Richard Rorty, Liberalism and the Politics of Redescription

In recent years Richard Rorty has sought to develop an alternative to the familiar rationalist and natural rights “vocabularies” of liberalism. Unlike most critics of classical liberalism, however, Rorty eschews attempts to argue against these vocabularies, and instead seeks to persuade his readers by redescribing the aspirations of a liberal society in a more “attractive” way. I assess Rorty's redescriptive practice through an analysis of his ideal liberal polity. I contend that although Rorty defends redescription as an alternative to “normal” philosophical and theoretical argument, his redescriptive efforts fail on their own terms: not only does it appear that there is no redescription in his descriptions, but he proves incapable of offering any insights into or exits from pressing problems in contemporary liberal societies. This, I submit, can be traced back to his unwillingness to investigate and redescribe power and power relations.