Philosophy, in general, is a quest for truth and Richard Rorty says that truth does not exist in this world. There is no „absolute“ truth out there, no „ultimate“ truth, no primordial truth in this world (or beyond the empirical world). He even claims that there is no „intrinsic“ truth in things. Truth is something attributed to things via sentences, via languages, and languages are a human construct. Outside of language truth does not exist, it is no inherent quality of things. Everything that we assume to know about this world eventually only is an interpretation: a contingent interpretation that is ultimately bound to and arises out of a specific cultural, historical, socioeconomic context. History is not a trajectory alongside which knowledge is created in the fashion of an ever increasing approximation to truth, it finally is only a contingent mess, a contingent chaos. Rorty is an anti-realist; he does not claim that there is a truth in reality that nevertheless might be difficult, if not finally impossible, for the human mind to be approached and understood: he claims that there is no truth in reality at all.

Rorty also says one of man´s most noble intentions, and the primary intention of the philosopher: a „will to truth“, a desire to get to know the truth (regardless of the outcome and the quality of that truth) does not exist. What is taken as a „will to truth“ or a „love for truth“ in reality is just some desire for justification, a need to systematise and to avoid (psychologically difficult to bear) cognitive dissonances, something political, or some kind of religious desire to get into contact with a higher instance that protects. A „will to truth“ or a „love for truth“ does not exist, claims Rorty.

Finally, Rorty equates truth and a „will to truth“ to something inherently authoritarian. To him, truth is something that finally will impose itself on us, as a law and as a rule, and limit our freedom, our authenticity, quasi incarcerate us. Truth, to him, is little else than a prison. The idea that there is a truth out there to him is an archaic sentiment that there was something „non-human“ out there to which we need to bow down (i.e. born out of (a desire for) self-humiliation). And what is a „will to truth“ finally is a „will to (the) Truth“ and a „will to power“ of some sort. Rorty wants to do away with all of this. With a „will to truth“ (and a „love“ for truth) and with the idea of „truth“ itself. He wants to do away with „the grim father figure“ (that „truth“ is supposed to be) and, therein, help humanity to reach actual „maturity“.

In this plasticity, Rorty´s philosophical credo strikes as somehow neurotic, and his staunch aversion against „truth“, realism (i.e. of something „non-human“ out there), „love for truth“ etc. as a neurotic aversion. He (quite deliberately) limits the notion about what truth actually could be and then (quite deliberately) universalises this notion and superimposes it on everything else – the entire empirical and „metaphysical“/transcendental reality. It is obvious that he equates metaphysics and traditional philosophy (and even science) to (conservative branches of) religion. He was stubborn and relentless to promote and defend his views, although they seem counterintuitive and perplexing (although he did so quite well and with quite good arguments). Contrary to Rorty´s „ironist“ stance that (philosophical) vocabularies are under permanent „redescription“ and change, Rorty´s (final) philosophical vocabulary never changed, but, in quasi-„metaphysician“-like manner, throughout his life and career stood erect, statuary and tall. Rorty also dismissed philosophy in general and said that politics is more important (and that the ultimate goal of human existence was the erection and furthering of liberal democracy, not a (philosophical) sorting out of „truth“). Yet Rorty´s zeal for truth as being the non-existence of truth strikes as fundamentally political alike. (Rorty – and that makes him likeable – expresses his annoyance about „liberal“, left-wing academics to steer science, education and institutional politics in a certain political direction; Rorty himself might not have been this way – was liberal and ironist enough to not have been this way – but, as a more intelligent person and a true philosopher, instead tries to steer all philosophy, science etc – the ENTIRE discourse about everything – in a certain direction.)

It is not easy to sort out how much Rorty´s philosophy is born out of (unhealthy) polemic or of (healthy) scepticism and critical thinking. Both seems amalgamated in his case, to say the least. Since Rorty´s arguments have solidity and often are non-trivial, what he says needs to be considered.

At first, however, his notion that there is no „intrinsic“ truth in things is the most confusing. Everything that exists needs to have „intrinsic truth“ in it, otherwise it would fall apart, not even form, not be identical to itself, it would have no essence, the world of existence would be a place of permanent miracles, or life would be „like a dream“ (respectively if there was no intrinsic truth in things there would be nothing to prevent such a chaos from happening at any time). Anything that exists needs to have stable intrinsic qualities in itself – which then are also their intrinsic „truth“. (I am actually confused and uneasy to say this, because it seems so trivial that I do not know why I need to say this – so that I cannot help considering that I might be in the wrong with this.) One might say that what we assume to know about the truth of things (their atomic and molecular structure, their chemical composition, their DNA code, their modes of interaction with other things, etc.) are mere „interpretations“ within a „language game“ called modern science, but these are not deliberate but very exact „interpretations“ with a high need for precision, which, furthermore, also enable the correct prognosis of things (therefore, they need to be „true“). And if they may, currently, be not the final „interpretation“ of things, or they may contain an empirically unapproachable Ding an sich that can never be revealed, it does not allow the stringent conclusion that things have no „inherent truth“ in themselves (such rather deems a flippant interpretation of how stuff is that we just have not managed to finally sort out by now).

