p.150).

The consequence of this change has been a loss of the philosopher’s social influence. The epistemological grind has led to practical irrelevance. Moreover, others suffer from this non-involvement of philosophers in their lives. Ironically it was that natural science which unwittingly misled philosophy into epistemology which also gave philosophy its opportunity for real social influence, by weak- ening the grip of religion. But ‘technical’ phi- losophy alienated its audience, who turned to poets and novelists for guidance (Rorty, 1980, p.5, 1991b, p.156). Philosophy hamstrung itself at precisely the moment that its oppor- tunity arose. What Rorty’s cjtique means to provide is a second bite at the cherry.

A critique of Rorty’s historicist diagnosis

Much unremarked upon slippage occurs between the case that knowledge is found in practices (and therefore a scientific algorithm can neither be discovered nor applied), to the (tacit) claim that this does not apply to our social practice: philosophers (and others 1991b, pp.6748, 80) may be socially influen- tial ‘poets’. Ironically it is just such false claims to social influence that the enlight-

enment philosopher’s misconceptions about the nature of knowledge and perception allegedly led to, and which constitutes the core of Rorty’s case.

Rorty’s general confidence in the feasibility of his endeavour is not entirely unequivocal. After maintaining that there was no particular reason for the success of ‘ocular metaphor‘ of ‘The Eye of the Mind (Rorty, 1980, p.38), Rorty in his next work, en passant, lets us into some of his doubts. The philosophy he recommends may cause ‘The Conversation of Europe’ to ‘falter and die away’; and, follow- ing James and Dewey he can give us no guar- antees (indeed no argument) that it will not do just that (Rorty, 1982, p.174). Now these doubts would not matter if Rorty felt that Western society had no charm. But this is not the case, and however much Rorty might regret the notion, some account of how actions are thought to relate to desired results is necessary. It matters that the hypothesized relationshps which Rorty assumes between philosophical writings and social institutions actually obtain. It is important that Rorty knows how the present is a product of the past. A mechanistic account of how Rorty comes to hold his belief in the worth of this socially influential philosophy is unnecessaty. Some reasoned and (thus) persuasive account would suffice; but none is given. Pragmatists may be men of good faith who, like Sydney Hook, aim to enlarge human freedom by ‘. . . the arts of intelligent social control’ (Rorty, 1982, p.69). This, though, does not tell us anything about the likely success of such a project. As Janik says (1989, p.821, Rorty, like Dewey, is concerned to ‘construct’ a liberal society. It is difficult to see why the conceit of philosophers to ‘ground h s ’ or ‘criticize that’ (a misunderstanding of their task of explain- ing ‘in other terms’) should be thought more objectionable than this approach to society.

Rorty asks us to accept that the precise social influence of philosophy can be known. For example, ‘enlightenment rationahsm’, ‘. . . was essential to the beginnings of liberal democracy’ but now impedes progress. We

144 0 Political Studies Association 1994

Politics (1994) 14(3) pp. 143-148 Rorty’s Poetic Politics 0 Craig Ross

now require a vocabulary ‘. . which revolves around notions of metaphor and self-creation, rather than around notions of truth, ration- ality, and moral obligation’ (Rorty, 1989, p.44). By ‘historical analysis’ we may attain a clear and actionable self-consciousness, understand who we are and why we are the way we are, and change our lives. We can see what kind of writing we need and do not need. Similarly we may analyze an intellectual initiative, see its ‘relation to culture as a whole’ (Rorty, 1984, p.13), and improve it.

Now, ‘mythopoeic introjection’ might be mooted for the individual in crisis, (the more desperate one’s plight the less relative risk of grasping at straws). But if it is a tortuous (perhaps impossible) business to understand an individual’s history with a view to altering the forward progress of their life, how much more difficult for a society. It seems unclear how we are to disentangle philosophy from the history of the societies in which the phi- losophers lived.

Even if all we are concerned to do is main- tain the liberal polity, it is difficult to see why anyone should seek to reform phlosophy (or create a new form of writing) as a means to this end. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that poetry, or similar, might be politically helpful (which I doubt), then the relationship of philosophy to ‘political poetry’ still seems tendentious. Suppose, for exam- ple, that (as Rorty maintains) philosophers once helped their societies. Then there was a period of three hundred years where they did not. During this time the discipline (for such it became) attracted different individuals than it would have done otherwise, and they were socialized differently also. This prompts the observation that astrologers have more in common with pre-Cartesian philosophers than academic philosophers have with their putative ancestors. As Janik says (1989, p.801, the entry of traditional philosophers into the Rortyian post-philosophical activity seems to be based on their ability to analyze argu- ments. Yet how can this eminently ‘normal’ philosophical skill be compatible with the

capacity of the philosopher to create helpful perspectives and descriptions of the kind exemplified by Freud, but not Kant? The rela- tionship of traditional philosophy to the hypothesized new intellectual initiative seems, to say the least, tenuous. The question arises why Rorty does not simply begin his new activity; why he thinks philosophy or philoso- phers might be useful to this new activity. The answer, of course, is that without a social and political role Rorty believes the work of philosophers to be futile (Rorty, 1991b, pp.17-18), and given his criticism of theoriz- ing what seems left is the production of ‘general text’ (Rorty, 1991b, pp.8-7).

