Rorty, Richard McKay (1931–2007)

4. Mind and society

As a social philosopher, Rorty advances two different lines of thought: on the one hand, he is a bourgeois liberal democrat celebrating ‘the end of ideology’ and advocating an incremental meliorism; on the other hand, he tries to keep the field open for, and even to cheer on, radically imaginative utopianism (for example, by feminists), however uncongenial to the stodginess of his first line of thought, provided it does not actually clash with either his liberalism or his anti-foundationalism. This has made him a target for political thinkers from all points on the political spectrum, who accuse him, even when he agrees with them, of giving comfort to the enemy.

In philosophy of mind, Rorty, following Ryle and Dennett, takes our talk of beliefs, desires and so on to be a way of talking which we find useful for predicting, controlling, imagining and making sense of some of the things that we and some other things do, just as physics and neurology give us ways of talking which are useful for predicting, and so on, other things that we and some other things do. No one of these is primary or needs to be reduced to the others, though we need not suppose that when we mention someone’s beliefs and desires we are talking about something other than what we are talking about when we mention their neural processes (non-reductive physicalism). The mind as a philosophical subject Rorty takes to be a monstrous fiction cobbled together by Descartes out of thoughts and sensations; philosophers should drop talk of the mind, as it is confusing and unhelpful (eliminative physicalism).

Many strands in Rorty’s thought have been neglected in the preceding sketch – his continuing skirmishes with philosophy as a profession, his ideas on the historiography of philosophy and his attacks on socialism, for example. Rorty has exhibited the virtues of modesty and willingness to learn from sympathetic criticism, and he has modified and extended his thought considerably throughout his career. He will undoubtedly have added new twists by the time you read this.