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is true or useful; it postpones it. Perhaps the text can contribute to a de–
tenrunation of its truth or use value. The effect of Mill's reading may lead
us to wonder whether Mill had not undergone a conversion, so respon–
sive is he to Coleridge's ideas. But the conclusion of the essay assures us
that he remains a liberal, though in the light of his experience of
Coleridge, perhaps a reconstructed one. He expresses the hope that by
"systematiz[ing] and rationaliz[ing] their own creed," conservatives will
be "led to adopt one liberal opinion after another, as part of conservatism
itself" Here is an example of the appropriative impulse to which Rorty
would give the name "redescription." For liberal views to become ac–
ceptable to conservatives, they would have to be redescribed in
conservative language. But much of the essay up to the conclusion shows
that it is possible for a liberal to embrace conservative views without re–
describing them - in Rorty's strong sense of the word. There is no reason
to suppose that a reciprocal generosity would not be possible from con–
servatives.
It
may be that the intellectual generosity that Mill exhibits is
the exemplary act of a rare mind and not to be expected of entire groups.
Even so, anyone advocating the liberal view would want, it seems to me,
to encourage such openness and affirm it as an ideal to strive for. Such
openness, however, requires a belief in empathetic understanding, which
Rorty's theory lacks.
If Rorty betrays the cause of liberalism in proscribing god talk, he
fails in his commitment to pragmatism in not addressing the uses of relig–
ion in contemporary society. William James, his predecessor in
pragmatism, knew better when, despite his own disbelief in the absolute,
he granted those who needed them the right to gain what he calls "moral
holidays" in pursuing the absolute. James 's sense of what counts as relig–
ious experience cannot be reduced to the pursuit of the absolute. James's
own religious view reflects a disbelief that "our human experience is the
highest form of experience extant in the universe. I believe rather that we
stand in much the same relation to the whole of the universe as our ca–
nine and feline pets do to the whole of human life... . Just as many of
the dogs' and cats' ideals coincide with our ideals, and the dogs and cats
have daily living proof of the fact , so we may well believe, on the proof
that religious experience affords, that higher powers exist and are at work
to save the world on ideal lines similar to our own." Given its commit–
ment to the truth of the experience of persons, "how could pragmatism
possibly deny God's existence?"
Rorty's own failure to give credence to religious experience is par–
ticularly striking given his concern for what makes for solidarity among
people. He finds the binding element in "common vocabularies and
common hopes ," not in philosophical beliefs. "The idea that liberal so-
