The Ironic Politics of Richard Rorty
developments within the field of philosophy in recent years, and the implications of those developments for political thought and practice, might do well to begin with the works of Richard Rorty.' Rorty's writings do a great deal to clarify and synthesize themes from a wide range of important thinkers, including Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, Habermas, Dewey, and Kuhn. Since much of his work consists of attempts to locate and explain his own writings in reference to these other thinkers, it provides a reference point from which to map current disputes within the postmodern movement.2 Also, Rorty's self-consciously American range of allusions and his jargon-free writing style make him more accessible to many than the works of continental philosophers. The attempt to understand Rorty's thinking does, however, present certain difficulties, despite his use of clear, even blunt language. Certain of his political views, for instance, carry connotations of human nature and natural rights which seem incompatible with his overall anti-essentialist outlook. A related difficulty is the question of whether Rorty's own writings reflect the sort of rhetorical strategies which, he argues, should replace the rigid and universalistic logics of traditional philosophy. Since Rorty's recent books consist of articles and lectures composed throughout the 1980s for various purposes, I shall attempt in this essay to provide a systematic outline of Rorty's major themes.3 In the first section I shall explore his views of reality and science, self and society, including his response to charges of "relativity" as self-refuting
A Question for Richard Rorty
This essay begins with the assumption that Richard Rorty means everything he says; its question, however, is ultimately why he says everything he means. Politically speaking, for someone who is unconstrained by metaphysical concerns about the “right” or the “good,” what counts is not being right, but being successful. Hence my question for Rorty is simply this: why be honest when deception might be more effective? I contend that in the context of American political culture that his honest practice of his philosophy undermines his politics. Unlike other critical accounts, mine focuses on his tactics and Rorty's own failure to accept the burdens and possibilities of his own theoretical work. I then offer Rorty a model of deception for his consideration from Miguel de Unamuno's short story “St. Emmanuel the Good, Martyr,” that he might have made use of had he been more interested in political results than in being thought honest.
Old topics, old approaches? ‘Reception’ in television studies and music studies
The question of reception is closely linked to the history and the roots of audience studies. But what is ‘reception’ and what exactly does it mean? As audience studies have developed from a contested novelty to a now established academic field, what do we do with a concept that defined our interests in the past and may now be too wide or even obsolete? This article deals with this issue by mapping how the concept of reception was conceptualized and researched in audience studies of the past ten years, with a focus on studies of music and studies of television. We find that in music, strong focus remains on music reception in the context of performances and events, and this lies in contrast to a small number of studies which instead focus on a framework of music in ordinary life and the audiences’ contextual localities. Concerning reception of television, much of the scholarship starts from the cultural studies tradition and looks at television viewing as a means to construct identities. Discussing these findings, we inquire whether the hybridization of media also implies a hybridization of research traditions and methodologies, and what consequences it has for the balance between textual, production and audience approaches.