Richard Rorty - the priority of democracy to philosophy

Richard Rorty is a more than somewhat provocative thinker. In an essay entitled 'The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy' he puts forward the pragmatic argument that, as his title suggests, what really should concern us is the forging of democratic agreements on which some progress can be achieved, rather than speculating on unsolveable philosophical issues. Liberal democracy should give up pretending that it is founded on a grand metaphysical principles like 'rights' etc and instead realise that it is merely the best working solution to the problem of political community. So, he writes:

The philosophical tradition has assumed that there are certain topics (for example, 'what is God's will?' 'What is man?'...) on which everyone has, or should have, views and that these toics are prior in the order of justification to those at issue in political deliberation. This assumption goes along with the asumption that hman beings have a natural center that philosophical inquiry can locate and illuminate. By contrast, the view that human beings are centerless networks of beliefs and desires and that their vocabularies and opinions are determined by historical circumstance allows for the possibility that there may not be enough overlap between two such networds to make possibile agrement about political topics, or even profitable discussion of such topics.

Truth, in the Platonic sense is 'simply not relevant to democratic politics'. Neither is a notion of the self: even a very loose and postmodern one. You just don't need to bother yourself with it! Now, you gotta like that for straight shooting!

He goes on:

The encouragement of light-mindedness about traditional philosophical topics serves the same purposes as does the encouragement of light-mindedness about traditional theological toics. Like the rise of large market economies, the increase in literacy, the proliferation of artistic genres, and the insouciant pluralism of contemporary culture, such philosophical superficiality and light-mindedness helps along the disenchantment of the world. It helps make the world's inhabitants more pragmatic, more tolerant, more liberal, more receptive to the appeal of instrumental rationality.

Well, what a relief!