Rorty does not like the idea of a „non-human“ truth being out there. He finds that degrading for humans. But non-human entities exist, and make up for most part of reality. We do have some power over them, and some power over them we do have not. I am grateful for these non-human things to exist. They are (like humans) not necessarily my friends, and not necessarily my enemies. They wake me up from my metaphysical slumber. They make me want to („poetically“) interpret them and they make me want to investigate them concerning their meaning and essence by rational conclusion. They limit my freedom in a useful way, and they construct my freedom out of nothing by their existence. In order to attain stable relations to them, they need to have intrinsic truth in them. I do not find the existence of non-human entities (or truths) denigrating. Rather I find their denial denigrating to them. I am a realist and I find it good to live in a world where there are laws, regulations and stuff on which you can trust. I find it good that I am not living in a poetic dream world. If I wanted to live in a poetic dream world I could go back to the middle ages, or to India.

Rorty´s denial that there was no „love for truth“, that „love for truth“ would be just come camouflage for something else also makes uneasy (and rather seems revealing about Rorty´s own motivations and inner states than of the subject under consideration). Quite polemically, Rorty equates a „love for truth“ to some secular version of a religious zeal and desire. In his striving for not only revealing „dirty little secrets“ behind human „love for truth“ but actually equating them both, Rorty even surpasses Nietzsche in his respective suspiciousness and scepticism (and edgelordism) – respectively Rorty´s position is of definitely other quality than Nietzsche´s as he is distinctly anti-suspicious and anti-sceptic in his denial for a human „love for truth“. Although Rorty offers some good points and stuff for consideration (without, however, any of these being something new) his stance finally is unconvincing and his lax argumentation make things just worse. I (like, to some degree, everyone else) am a lover of truth and, even after careful consideration and introspection, cannot identify with any of Rorty´s arguments. I actually love truth, with no second thoughts behind it. On another occasion Rorty equates „love for truth“ with (simple) intellectual curiosity. But curiosity not necessarily is very deep and not necessarily involves intellectual rigor and an acceptance of findings one was not actually looking for.

Rorty is a (neo-) pragmatist. He is very fond of the founding figures of pragmatism – William James and especially John Dewey – but he is less embracing towards the originator of pragmatism: Charles Sanders Peirce, whom he accuses of lack of orientation and depth of focus. The only true innovation Rorty sees in Peirce is that he enabled the „linguistic turn“ in philosophy – which nevertheless independently was also initiated by Frege. (I have not read a lot by or about Peirce yet, but his writing style and his ideas strike me as a manifestation of an extremely elevated and self-secure intelligence, even by standards of great philosophers – which obviously tragically subverted itself and hindered Peirce´s success among his contemporaries as Peirce was constantly rewriting his texts throughout his life and published little.) Yet, among other things, Peirce also introduced the idea in philosophy that man´s approximation to truth (is not a solitary thinker´s game but) is like within a scientific community that gradually progresses towards truth or, at least, towards ever greater clarity and transparency. Rorty dismisses this idea. To reiterate, Rorty not only claims that historical processes are essentially contingent (and therefore inherently no linear ascension) but also that a final „truth“ to be discovered does not exist in this world. Therefore any orientation towards discovering truth is an orientation towards nothing, towards an illusion.

Rorty, by contrast, advocates philosophical or scientific discourse being some kind of „conversation“ between philosophers or scientists. Yet Rorty´s notion of philosophical and scientific discourse being some kind of casual salon talk among the educated has met considerable criticism: since philosophical and scientific discourse cannot be „casual“ but, first and foremost, necessitate rigor. Rorty, however, is not in denial of this. To him, what needs to prevail in discourse is the better argument. One might note that an „argument“ refers to some truth, and a better argument must refer to something closer to truth than the weaker argument. Yet an argument usually does not refer to some metaphysical, ultimate truth (which alone Rorty denies to exist). An argument only needs to be correct (i.e. true/valid in a certain context, but not necessarily outside of that context). And an argument is done within language – again you have Rorty´s notion that „truth“ is only an element that arises within language, i.e. „epistemologically“, not ontologically.

Arguing and making discourse is a social praxis – therefore also science and philosophy are considered by Rorty to ultimately be nothing more than a social praxis. To Rorty, social praxis can never be evaded. And man can never step outside language. Ironists agree with Davidson about or inability to step outside our language in order to compare it with something else, and with Heidegger about the contingency and historicity of that language. (p.75) Yet there are currently around 7000 languages in this world (dialects not included); there are 800 languages spoken in Papua New Guinea alone and 700 languages spoken in Indonesia. There is mathematics and its notation systems, there are sign languages, body languages etc., in sum: an overwhelming abundance of languages and systems to transmit information. Therefore stepping outside a language and comparing it to something else is an easy possibility at hand. Likewise, it is not clear what social praxis is, it at least does not have clear contours. Social praxis is not identical with itself. Transgressions against „social praxis“ permanently occur.

The point Rorty makes however is that anything that transgresses current social praxis will be, at least if it is successful, another social praxis, i.e. a given social praxis is not necessarily a prison, the prison no one can escape however is from everything being a social praxis. However I cannot help thinking about any idea that transgresses given social praxis of being something singular, emanating out from something that is (asocially) compact in itself – from something that is individual in relation to society (that „individual“ can also be a group within society). Stuff that transgresses social praxis of course happens inside a social praxis, but also outside of it. This double-naturedness is something that „totalitarian“ notions like those of Rorty, Foucault or Derrida (of EVERYTHING being (nothing more than) „social praxis“/“power“/“text“) do not seem to have been able (or will ever be able) to successfully integrate in their heuristics, despite all their Raffinesse in trying so.