If Rorty’s notion of the history of the Lib- eral Polity is plausible we should note that there are other notions that are equally ‘plau- sible’. For example, perhaps philosophy and the Liberal Polity had no direct relationship at all, and the development of the latter (sup- posing we were compelled to give some kind of account) may be explained by economic factors and the clash of arms. Or there is the notion that the search for a theory of knowl- edge kept occupied a number of potentially dangerous individuals, and prevented them from makmg myths and telling stories. For instance, it prevented them from expounding histories of racial and ethnic groups in wes- tern societies. Perhaps Rorty’s insight is to tell us how philosophy won its academic bona Jideq how it emerged as a distinct activity. There are any number of hunches which might suggest themselves to anyone ponder- ing the histoty of philosophy. Presumably it would not be impossible to find some evi- dence for, and to tell stories about, these hunches also. But if Rorty and others are to stand close to society as myth-makers and socially influential poets it is important that they apply their force in the correct place; that they produce the correct myths, in the correct language, at the correct time. Taking a more humble approach toward the past, and toward our ability to discern its intricacies, we might admit that all we are really sure of is that the present is a product of the past; all

Political Studies Association 1994 145

Rorty‘s Poetic Politics 0 Craig Ross Politics (1994) 14(3) pp, 143-148

of the past. Rorty’s protective and con- servative attitude to the Liberal Polity sits oddly with his revolutionary attitude towards philosophy.

He is, for example, quite confident that once we are disabused of our belief that humans are of great worth because they have some special essence there is no difficulty in founding an effective humanist ethics (Rorty, 1980, p.37). Similarly he is happy that when it is thought that men ‘secrete’ theorems and symphonies (1980, pp.4344) then these works will continue to be produced, despite the prevailing mythology being that the for- mulators could not, of course, have done otherwise. Likewise, as Guignon and Hiley point out, it might well be thought a natural consequence of everything being thought contingent and temporary (as Rorty recom- mends) that people should find it impossible to take seriously these epiphenomena; to stand up for their liberal convictions (Mala- chowski, 1990, p.358). Nor does it seem that physicalism could, in the common conscious- ness, ever remain non-reductive (Rorty, 1991a, p.115).

If the alternative to a rigorous and deduc- tive style of philosophy (and the relationship between epistemology and the ‘philosophical style’ seems merely contingent) is the tender- ing of advice which the philosopher does not have, then perhaps we must remain with tra- ditional philosophy. Rorty’s enthusiasm for the case that philosophy aped science, and, as science is now shown to be without a ‘method’, philosophy must become socially influential] has a massive non sequitur at its heart. It is difficult to see why we should have any faith in the consequences of a new ‘poetic’ intellectual initiative given the dis- astrous consequences of the intellectualism of Descartes, Locke and Kant, whose faith was as good as Rorty’s. Rorty’s is very much a phi- losopher’s case; he only considers what he is leaving and not where he can go. The reahty is that if he leaves philosophy, there is nowhere to go.

Alternative justifications Rorty is an eclectic writer, and within his writ- ing it is possible to discover remarks which imply more esoteric justifications for writing which is both poetic and political, to which we must pay some heed. Rorty may, for example, be held (insofar as post-modernist ‘gesturing’ involves ‘holdmg’) to be simply producing ‘text’, and that it is an existential truth that new descriptions are per se liberalizing. Something of this sort seems to be involved in his defence of Derrida, when he says that good arguments cannot be expected from those ‘forging [sic] new ways of spealung’ (1991b, p.93). Save, however, for hs remarks on the primacy of ‘language games’ no systematic attempt is made to defend th~s thesis. Wanting is an account of how the descriptions provided by the ‘enlightenment philosophers’ could have side- stepped those facts of our existence which necessarily make the text of Rorty (or Freud; Rorty 1989, p.32) liberty maximizing. Entirely missing is any account of the purported mechanism by which ‘text’ furthers the liberty of individuals. W!@ should we laud the spec- ulations of ‘utopian fantasists’ (Rorty, 1986b, p.14, 1991a, p.411, or worry that the language ‘keeps changing’ (1991a, p.41), or make things easier for ‘poets and revolutionaries’ (1991a, p.13)? If the prime instrument for social change is the ability to ‘speak differ- ently’ (Rorty, 1986a, p.3, also l99la, p.141, why should we feel phlegmatic about this ability being strongly exercised by a ‘poetic’ class?

