Testing the Ethos of Tolerance: Chin’s Interpretation of Rorty’s Political Theory

Matthew Festenstein

doi:10.1163/18758185-bja10022

Abstract

Abstract In The Practice of Political Theory, Clayton Chin puts Richard Rorty’s pragmatism in dialogue with a range of contemporary political theorists, particularly focusing on how his notion of cultural politics can speak to the ontological turn in political theory. This article focuses on Chin’s claim that Rorty’s cultural politics provides an ethos of inclusive and tolerant political engagement. After exploring the basis for Chin’s interpretation, it identifies three tensions in this ethos, in relation to character of its demandingness, the fissure between ethnocentric and egalitarian engagement, and the relationship of this ethos to the virtues and procedures of democratic citizenship.

Highlights

Clayton Chin’s The Practice of Political Theory: Rorty and Continental Thought is a very rich and attentive text, making an important contribution to a new wave of thinking about Richard Rorty’s significance for political theory.[1]
In The Practice of Political Theory, Clayton Chin puts Richard Rorty’s pragmatism in dialogue with a range of contemporary political theorists, focusing on how his notion of cultural politics can speak to the ontological turn in political theory
In making a persuasive case for the importance of Rorty’s pragmatism as a paradigm of post-foundational political theory, Chin develops a contrast between Rortyan pragmatism, traditions of critique, and the kind of approach captured by Stephen White as “weak ontology”, the version in William Connolly’s work.[2]

Summary

Introduction

Clayton Chin’s The Practice of Political Theory: Rorty and Continental Thought is a very rich and attentive text, making an important contribution to a new wave of thinking about Richard Rorty’s significance for political theory.[1].

Results

Conclusion