Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), written by American philosopher Richard Rorty, is based on two sets of lectures given at University College, London, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... Richard McKay Rorty (born October 4, 1931 in New York City) is an American philosopher. ... The Front Quad University College London, commonly known as UCL, is one of the colleges that make up the University of London. ... Full name The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity Motto Virtus vera nobilitas Virtue is true Nobility Named after The Holy Trinity Previous names King’s Hall and Michaelhouse (until merged in 1546) Established 1546 Sister College(s) Christ Church Master The Lord Rees of Ludlow Location Trinity Street...

The book is divided into three parts, each consisting of three chapters.

Part I: Contingency

1) The contingency of language

Here, Rorty argues that all language is contingent. Because only descriptions of the world can be true or false, and descriptions are made by humans, humans must make truth or falsity, as opposed to truth or falsity being determined by any innate property of the world being described. For example, green grass is not true or false, but "the grass is green" is. Without the human proposition, truth or falsity is simply irrelevant. Rorty consequently argues that all discussion of language in relation to reality should be abandoned, and that one should instead discuss vocabularies in relation to other vocabularies. Modal logic, or (less commonly) intensional logic is the branch of logic that deals with sentences that are qualified by modalities such as can, could, might, may, must, possibly, and necessarily, and others. ...

He states that he will not exactly be making "arguments" in this book, because arguments, as communication mostly within one vocabulary, preclude novelty.

2) The contingency of selfhood

Rorty proposes that each of us has a set of beliefs whose contingency we more or less ignore, which he dubs our "final vocabulary." One of the ironist's greatest fears, according to Rorty, is that he will discover that he has been operating within someone else's final vocabulary all along; that he has not "self-created." It is his goal, therefore, to recontextualize the past which has led to his historically contingent self, so that the past which defines him will be created by him, rather than creating him.

3) The contingency of a liberal community

Rorty begins this chapter by addressing critics who have accused him of irrationality and moral relativism. He asserts that accusations of irrationality are merely affirmations of vernacular "otherness". We use the term "irrational" when we come across a vocabulary that cannot be synthesized with our own, as when a father calls his son irrational for being scared of the dark, or when a son calls his father irrational for not checking under the bed for monsters. The vocabulary of "real monsters" is not shared between father and son, and so accusations of irrationality fly. As for moral relativism, for Rorty, this accusation can only be considered a criticism if one believes in a metaphysically salient and salutary moral, which Rorty firmly does not.

Rorty then discusses his liberal utopia. He gives no argument for liberalism, and believes that there have been and will be many ironists who are not liberal, but he does propose that we as members of a democratic society are becoming more and more liberal. In his utopia, people would never discuss restrictive metaphysical generalities such as "good", "moral", or "human nature", but would be allowed to communicate freely with each other on entirely subjective terms.

Rorty sees most cruelty as stemming from metaphysical questions like, "what is it to be human?", because questions such as these allow us to rationalize that some people are to be considered less than human, thus justifying cruelty to those people.

Part II: Ironism and Theory

4) Private irony and liberal hope

Rorty introduces a term that he believes effectively describes the status of a person holding the "axioms" set out in the first three chapters. This person is an ironist. An ironist is someone who fulfills three conditions:

(1) She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered; (2) she realizes that argument phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts; (3) insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power not herself.

– Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, p.73

5) Self-creation and affiliation: Proust, Nietzsche, and Heidegger

Rorty views Proust, Nietzsche, and Heidegger each as different types of ironists. In Remembrance of Things Past, Proust near-perfectly exemplifies ironism by continually and constantly recontextualizing and redefining the characters he meets along the way, thus preventing any particular final vocabulary from becoming especially salient. Nietzsche is an ironist because he believes all thruths to be contingent, but he tends to slip back into metaphysics, especially when discussing his superman. Heidegger is an ironist because he has mostly rejected metaphysics, but his discussion of elementary words forces him to propose a generality that cannot be considered contingent or ironistic. The name Proust can refer to: Antonin Proust (1832-1905), French journalist and politician Joseph Proust (1754-1826), French chemist Marcel Proust (1871-1922), French author This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 - August 25, 1900) was a highly influential German philosopher. ... Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) was a German philosopher. ... In Search of Lost Time (a translation of the original À la recherche du temps perdu) is a sequence of 7 novels by French writer Marcel Proust, published between 1913 and 1927. ...

6) From ironist theory to private allusions: Derrida

For Rorty, Derrida most perfectly typifies the ironist. In his, The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond, especially, Derrida free associates about theorizers instead of theories, thus preventing him from discussing metaphysics at all. This keeps Derrida contingent, and maintains Derrida's ability to recreate his past so that his past does not create him. Derrida is, therefore, autonomous and self-creating, two properties which Rorty considers most valuable to a private ironist. While Derrida does not discuss philosophies per se, he responds, reacts, and is primarily concerned with philosophy. Because he is contained in this philosophical tradition, he is still a philosopher, even if he does not philosophize. Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French literary critic and philosopher of Jewish descent, considered the first to develop deconstruction. Positioning Derridas thought Derrida had a significant effect on continental philosophy and on literary theory, particularly through his long-time...

Part III: Cruelty and Solidarity

7) The barber of Kasbeam: Nabokov on cruelty

For Rorty, Nabokov represents private cruelty in his literature, giving the reader a model which he or she can employ as a warning.

8) The last intellectual in Europe: Orwell on cruelty

George Orwell, especially in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, represents public, or institutional cruelty. Rorty argues that Orwell deprived the liberal community of their hopes for liberal utopia without providing them with an alternative. Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903[1][2] – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. ... This article is about the Orwell novel. ... Animal Farm is a novel by George Orwell, and is regarded in the literary field as one of the most famous satirical allegories of Soviet totalitarianism. ...

9) Solidarity

In this chapter, Rorty argues that because humans tend to view morals as "we-statements", and find it easier to be cruel to those who they can define as "them", we should continue to expand our definition of "we" to include more and more subsets of the human population until no one can be considered less-than-human.

References

• Rorty, Richard. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. ISBN 0-521-36781-6
• Derrida, Jacques. The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond, trans. Alan Bass, Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1987.