Rorty refutes traditional epistemology, considering it useless and a wrong track (in philosophy paved by Kant). Rorty says we do not process information by some kind of inner experience and intuitions (from which we cannot finally sort out about what is our subjective inner experience and how much we can ever know about the Ding an sich) but by the more clear-cut and precise means of language. To Rorty, everything is language. Yet there is criticism against „linguistic turn“-philosophers like Rorty or Derrida (whom Rorty admires a lot) that, in doing away with epistemology, they elevate language to the same status of something that we cannot evade in our contact with the totality of reality and that effectively serves as a barrier against an „ultimate“ contact with the totality of reality. Despite his love for poetry and the power of imagination, Rorty remains very rational on this important part of philosophy. It might be fair to say that both, language and intuition (or more than just those), are our epistemological tools.

Rorty also endorses a concept of man that dissolves man into a social being, lacking inner solidity and cohesion. To Rorty, humans are (nothing more but) „complicated animals“ and centerless webs of beliefs and desires (p.88); he is among the (p)hilosophers who deny … that there is anything like a „core self“ (p.189). To Rorty, everything (also philosophical notions) is just constituted by „relations“, with the entire world being a „web of relations“ and the quality of entities being overally defined by the web of relations they are entangled in,  and not by their „inner core“. Rorty mentions a lot of examples that actually illustrate human malleability (and malleability of philosophical concepts) and that are very useful for further consideration and deeper introspection. But he also mentions a „psychopath“ being the result of bad, malicious relations in which the psychopath misfortunately had become entangled. Yet this is an unlucky example. Psychopathy is an inherent quality in respective individuals (just how it manifests may depend on socialisation). More generally, Rorty again wants to come up with sharp, precise, definitive concepts which nevertheless just lack precision. Whether humans are nothing more but complicated animals is a matter of perspective. You may also consider archangels as being nothing more but „complicated animals“.

Considering humans to be „complicated animals“ rather appears as a „poetic“ notion than a rational one. But Rorty likes poetry! In the original sense, poetry means „creation“. And something that we call „poetic“ usually refers to something that (magically) seems to transcend its own obvious qualities and has additional meaning. Poetic language seems to reveal meaning that is beyond language and its own words. As such, poetry stems out of imagination and adresses imagination. To Rorty, a philosoppical „truth“ – i.e. something that makes sense within philosophy – is a poetic creation/innovation, and the philosopher is less a „metaphysician“ who wants to expose primordial non-human absolute truths, but a poetic creator and innovator that comes up with something new that makes sense. Rorty even considers a (natural) scientist to be like this (also science to him ultimately is but a branch of „poetry“) Therefore the goal of philosophy (science, etc.) is (poetic) enrichment of our existence. Rorty says, the more vocabularies we have at our disposal, the more „knowledge“ we have, the more poetry is in this world, the better. To him, the goal of generating vocabularies and of knowledge is not to get closer to a (final) truth but to come up with interesting stuff that enriches our lives. He advocates „knowledge“ to become „broad“ instead of „deep“.

Broadness and depth of knowledge however is nothing that can be separated from each other. In fact, they make up for each other. – Yet to come to an actual and vital point: what is truth, eventually? Is truth a solid or an elusive concept? „Truth“, at first, refers to similar qualities like: correctness, justification, plausibility, adequacy, meaning, reason, causality, validity, proof, unmistakeable evidence, agreement, concordance, consistency, etc., etc. It seems all these concepts are of a more limited range and more context-specific than (absolute) truth. Yet all these concepts are also modes of truth. Truth, eventually, appears as something that cannot be definitely defined. Truth seems to dissolve into a Familienähnlichkeit between concepts. Despite being a disciple of Wittgenstein, Rorty does not take this into consideration. He wants to do away with the entire idea of truth (and its family-resemblant connotations) by coming up with a specific concept of truth: Truth limited to a „metaphysical“, primordial truth that manifests via revelation. Yet, again, truths that manifest via Revelation and have binding character are religious truths. Truly (rational) metaphysical (respectively philosophical or scientific) truths, by contrast, are reached by conclusion – and neither necessarily are „authoritarian“ nor universally binding. I, for instance, think there is no deeper truth than the universe (respectively any dynamic system and therefore any universe and any world) being a chaosmos, a mix of order and chaos, of determinedness and freedom, of necessity and contingency. I do not see a lot of authoritarianism in that or that there is something in that that „imposes“ something on us. At best, I see it as a useful corrective both against stubborn conservative notions that favour stability as well as against overally idealist „permanently revolutionary“ notions that think they can dissolve any stability easily. Moreover, the truth of the chaosmos is rather not a truth as an essence. It is rather a truth as an attribute, as a characteristic (it would need deeper investigation to sort out what is a truth-as-essence and a truth-as-characteristic, and if they truly can be separated, nevertheless). Rorty always implicitely talks about truth as being a truth-as-essence (and dismisses it as such). But Truth may come around in many forms.

Rorty´s battle against „truth“ sometimes strikes as a contingent battle, a battle against the arrogance and high-handedness within (US-American) academic philosophy, where Rorty originally had been an outsider. Yet of course it is of much more transcendent importance, and it is a battle within philosophy itself. A bit about this battle seems out of date nowadays nevertheless. Postmodernism (within which Rorty was part of the US-American branch) has done its share and transformed philosophy, in some parts at least the atmosphere within science and philosophy seems more relaxed than in former times. Even economists don´t seem to be that dogmatic anymore. The discourse seems to have embraced a bit more the „ironist´s“ stance and reduced the gravity of the „metaphysician“. Yet of course Rorty´s battle is a battle about the foundations of philosophy itself.

