Richard Rorty’s ‘Kind’ of Humanism

The humanism of Rorty’s neopragmatism weaves together practicing philosophy with experiencing life so as to enjoy a more qualitative and worthy existence, both individual and communal. One of the ways this can be done, as Rorty writes in “The Humanistic Intellectual: Eleven Theses,” is expanding our “own moral imaginations” (Rorty Philosophy and Social Hope 1999, 127) so as to better see the lot of others and the evolving possibilities of ourselves. Such an expansion refers especially to people whom he calls ‘intellectual humanists,’ that is the people who “read books in order to enlarge their sense of what is possible and important – either for themselves as individuals or for their society” (ibid.). The specificity and novelty of Rorty’s project lies in showing that the realization of its message can hardly absolve one from dealing with language; even more: discourse, narrative, story-telling, description and redescription become basic tools in the process of strengthening human solidarity and the individuals’ contribution to their communities: “The engineers and scientists contribute to improving our material life, while the poets and novelists help us become friendlier and more tolerant” (Rorty Take Care of Freedom and the Truth Will Take Care of Itself. Interviews with Richard Rorty 2006, 68). It is worthy of notice that despite Rorty adds to the above his controversial claim that “In comparison, the philosophers don’t have much to offer” (ibid.), his own discourse and his way of thinking remain philosophical. He constantly refers to other philosophers, comments on sundry philosophical ideas, and uses, at least implicitly, philosophical categories throughout his output, and humanism is one of them (just a fragment of my presentation in Paris; I develop this thought in my book “Values, Valuations, and Axiological Norms in Richard Rorty’s Neopragmatism.” Lexington Books/Rowman&Littlfield, 2015)