Abstract
This chapter focuses on Rorty’s two major published works on feminist theory and practice: his essay “Feminism and Pragmatism” and his essay “Feminism, Ideology, and Deconstruction: A Pragmatist View.” The first essay takes up issues about the ontological integrity of the term “woman” and defends forms of feminist discourse that are based in radical feminist political discourse, arguing that the hopes and visions projected by the prophetic nature of such discourse can be assisted by pragmatism better than by traditional philosophy. “Feminism, Ideology, and Deconstruction” criticizes the project of ideological critique that Rorty thinks is unhelpful for feminist political projects and further develops his idea of philosophy as a process of “ground-clearing” contrasting it with the work of social change and activism.
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Notes
- 1.
Carol Pateman (1983, p. 281): “The dichotomy between the public and the private spheres in liberal theory and practice … is, ultimately, what the feminist movement is about.” Catherin MacKinnon (1989, p. 194): “The legal concept of privacy can and has shielded the place of battery, marital rape, and women’s exploited domestic labor. It has preserved the central institutions whereby women are deprived of identity, autonomy, control, and self-definition”). It is important to note that the criticism of liberal feminist theory and practice in the USA, which gained prominence in the twentieth century, was motivated at least in part by dissatisfaction with some early feminist attempts to secure political and legal rights (like voting) without addressing the problems that arose as part of the division of labor that marked both public and private life. Rorty’s defense of the distinction could be part of his general commitment to liberal theory, though he also says in some places that the public/private distinction that he has in mind is not the same one that feminists criticize. See Rorty’s comments in Mendieta (2005), esp. p. 32; Rorty (1998), pp. 308–09, fn. 2. See also Tracey E. Higgins (1999) and Tracy Llanera (2016).
- 2.
It is interesting to note that MacKinnon had been appointed to a chair in the University of Michigan School of Law in 1989 – not long before Rorty’s lecture was delivered in December 1990.
- 3.
Rosalie Wahl was appointed in 1977; Mary Jeanne Coyne in 1982.
- 4.
Rorty does not say this himself; rather, this is emphasized by people like Simone de Beauvoir, who recognizes that masculinist traditions can accommodate biological females in a variety of (relatively complicated) ways. See Beauvoir 1953/1989. Nevertheless, Rorty’s discussion of the ways in which women are created, rather than discovered, seems to be consistent with the idea that the class of “biological females” might intersect, but not be identical, with the class of “women.”
- 5.
While MacKinnon had recently been appointed to the University of Michigan Law School faculty, in 1990, Frye was on the faculty at Michigan State University, which is about 100 km away. It is interesting to ponder whether this fact was relevant for his choice of reading material, and the authors he cites in this lecture – whether he wanted to pay homage to these Michiganians.
- 6.
Rorty often speaks as if philosophy as a discipline is dominated by a commitment to universalism, realism, and representationalism – that the tradition, so far, is defined by the “Descartes-Locke-Kant” view of epistemology, mind, and truth. His discussions of pragmatism seem often to imply that pragmatism is something else – that it is not simply another subfield in philosophy, but is after different things, and that it redefines inquiry in ways that undermine philosophy as a self-contained discipline. I have included the adjective “traditional” when talking about philosophy as a discipline, but it is important to recognize that part of what seems to be at issue here (in Rorty’s view and in the view of feminist theorists) is what philosophy is, whether feminists and pragmatists are really engaged in it – and whether they should want to be. Feminist theorists often refer to “malestream” philosophy as a way of designating the masculine biases of “mainstream” or philosophy traditionally understood.
- 7.
Most of what follows here is drawn from (Janack 2010, pp. 4–10).
References
Adams, John C. 2010. Hope, truth and rhetoric: Prophecy and pragmatism in service of feminism’s cause. In Feminist interpretations of Richard Rorty, ed. Marianne Janack, 79–102. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble, feminist theory, and psychoanalytic discourse. In Feminism/Postmodernism, ed. Linda J. Nicholson, 324–340. New York: Routledge.
de Beauvoir, Simone. 1953/1989. The second sex. Translated by H. M Parshley. New York: Vintage.
Fraser, Nancy. 1991/2010. From irony to prophecy to politics. In Feminist interpretations of Richard Rorty, ed. Marianne Janack, 46–54. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Higgins, Tracey E. 1999. Reviving the public/private distinction in feminist theorizing: Symposium on unfinished feminist business. Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/323/
Janack, Marianne, ed. 2010. Feminist interpretations of Richard Rorty. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press.
Kuhn, Thomas. 1996. The structure of scientific revolutions, 3. Aufl. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Llanera, Tracy. 2016. Redeeming Rorty’s private/public distinction. Contemporary Pragmatism 13(3): 319–340.
MacKinnon, Catharine. 1987. On exceptionality. In Feminism unmodified: Discourses on life and law, 70–77. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
MacKinnon, Catharine. 1989. Toward a feminist theory of the state. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mendieta, Eduardo. 2005. Take care of freedom and truth will take care of itself: Interviews with Richard Rorty. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Pateman, Carole. 1983. Feminist critiques of the public/private distinction. In Public and private in social life, ed. Stanley I. Benn and Gerald F. Gaus, 281–302. New York: St. Martin’s Press/Croom Helm Publishers.
Rorty, Richard. 1991/2010. Feminism and pragmatism. In Feminist interpretations of Richard Rorty, ed. Marianne Janack, 19–45. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Rorty, Richard. 1993/2010. Feminism, ideology, deconstruction: A pragmatist view. In Feminist interpretations of Richard Rorty, ed. Marianne Janack, 103–111. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Rorty, Richard. 1998. Truth and progress: Philosophical papers, Bd. 3. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Recommended Literature for Further Reading
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Essential reading for background on the distinction between sex and gender (and how that distinction breaks down) and the concept of gender as a skilled performance.
Fraser, Nancy. 1989. Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. A socialist-feminist discussion of agency, solidarity, and discourse ethics. Includes the essay “Solidarity or Singularity? Richard Rorty between Romanticism and Technocracy” (Chapter 5).
Frye, Marilyn. 1983. The Politics of Reality. Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press. This book, which includes thoughts on the forms that oppression can take, on lesbian identity, and on language, was essential to Rorty’s thinking about feminist politics.
Rich, Adrienne. 2002. Arts of the possible: Essays and conversations. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. Though written after Rorty’s lecture and his essay for Hypatia, the pieces in this collection include Rich’s thoughts on the way that poetry can be used for activism, and on the value of imaginative work for social change.
Seigfried, Charlene Haddock. 1996. Pragmatism and feminism: Reweaving the social fabric. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. This book brings feminism and pragmatism together in a way that differs from Rorty’s, but still locates John Dewey as a major influence. This book provides a useful and productive complement to Rorty’s pairing of feminism and pragmatism, as well as an excellent history of the way that pragmatism was marginalized as a philosophical movement.
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Janack, M. (2023). Rorty on Feminism, Language, and Prophecy. In: Müller, M. (eds) Handbuch Richard Rorty. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-16253-5_26
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