I do not think that Rorty´s kind of battle will eventually win however. Philosophy is metaphysics, not irony or poetry. Both irony and poetry are tools within the philosophical toolbox, but not philosophy itself. Rorty´s philosophy renders philosophy a bit meaningless, and therefore it seems counterintuitive that it becomes philosophy itself. In some resemblance to what Rorty admits about irony and the ironist´s stance – that it is inherently reduced to a matter of private refinement, but cannot be building principle of the public/social/political realm where things need to be taken seriously – Rorty´s philosophy may be a tool for refinement of philosophical disourse and perception, but not philosophical or scientific discourse itself: where things need to be taken seriously and where we, first and foremost, find ourselves entangled in stuff that highly matters to us, that is serious to us and needs precision – and where we have no effective means to sort out between what is a contingency and what is of much more transcendent importance (not necessarily as an absolute or eternal truth but a contingency so far reaching that it makes no use trying to take it (and dismiss it) as a „contingency“). In general, reality is something very vast. Also, as we have noted, „truth“ is something very vast. In this vastness of reality there seem to spheres where Rorty´s philosophy is of use and seems highly applicable. And others where it seems not. And then there are unknown unknowns. Things we don´t know that we don´t know what concept of truth and what philosophy would be most adequate to them. Life is, and remains, a mystery.

In the big picture, Rorty might be right with his vision of our world being a nothing but a mess of contingent struggles and small games about elusive „truths“ in which we take ourselves too serious. When I was younger I sometimes wondered whether the world could actually be like this. But this a rather dreamy and poetic picture, not a highly sober one. It seems to originate more from nebulous imagination than derive from rational conclusion. But, as they say, dreams may come true. Maybe Rorty´s time is not yet ripe for the breaking and maybe this time is about to come in an Aeon that is yet behind the horizon. Maybe the 22nd century will be called Rortyian.

All quotes from Richard Rorty: Contingency, Irony, and Solidaridy, Cambridge 1989

Richard Rorty defines an „ironist“ as someone who doubts that the „vocabulary“ (i.e. set of beliefs, explanations, justifications, models, „philosophies“, etc.) she currently uses can be an ultimate vocabulary, immune to change, subversion or revolution. The ironist is aware of the contingent character of all vocabularies and of the contingency that she happens to use a specific vocabulary at a given moment, i.e. the ironist knows that any vocabulary is frickle. I call people of this sort „ironists“ because their realization that anything can be made to look good or bad can be redescribed, and their renunciation of the attempt to formulate criteria of choice between final vocabularies, puts them in the position which Sartre calls „meta-stable“: never quite able to take themselves seriously because always aware that the terms in which they describe themselves are subject to change, always aware of the contingency and fragility of their final vocabularies, and thus of their selves. (p.73f.)

Richard Rorty also says: the truth about the world is that there is no ultimate and fixed, final truth in it – there is only contingency (an apparently self-contradictory claim, yet, given the possibility that it is true, it is not (under such a circumstance, it cannot be made otherwise)). From such a perspective, irony seems the adequate adaption of the subject to such an objectivity. This is, then, the „meta-stability“, as the only possible stability in an, at best, meta-stable world.

On the other hand, there are the „metaphysicians“: some folks who think there is an ultimate „truth“ „out there“ and want to discover it. In this sense, the metaphysician is someone who takes the question „What it the intrinsic nature of (something)“ at face value. He assumes that the presence of a term in his own final vocabulary ensures that it refers to something which has a real essence. The metaphysician is still attached to the common senseetc. (p.74) In so far as the contingent nature of existence and the absence of ultimate, fixed truths is something that Rorty, with an aggressive irony, defends, the metaphysician appears as an odd fellow and a backward creature in the (final) vocabulary of Rorty. The ironist, by contrast, is little else than Rorty`s self-describtion.

Now take a look at me: apart from maybe Diogenes (who, however, was a cynic) there seem to be no musings in philosophy that embrace irony more than mine. Ironically, this is so because I am a very sincere metaphysician. I strive to get to know truth, I strive for better explanations than those that currently exist. I do not have many ideological inclinations, desires or a will to power about how this truth should be, in the truth being so and so and having this or that quality. But I am very interested in what the truth is (a type of subjectivity and a subjective zeal that, according to Rorty, cannot even exist. He, however, permanently fails to explain in a satisfactory way, why). Yet, as it seems, because I am such a commited metaphysician, I know what a tricky thing metaphysics or a quest for ultimate truth is. Because of this, I am naturally an ironist. Metaphysical truths are, practically by definition, truths we cannot finally be sure about. So I try to erect plateaus over the abyss. But even though they may appear as such at first glance, they are not meant to be some clownish contigencies! They are meant to (fundamentally) be true, and their intention is metaphysical.

So we need to reflect on this, and on what Rorty comes up with.

