Rorty: Absolute Immanetism and Human Rights

Abstract

Richard Rorty is one of the leading figures in contemporary North American philosophical- political thought.  He was aligned with the pragmatic tradition of William James and John Dewey, and his neopragmatism is part of Anglo-North American analytic philosophy. Rorty took a radical anti-metaphysical stance. For him, it made no sense to speak of problems of philosophy or language problems. He made no attempt justify or lay the grounds for anything, and had a unique vision of the democratic nature of public discussion. He favored replacing ethical grounds with those that consider social practices of democratic societies.  He regarded democratic societies as only those governed by a secular fundamentalism in which knowledge is replaced by conversation and, in conversation, vocabulary is optional and changeable. Vocabularies obey representations.  Rorty’s neopragmatism can serve political notions that are neither liberal nor democratic. This is evident in his view of human rights, reduced to language constructs for having rejected any ontological reference to the person.