Taking Irony Seriously: Rorty's Postmetaphysical Liberalism

Abstract

Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity By Richard Rorty Cambridge University Press, 1989 In Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Richard Rorty unveils his blueprint for a postmetaphysical utopia inhabited by ironists like himself. An inspection of this blueprint reveals, however, that Rorty's liberal ironism turns out to be neither genuinely ironic nor especially liberal. His postmetaphysical aspirations ultimately thwarted by his unironic adherence to a rigid between public and private. In the end, Rorty compromises the irony that would promote human solidarity in order to preserve the sanctity of the private sphere. Mindful that irony and liberalism do not ordinarily mix, Rorty readily concedes that irony of little public (120) and is of no use to qua liberals (95). If, however, we simply honor a firm distinction between public and private, then we can reconcile the competing claims of irony and liberalism (83). Although ironists are at best useless and at worst dangerous [as public figures], they nevertheless can play a constructive role in accommodating [other ironists'] private sense of identity to [their] (68). When irony and liberalism joined (though never intermingled), the result is a public commitment to liberalism by ironists who privately acknowledge the historical contingency of their commitment. By confining irony to the private sphere, thus restricting its corrosive power to the personal pursuit of autonomy, the ironist can also maintain a public commitment to the promotion of human solidarity. Ironists' private quest for autonomy is uniquely informed by an irreverent attitude toward their own vocabulari[ies], a designation Rorty proposes for the collection of terms, concepts, and expressions by means of which we articulate our most basic hopes and values. Because ironists acknowledge that their final vocabulary is arbitrary, contingent, perhaps incoherent, and at any rate subject to interminable