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Irony is a virtue of the subject. It is maybe the virtue of the most sophisticated of subjects. The world, in its cruel contingencies and iron laws, is not ironic. Irony is a clever adaption to them cruel contingencies and iron laws. With irony, the subject can distance itself from them cruel contingencies and iron laws, and even gain some superiority over them. Irony gives you inner freedom. Inner, subjective freedom, ultimately, may be the more profound freedom than objective freedom. As illustrated e.g. in Orwell´s 1984, sadistic torturers and totalitarian regimes do not only want to take your political freedom, they want to destroy your inner freedom. This is when they have achieved to finally break you. Socrates could not be broken. Not only the massive objectivity of the state and its tribunals, but even the value of life and death itself evaporated under his profound ironic stance – and so, in considerable terms, he triumphed over any of these massive objectivities and put them to shame.

Both Kierkegaard, in his magisterial thesis about Socrates and Irony, and Rorty note the massive negativity that lies in irony – a negativity that, however, liberates, as it dissolves the impositions and impertinences of fake positivities inflicted on the subject. Rorty even writes: Irony is, if not intrinsically resentful, at least reactive. Ironists have to have something to have doubts about, something from which to be alienated. (p.88) Also Kierkegaard eventually remains doubtful about irony as the highest elevation of subjectivity, the crown of subjectivity. To him, the highest elevation of subjectivity is when the subject becomes „transparent (in God)“. An ironic subject is not necessarily transparent; irony actually also obfuscates. We will touch upon that later.

However, I have doubts about Rorty´s negative stance on irony. Irony, if it is healthy at least, is neither that reactive, nor that doubtful. It is much more primary. If you are the cognitive type of a mismatcher, your „irony“ is primordial. If you think twice, there is no actual reason why an ironic mind should not be positive, constructive and very affirmative (and if, in the big picture, you want to adequately sort out what is cause and effect, action and reaction, you might run into a complicated chicken or the egg problematic anyway).

(On this occasion, since the „ironist“ is but a self-description (or self-idealisation) of Rorty, it may come to mind that Rorty with his specifically as such outlined at least reactive, if not intrinsically resentful irony actually may have been an unhealthy ironist, borderlining a cynic. His staunch disapproval of „metaphysics“ and „absolute truths“ (maybe in reaction against the arrogance within US academic philosophy at his time and where he was not particularly appreciated) may appear as being borne out of or gradually transformed into a cynic impulse, as something partially neurotic. Also, contrary to Rorty´s affirmation of permanent redescription and reinvention of vocabularies, Rorty´s vocabulary always stayed the same.)

As Slavoj Zizek illuminatingly notes, an ironic person takes the things actually more serious than she pretends to do. Them things may be nearer and dearer to her than it seems and may concern her more than it seems. Actually, they may truly concern her. The ironist is not indifferent. Irony is not the same as sarcasm or cynicism. In sarcasm you have despair. The cynic despises. It may be just the ironist who appreciates, who is the positive lover of things. The ironist likely appreciates things or would like to appreciate them if they were not insufficient and inadequate, and even more likely, the ironist is aware of her own insufficiency and inadequacy. Irony therefore is also a consciousness about one´s own inadequacy and of the inadequacy of everything. It is a (happy) melancholic consciousness. Rorty was said to have been a melancholic (according to Aristotle, every thinker is).

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Therefore the ironist most likely will be a liberal. Liberal democracy appears as the natural political habitat of the competent, autonomous subject that is nevertheless attached to and interested in others i.e. that has itself included in society, that is a social being. Like anyone else the ironist wants to spread her own culture and live in a cultural environment that aligns to her own values. The ironist wants people to grow and prosper and to become competent enough to be able to stand for themselves (the cynic does not believe in such a possibility). Socrates, the master ironist, considered his interactions with people as midwifery and obstetrics: help them to grow their own autonomous and virtuous intellect. Therefore the ironist will prefer the system of a secular liberal democracy.

Richard Rorty is a staunch advocate of liberal democracy. To Rorty, liberal democracy and the furthering of liberal democracy is the ultimate goal of human existence (and even more important than the preservation of philosophy). He even flat out denies that philosophy can be of much help in shaping political communities and discourse. (To him, societies are not bound together by philosophical concepts but by vocabularies. This is of course true against chauvinist notions philosophers may hold (I can´t think however of any serious philosopher who did so), but is dismissive about philosophy being a vital part of (political) vocabularies.) Also his favorite attitude, that of the ironist, is eventually not meant to be political: I cannot imagine a culture which socialized its youth in such a way as to make them continually dubious about their own process of socialisation. Irony seems inherently a private matter. (p.87) (The ironist) cannot offer the same sort of social hope as metaphysicians offer. (p.91) The metaphysician, in short, thinks that there is a connection between redescription and power, and that the right redescription can make us free. The ironist offers no similar assurance. (p.90)

Therefore, irony to Rorty primarily is a matter of individual refinement, not a means to construct and solidify political communities: he is, again, dismissive of such possibilities. (Despite the rationality of this notion and Rorty´s positive reflections on the apparent connections between irony and liberalism again you seem to have some strange cynical depreciation by Rorty against what he is actually doing.) To Rorty, an ironist also is not necessarily a liberal. Liberals to Rorty are people for whom (to use Judith Shklar´s definition) „cruelty is the worst thing they do“ (p.74) Rorty abhors cruelty (among humans). That seems to add up. Cruelty may nevertheless be ironised by the ironist (a sophisticated ironist may find interesting solutions of how to be ironic even about cruelty – respectively for ironists from another culture being ironic about cruelty might just be the most natural of things). Yet both the ironist and the liberal will have a „live and let live (and let everything prosper)“ attitude. In order to ensure (decent) living, cruelty needs to be restrained. (Q.E.D.)

