Book Review: Rorty’s Politics of Redescription

For those interested in a more coherent presentation:

Dr. Gideon Calder, Director of the Newport Social Ethics Research Group, wrote Rorty’s Politics of Redescription. Dr. Calder’s principal interests are in ethics, political philosophy and social theory. The University of Wales Press published his book on August 15, 2007.

Richard McKay Rorty (1931–2007) was a notorious American philosopher who claimed that Philosophy (in the Western Philosophical tradition) was no longer viable. Rorty said, “Philosophy does not reveal or reflect or show or prove; it simply redescribes the terms of some given debate in order to fulfill some contingent purpose. It can best be seen as the reinterpretation of our predecessors’ reinterpretation of their predecessors’ reinterpretation.” Rorty is best known for his proposition of redescription as a substitute for Philosophy, where Philosophy with a capital P, signifies the pursuit of the True-necessary-nature of reality or knowledge or human being (p.28). According to Calder, “redescription is a post-metaphysical process; it involves no claims about the ultimate nature of reality or of human nature; it works through the persuasive force of constructed narratives” (viii). Calder declares Rorty’s concepts are “the most sustained, inventive, and resourceful among contemporary attempts to expose the contingency of Philosophical concerns” (Ibid). He argues “the rejection of philosophy as a viable tool of social change is itself a political move, and one that is far from neutral in terms of its impact on the possibility of the sort of progressive social change which Rorty himself would advocate” (p.5). His goal for this work was “to take Rorty seriously as social, political, and moral philosopher” (vii) and “to investigate what is distinctive in Rorty’s approach to politics and philosophy and the relationship between them.” (p.182) The book’s title reflects Calder’s thoughts.

Calder supplied sufficient background for a novice, like myself, to have some success following Rorty’s thinking. He described “vertical planes as those that posit some relation between an idea or a piece of language and an entity assumed to exist on a different ontological level: God, or ‘the-way-the-world really is’. Vertical thinking presumes that there are shallower and deeper levels of whatever is under investigation: the self, culture, economics structures; and it assumes access to deeper levels will help us explain the way such phenomena appear to the naked eye.” He stated, “Horizontal claims make no such reference with different ontological level; they refer only to other, preceding ideas or sentences. With a suitably ‘horizontalized’ conception of things, we will realize that there is no descriptive access, and no practical use in seeking to refer to a separate ontological level from that bequeathed to us by the horizons of previous descriptions and redescriptions.”

Calder’s book is peppered with direct quotes from Rorty, from philosophers on whom Rorty’s work was based, and from those who disagreed with Rorty; including the major themes, thoughts, and quotes found within “The Anti-Theorist’s Paradox: Dialogue with a Rortian”(Silliman and Johnson.

Calder treats Rorty’s work as broadly continuous from 1960 to 2007. He mapped his thesis out in 4 chapters; each chapter is a response to a series of questions. Calder divided his work into four chapters, with each chapter as a response to a series of questions. Chapter 1. Rorty’s Project: Redescribing Pragmatism – “Why does Rorty see the Western tradition in philosophy as something to be ‘overcome’ or ‘circumvented’ rather than persevered with?” Chapter 2. Redescription, Truth and Progress – “What is redescription, and how for Rorty does this operate as a replacement for ‘vertical’ philosophizing of the kind he would rather we left behind?” Chapter 3. Liberal Ironism – “How does Rorty seek to develop ‘liberal iron-ism’ as an anti-foundationalist alternative to the liberalism he regards as the most precious legacy of the modern philosophical tradition?” Chapter 4. Applications: History and Moral Practice – “How might we apply the core themes of Rorty’s thinking in areas where he himself does not necessarily take it - but which nonetheless shed light on its strengths and weaknesses?” (p.7).

“Redescription is a matter of imaginatively making new descriptions ‘hang together’ with existing ones. Whereas ‘metaphysicians’ ask whether some new description really has captured the nature of our subject matter, pragmatists prefer to ask whether new descriptions can be ‘woven together with previous vocabularies in a helpful way’.” (Rorty) For Calder, redescription conceived in these terms, captures Rorty’s metaphor contrasting vertical and horizontal inquiry, which Calder views as the definitive theme of Rorty’s work.

