Vol. 63 No. 2 1996 - page 230

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PARTISAN REVIEW
cletles are bound together by philosophical beliefs seems to me ludi–
crous." (Ludicrous, one surmises, because philosophical beliefs, unlike
hopes and vocabularies, are abstractions and not rooted in the experiences
of people.) But why stop with vocabularies and hopes and not ask the
question about their genealogy? He might find the answer in their relig–
ious traditions. Even atheists might discover that the vocabularies and
hopes, now secularized, can be tracked to religious sources. Rorty is pre–
vented from pursuing the line of thought I have sketched here by his
reductive view of religious experience. Religion for him is little more
than "the idea of postmortem rewards." The belief in personal immortal–
ity has declined or rather been transformed "from one's hopes for paradise
to one's hopes for one's grandchildren." But there is more to religion
than the belief in an afterlife.
In
Race Matters,
Cornel West convincingly demonstrates the need for
intermediate institutions like the church in the lives of people in the inner
city. He speaks in prophetic language of the great nihilistic threat to black
America, "understood here not as a philosophic doctrine that there are no
rational grounds for legitimate standards or authority; it is, far more, the
lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness,
hopelessness and (most important) lovelessness." And he notes the value
of institutions like the church in fostering "the development of character
and excellence requisite for productive citizenship." Behind West is the
Civil Rights movement led by a religious inspired leadership, protesting
against the injustice of the state. Religious institutions have been known
to play an important role in resisting secular tyranny.
I have tried to show how Rorty's redescription of liberal culture
closes itself to religious thought and feelings. At the same time, Rorty's
liberal ironist, the exemplary citizen of his ideal society, is characterized
by a self-doubting openness that creates problems of another kind. The
liberal ironist fulfills three conditions:
(1) she has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary
she continually uses, because she has been impressed by other vo–
cabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered; (2)
she realizes that arguments phrased in her present vocabulary can nei–
ther underwrite nor dissolve these doubts; (3) insofar as she
philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabu–
lary is closer to reality than others, that is in touch with a power not
herself
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