(Nietzsche was an ironist and, on the healthy side of his personality (Zarathustra), a staunch anti-authoritarian liberal. Yet on the unhealthy (cynical) side he was some sort of fascist or an advocate of a highly stratified, caste-like society. In his paranoid emotionality, Nietzsche was permanently concerned that „the weak“, the decadends, Christians, socialists, the lower classes etc. would like to weaken him and inflict cruelty on him. And he wanted to be sheltered. Paranoia is usually a projection of one´s own aggression into others and into the environment, and the question of action and reaction again is very convoluted (as is the philosophy of Nietzsche in those respects). In a revelatory poem however, Nietzsche muses that the Eagle does not deadly attack the Sheep out of hunger (i.e. out of self-preservation). But BECAUSE HE HATES THE SHEEP. Nietzsche was of superhuman sensibility and kindness. But there also was great cruelty inside him. Without this pathology he likely would have actually been the greatest and most integral philosopher of all time.)

(Plato – who embraced irony and to whom we owe the description of Socrates` irony –, with his idea of the state run by virtuous and self-restrained philosophers, articulated nearly 2500 years ago in ancient Greece for some good reason, wasn´t, in this fashion, a liberal democrat either. But the basic motivation for the philosopher-run state was to avoid unnecessary cruelty against any of its citizens. Yet  neither Plato nor Socrates were „ironists“ in the Rortian sense. They were „metaphysicians“ who boldly considered ethics and virtue, „ideas“ and „the Good“ as the highest „idea“, as ultimate truths, as something absolute. They came to this conclusion however by successfully ironically subverting the absolute validity of everything else. And Plato was clever and ironic enough to acknowledge that it is not (or cannot be) exhaustively clear what an „idea“ actually is and what „the Good“ actually is. He left it open. Plato, usually considered as the No. 1 philosopher, was an „ironist metaphysician“.)

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Both the „ironist“ and the „metaphysician“ are ideal types. Rorty (somehow) constructs them to play them off against each other (usually in favour of he former). Yet there also seem to finally be individual idiosyncrasies by Rorty in this game again. Rorty acknowledges to use the term „metaphysician“, in a sense of the term which I am adapting from Heidegger. In this sense, the metaphysician is someone who takes the question „What it the intrinsic nature of (something) at face value. He assumes that the presence of a term in his own final vocabulary ensures that it refers to something which has a real essence. The metaphysician is still attached to the common senseetc. (p.74) I cannot remember correctly if Heidegger defined (or would have defined) a „metaphysician“ like this. However Heidegger´s own philosophy and his metaphysical aim was to illuminate the secrets of Being. Yet to Heidegger to illuminate the secrets of Being not only required rational thinking and philosophy but, even more, some possibility of sentient experience. He was dismissive of rational rechnendem Denken and advocated a (hopefully) more integral besinnliches Denken (the (political) tragedy of Heidegger consisted in never being able to exactly figure out what the core of this besinnliches Denken and the „authenticity“ it should bring about actually should be – due to his lack of sentience).

At the same time, Heidegger was acutely aware that there might not be deep and profound, primordial – i.e. „metaphysical“ – truths lying hidden in Being. And that the history of philosophy – and the philosophical „quest for truth“ – is not necessarily an ascending path but contingent (he even considered it basically an error – a history of Seinsvergessenheit). To Heidegger, the human urge to metaphysics much rather stems out of the obvious absence of positive ultimate truths, out of man´s Hineingehaltenheit ins Nichts. Out of this nothingness, man, out of his metaphysical urge, basically would then construct some metaphysics that seems appropriate to him. I.e. Metaphysics, to Heidegger, rather seems a constructive, creative and „poetic“ undertaking than a discovery of fixed, ultimate truths – as it is to Rorty.

Throughout his life Rorty remained very fond of Heidegger (as well as of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein). All of them started to philosophise out of a distinct metaphysical urge but became dismissive and/or iconoclastic against „metaphysical“ notions of some absolute, ultimate truth being out there. Rather, they came to see metaphysics as an enterprise of „poetry“ (and were distinctly poetic in their highly vibrating writing styles). Also Rorty´s ironist thinks of final vocabularies as poetic achievements rather than as fruits of diligent inquiry according to antecedently formulated criteria. (p.77) – whereas the metaphysician does not redescribe but, rather, analyses the old descriptions with the help of other old descriptions. (p.74) To Rorty, the instrument for discovering (non-scientific) existential truths is not metaphysics and philosophy, but poetry (he even goes as far as considering science as some kind of poetry). He proclaims that literature (especially novels) is more useful for augmenting humanism and ethics than philosophy.

I am a poet and in contrast to Rorty I have written several novels. Yet also in contrast to Rorty I do not consider poetry that absolute or literature that intelligent (for instance I cannot quite understand how someone of the intelligence of Shakespeare spent his life writing dramas instead of ascending to philosophy at some point). Philosophy is more intelligent than literature because you need to work at a higher level of abstraction while you need to keep the details and idiosyncrasies in your mind as well. And you finally need to sort out things, you need to be precise. Heidegger, Nietzsche or Wittgenstein have not made profound contributions because they were poetic – a minor comedian is poetic as well – but because they were intelligent. Their charisma stems out of from them having been – from beginning to the end – metaphysicians (in a more broader term than Rorty´s (somehow polemical and pejorative) figure of the „metaphysician“) (as well as in the more narrower sense: Nietzsche came to completely unironically consider his concepts of Will to Power or of the Eternal Return the Same as absolute, metaphysical truths; Heidegger was stuck in his quest for authenticity (which requires something authentic to finally exist) and Wittgenstein in his peculiar intellectual radicality and his desire to make everything he did an ethical undertaking. Needless to say, Rorty also ends up as metaphysician in his definitive attachment of the notion that there is no absolute truth – a truly metaphysical position, since it is unprovable). Heidegger, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein longed for wisdom, not for poetry. (Maybe it is Rorty who actually longs more for poetry than for wisdom.)