In Chapter 1 Calder establishes the overall framework of Rorty’s work in “terms of two salient binding themes”. The ‘deconstructive’ theme is where he examines Rorty’s “critique and rejection of the stakes of the metaphysical tradition, provides the basis for an appeal to pragmatism and to ethnocentrism as strategies by which we might neutralize that traditions core concerns” (Ibid). The second theme investigates Rorty’s ‘constructive’ development of a “pragmatism, which switches its central concept of ‘coping’ from an ideas-based or experience-base notion to a linguistic one”(Ibid). Calder examines Rorty’s rejection of the traditional role of the relationship between subject and object, and how this leads him to an alternative view of the relationship between human objectives and the world”. In this venue, he “considers the conceptions of truth and objectivity which Rorty presents as alternatives to their traditional variants.” Calder reflects on the charges of ‘linguistic idealism’ laid against Rorty, and considers the “implicit social conservatism in his denial of the scope for appeals either to reality or to transcendent criteria in the critique of existing ideas, norms, or practices”(p.8).

In Chapter 2, Calder finds Rorty’s account of self-creation (the “combination of a ‘non-reductive physicalist’s account of the self with the Nietzsche valorization of the importance of describing one's life on one's own terms, according to one's own dictates) as the least persuasive aspect of Rorty’s thinking. He perceives this particular construct as a deflationary, Darwinian, naturalistic view of the self at odds with his romantic emphasis on the importance of forging of a truly individual existence”. Calder argues that Rorty failed to provide an adequate or convincing narration of the relationship between agency, language, and reality.

In Chapter 3, Calder presented a comparison of Rorty’s critique of universalism with those of post-structuralist thinkers, particularly focusing attention on the work of John Rawls and Jean-Francois Lyotard. He found that both of these philosophers were closer to classical liberalism than Rorty had been presenting them.

Calder examined Rorty’s Harvard Lectures of 1997 and found it odds with his previous works. Calder describes Rorty’s “emphasis on an ontological centrality narrative and redescription itself offers a reinforcement of the shibboleths of cultural studies.”

In Chapter 4, Calder reports that Rorty presents a “rather ‘thin’ view of history, reduced to the contours of an eternal present, always redescribable according to whichever concerns are currently dominant.” In Calder’s words, the ‘thickening’ of description proceeds to the ‘thinning out’ of historicity.” Calder found Rorty's work both profoundly suggestive but quite limited. He posited that Rorty’s thesis would benefit significantly from a phenomenological analysis employing Merleau-Ponty’s understandings of bodily agency.

Calder describes Rorty as primarily, a pragmatist, but also says that he can be fairly described as a kind of ‘liberal postmodernist’. He critiqued the foundational assumptions behind Rorty's premises and the political conclusions Rorty drew from his redescriptive philosophical pragmatism.

I thought Calder did a very thorough job of presenting the various philosophical branches that Rorty argued against and used to support his own theories. I found it to be a well-written text. Calder’s thoughts were clearly presented and the format he employed made it easy to follow his and Rorty’s positions. There were so many concepts of great depth, it cannot be said that they were presented in an exhaustive manner, but Calder, I think, provided sufficient details and references to make his points. Additionally, I actually enjoyed the book, the discourse was interesting and stimulating.

Calder’s goal was to do justice to the importance and distinctiveness of Rorty’s works, highlighting its contributions and limitations. In my opinion he succeeded.

Response to Jaime: Does Lack of a Universal Definition Allow Art to be Subjective?

I believe some forms of art must exist that would be universally (for beings possessing the necessary biophysiology to experience the artistic medium) recognized as art (musical expressions spring to mind). I also think some visual art forms possess the capacity to trigger within us an internal recognition of their intrinsically artistic nature, and that this also occurs universally (same caveat).

Definitions of art often tend toward the subjective, but art is not necessarily subjective or objective. Objects subjectively defined as art, particularly when money or fame is the primary motivator for their creation, will often be considered art by some, but not others; others are created from a construct radically beyond the accepted concept of a societal norm (see Ed’s link to Natalie Jeremijenko: Tree Logic in his Art and Aesthetics blog entry).

Artistic expression can manifest in objective form, while resonating with certain bio-physiological elements of our being, which we interpret artistically.
Question: Do you think art can be created and understood objectively?