As últimas palavras de Richard Rorty

"Last Words from Richard Rorty" por Danny Postel


"Richard Rorty: When I visited Tehran I was surprised to hear thatsome of my writings had been translated into Persian, and had a considerable readership. I was puzzled that rather fussy debates of the sort that take place between European and American philosophers, and in which I engage, should be of interest to Iranian students. But the reception of the talk I gave on “Democracy and Philosophy” made clear that there was indeed intense interest in the issues I discussed.
When I was told that another figure much discussed in Tehran was Habermas, I concluded that the best explanation for interest in my work was that I share Habermas’s vision of a social democratic utopia. In this utopia, many of the functions presently served by membership in a religious community would be taken over by what Habermas calls “constitutional patriotism.” Some form of patriotism — of solidarity with fellow-citizens, and of shared hopes for the country’s future — is necessary if one is to take politics seriously. In a theocratic country, a leftist political opposition must be prepared to counter the clergy’s claim that the nation’s identity is defined by its religious tradition. So the left needs a specifically secularist form of moral fervor, one which centers around citizens’ respect for one another rather than on the nation’s relation to God.
My own views on these matters derive from Habermas and John Dewey. In the early decades of the twentieth century Dewey helped bring a culture into being in which it became possible for Americans to replace Christian religiosity with fervent attachment to democratic institutions (and equally fervent hope for the improvement of those institutions). In recent decades, Habermas has been commending that culture to the Europeans. In opposition to religious leaders such as Benedict XVI and the ayatollahs, Habermas argues that the alternative to religious faith is not “relativism” or “rootlessness” but the new forms of solidarity made possible by the Enlightenment."



Livros publicados em Portugal:

Contingência, Ironia e Solidariedade
Pragmatismo e Política
A Filosofia e o espelho da natureza
Consequências do pragmatismo
Interpretração Sobreinterpretação