Rorty´s notion of metaphysics and his concept of the metaphysician is somehow constructed. What he describes as metaphysics – a quest for ultimate and tangible truths, then to stick to them and impose respective codes of social conduct on others – rather resembles religion. Any true metaphysician is/should be aware that metaphysics by definition is beyond of what can intelligibly be reached. Metaphysical „truths“ per se are unprovable. Rorty somehow takes metaphysics as an ontological enterprise (aiming at revealing a true character of the objective, physical world). Yet metaphysics should actually be seen, with Heidegger, as an interpretation of man´s In-der-Welt-sein. Metaphysics necessarily involves the question about how much we finally can be able to grasp „ultimate“ truths beyond our immediate reach, i.e. it involves epistemology and the subjective element inherently. Apart from ontology and epistemology, metaphysics also involve deontology (the question what should be done, how conduct should be within the universe) and eschatology (the question of the „meaning“ and the telos of existence). However, this metaphysical „interpretation“ needs to have some plausibility, validity and intersubjectivity (otherwise it is mysticism). Therefore, metaphysics is an interpretation of something that cannot finally be explained by abstract conclusion of evidence, logics etc. that is to be found in this world (as zuhandenes Zeug, in a way). The metaphysician also redescribes, even though he does it in the name of reason rather than in the name of imagination. (p.90) Err, yes. Metaphysics is overly a rational enterprise, not „poetry“, although it also necessitates imagination (hence the „poetry“ in practically all metaphysics and metaphysician´s writings). Also Heidegger´s undertaking and notion of truth finally is meant to be revelatory (not poetic).

*

The ironist spends her time worrying about the possibility that she has been initiated into the wrong tribe, taught to play the wrong language game. She worries that the process of socialization which turned her into a human being by giving her a language may have given her the wrong language, and so turned her into the wrong human being. But she cannot give a criterion of wrongness. (p.75)

Indeed, Rorty`s notion about contingency as something countercultural appears as such a contingency. In Eastern „vocabularies“, in Taoism or in Shintoism, the acceptance of contingency, impermanence and change seems to come much more natural than in the Occident. Also, there seems to be greater fatalism against violence and cruelty, which are seen as forces as old as the world itself. Nevertheless, the Eastern mentality does not strike me as very ironic. I might be in the wrong, but I have not noticed a lot of irony in the many cultural artefacts from Japan. Irony is subjectivity at its peak, and in collectivist cultures there is less room for subjectivist peaks. It was probably the misfortune of these cultures that they were not „metaphysicist“ enough, but rather dreamy and „poetic“, without the metaphysician´s need for precision – that then translates into a truly scientific and philosophical worldview. They did not invent science or technology, and neither democracy nor individualism.

Nevertheless, these Eastern „vocabularies“ are (both on the superficial and the deep level) „metaphysics“. In Taoism, the contingencies in this world stem out from the Tao, in Shintoism they are the result of struggles between indestructible, transcendental forces in the cosmos. The practical and ethical zeal within these vocabularies is to align man to these cosmic forces and principles – in a pious, religious, non-ironic way. (At very sophisticated levels of piousness, e.g. in Sufism, you have some room for irony again, e.g. yelling at and scolding God for his frequent stupidities and cruelties he inflicts on us.)

Zen Buddhism is a method to come to terms with the transcendental (or transcendentally imposed) contingencies inflicted on us as well – respectively with the paradoxes and aporias of existence. The behaviour of the Zen Masters appears as profoundly ironic. Yet it is also profoundly that of a metaphysician (if you don´t give the correct answer to an essentially opaque koan, you get beaten). On the other hand, Zen Buddhism is neither ironic nor metaphysicianist. Zen Buddhism tries to establish a meta-level to metaphysics and a meta-irony to irony. Zen Buddhism tries to achieve what in Western metaphysics we would call transcendental subjectivity. With this transcendental subjectivity you should actually be able to understand the world, and yourself in it, as how it fundamentally is. The articulations of the Zen Masters are paradoxical and it seems difficult, if not impossible, to actually describe what they see. Yet actually it is easy. The Satori perception allows you to permanently switch between motif and background. And it actually is the essential structure of the world that motifs appear from/in a background and illuminate and reveal each other. Yet ordinary human perception either focuses on one or the other. The Satori perception directly gazes into the interplay of both. The interplay between background and motif is both contingent and ironic as well as it is fundamental. With the Satori perception you are both a meta-metaphysician and a meta-ironist. Mundane categories like „ironist“ and „metaphysician“ are of less concern to you.