One defence is to claim that all activities can be very literally described as language games. Therefore the influence of any ‘text’, however created, on a language game is equally desirable to any other influence. We might thus, through creative ‘babbling’, bound free, like Jack, from a corrupted lan- guage game (1991a, pp.171-172). This how- ever mistakenly attributes to the descriptions of the abstract individual a fundamentality they do not have. As both Baker and Heale

146 0 Political Studies Association 1994

Politics (1994) 14(3) pp. 143-148 R o w s Poetic Politics 0 Craig Ross

point out, for W’ittgenstein ‘language games’ rest on more primitive relations; experience, not simply language, is fundamental (Baker, 1984, p.285). That we do not have access to a

phical hay’ from past or current events (Rorty, 1991a, p.221).

non-linguistic world does not imply that all language is equal. The bare fact that someone has chosen to divide the world in a certain way does not entail that the proliferation of this way of speaking, this ‘definition of the situation’, will be libertymaximizing, or cruelty-minimizing, or whatever. Indeed if Rorty is simply producing ‘text’ which will be interpreted, subsumed and ‘strongly misread’ then his confidence that his work will not be strongly misread t o the succour of illiberal forces is unaccounted for.

There is also the possibility that Rorty may not find his historical accounts compelling. They may rather be designed to encourage in his readers that attitude towards ‘modernity’ which he has come (independently of his his- torical analysis) to consider appropriate. Rorty may consider himself, as he tells us he con- siders MacIntyre (Rorty, 1984, p.56), a ‘geiste- shistoriker‘; a man who decides what the important issues are (1984, p.58) and then, (it seems) seeks to secure them their ‘rightful’ place on the political and intellectual agenda. The purposes, it seems, being prior to the ‘history’, are founded on Rorty’s intuitions. The fear, of course, must be that Rorty’s unal- loyed judgement constitutes an even less secure basis (if one can imagine such a thing) for a view of ‘modernity’ than attempt- ing to guide our conduct from some histor- ical account. His remarks concerning Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s predictions of the consequences of the ‘dissolvant rationality’ of the Enlightenment (Malachowski, 1990, p.295) seem to support this reading, as his remarks would seem to also ‘infect’ his own historical account (and all other eclectic accounts) were it not saved by his intuition. Indeed, as Adorno and Horkheimer predict, their work seems if anything more impressive than the use which Rorty makes of historical survivals. Nor, indeed, does there seem to be much to choose between making ‘philoso-

Conclusion

There is a fundamental inconsistency in explaining the unloved features of a society in terms of the unintended consequences of an action of a number of centuries hence, and then proceeding to recommend a new and radical intellectual initiative. For liberty pro- duced ‘enlightenment rationalism’ and who is to say that that is the best (or rather the worst) that we can do. If Rorty has incorrectly identified the enemy as not a particular philo- sophical predilection, but rather intellectual- ism in politics, then his solution is part of the problem. Quite simply we cannot, or cannot with any equanimity, accept that intellectual initiatives are constantly causing us to forget things that we desperately need to know.

Where such caution is ignored, and indivi- duals try to convince us that judgement should be reformed wholesale because of what has been shown to be the case by an historical analysis, then the sceptical reader must rehearse the reasons why this kind of historical diagnosis and socially reformative programme should be thought impossible.

References

Baker, L.R. (19841, ‘On the Vely Idea of a Form of Life’, Inquiry 27.

Janik, A. (1989), Style, Politics and the Future o f Philosophy. London: Kluwer Academic Publish- ers.

Malachowski, A.R. (19901, Reading Rorty - Critical responses to Philosophy and the Mirror of Natwe (and beyond2 Oxford: Blackwell.

Rorty, R. (19801, Philosopby and the Mirror of Nature. Oxford: Blackwell.

Rorty, R. (19821, Consequences of Pragmatism. Brighton: Harvester.

Rorty, R. (ed.) (19841, Philosopby in History -

Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy. Cdm- bridge: Cambridge University Press).

6 Political Studies Association 1994 147

Rorty‘s Poetlc Politics 0 Craig Ross

Rorty, R. (1986a), ‘The Contingency of Language’,

Rorty, R (1986b), ‘The Contingency of Commu-

Rorty, R. (1989), Contingency, Irony and Solidar-

Rorty, R. (1991a), Objectivity, Relativism and

Politics (1994) 14(3) pp. 143-148

Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, R. (1991b), Essays on Heidegger and Others

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wain, K (1993), ‘Strong Poets and Utopia: Rorty’s

Liberalism, Dewey and Democracy’, Political Stu- dies 41.

London Review of Books, 16 April.

nity’, London Review of Books, 24 July.

i@. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.

148 0 Political Studies Association 1994