*

Irony at a very sophisticated level of piousness and religiousness you also have in Kierkegaard. Yet also only to some degree (actually to quite a little one, as Kierkegaard was a religious maniac). That is inherent, because „religion“ means the „careful observance of the laws and duties“, i.e. something staunchly metaphysical and something that Rorty abhors. Yet Kierkegaard likes irony. At the end of Either/Or you have an Ultimatum on The Upbuilding in the Thought that: against God we are always in the wrong. That seems to be the ultimate peak of irony. And I also like the idea that against God we are always in the wrong. I like the idea that there is an intellectually and ethically supreme instance against which we always remain in the wrong (though Kierkegaard means something different in his text). How ironic that against God we are always in the wrong! And how fundamental, and immune to any contingency, that against God we are always in the wrong!

In rational terms, this world, in its superficiality and its depth, evades us. We do not master past, present and future. We do not master Sein und Zeit. Ultimately (yet only: ultimately – in time we can achieve important successes) we are always in the wrong against those instances. Spiritualise this, and spiritualise yourself, and you have: against God you are always in the wrong. And this is cool. It is actually uplifting. That against a forever intellectually and morally supreme instance you are always in the wrong makes you feel safe – and it gives you a stable, fundamental, transcendental identity and place (i.e. something which, according to Rorty, cannot exist): you are the one/someone who against God is always in the wrong. And who affirms it. That is the final truth of (your) existence.

The final conclusion of Kierkegaard´s On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates is also an enigmatic ellipsis, stating that the highest elevation of subjectivity is not irony, but humour. On other occasions Kierkegaard states that the highest echelon man can achieve is to become „transparent in God“. What being „transparent in God“ actually means is, like everything else Kierkegaard says, difficult for the ordinary mind to understand (an improvement of understanding should come with time). Yet irony is somehow intransparent, obfuscating, confusing indeed. Irony frequently (even inherently) is a suboptimal tool in communication, since with irony you tend to confuse people. It may also be superficial. The ironist itself may just be confused. It is maybe an obfuscation of confusion and superficiality. (The „ironist“, to whom Rorty always refers to in the female form, may actually, in a flash, resemble a striking, fascinating „femme fatale“ woman that hypnotises with unconventional behaviour and elusive „now you see me, now you don´t“ attitude but who, however, becomes repetitive after a while.) Humour seems somehow more integral and comprehensive than irony, as well as something more positive. Humour accepts things and the humourist accepts herself, maybe in some way of happy half-resignation against cruel contingencies and iron laws (which, however, does not rule out subversion – since humour is affirmation and subversion alike). Humour erects some kind of (unexpected, constructive, revealing) mirror image on the subject of humour. Irony (somehow grudgingly) subverts, but humour equalises and aligns subject and object.

Kierkegaard enigmatically concludes that humour is beyond the state of man – it is a divine state, the state of the Gottmensch. Again, without further elaborating on it. However, if you find Upbuilding in the Thought that: against God we are always in the wrong, you are most likely beyond a state of irony. You are, then, actually in some heavenly state of humour! You have ultimately approached the divine, as much as approaching the divine is possible. In a way, with you being always in the wrong against the divine, you humouristically mirror the divine – which, due to the paradoxes it necessarily contains, never completely is in the right, but is insufficient all alike. Maybe more insufficient than you, since it is the more perfect creature, i.e. minor insufficiencies may weight heavier in it than major insufficiencies in you, the more imperfect creature. That you are always in the wrong against the divine puts elementary shame on the divine in the first place. This relational humour likely is a metaphysical reflection of fundamental, transcendental truth. It reflects how creation actually is. Once it has been sorted out how creation actually is, metaphysics is not needed anymore. You both need irony and metaphysics to ascent to this place. Yet what will finally there be, and finally will remain, after metaphysics and irony have been overcome, is humour.

*

Gigantic circles are spinning and are intertwined. Irony (reaction, subversion) and metaphysics (action, affirmation) arduously process themselves, react to each other, try to triumph over each other, try to realign, love each other, hate each other, out there in the transcendental place. This is how truth proceeds, this is at least how the story goes. Therefore the profound irony within my philosophical musings – as I am aware that I am doing experiments. The irony within my musings is that they are meant to be experimental. I think this is as closest to „truth“ as we can get. I try to erect plateaus over the abyss, and to improve and solidify them with time. Due to their experimental nature, my musings are only meant to 93 percent to be true, my plateaus to 93 percent to be solid. Another „irony“ in my musings is that they are not particularly academic in style (therefore academia being very cruel to me (now – but likely very kind to me in later times)) and that they are packed with (all sorts of) information. This is maybe less so out of intention not only to subvert but also to enrich academic philosophy but because this is natural to me. Everything I come across I sooner or later need to philosophise about, and all these things are dear to me, I am attached and attracted to them. My musings may go on the nerves because they are packed with information (and for other reasons). But this seems important to me because at any moment I could die. And I do not want to take many secrets to the grave. Truth has to be told. Constructiveness and bases for further developments need to be ensured. Most recently my musings often go on my own nerves already the following day. Since I am permently under impressions, a lot of what I write stems out from spontaneous impressions. And even the next day I may stand under other impressions and may ask myself what the hell I was thinking about then. Also my thinking rapidly evolves and some strategies and tactics I used may seem outdated to me quickly (yet, luckily, NOT the substance of what I was saying). Therefore, I (ironically) leave everything as it is. And I am actually quite happy to see that no fucking ChatGPT might imitate this kind of writing in a 100 years – ha! A very natural, unfiltered intelligence should triumph over an artificial intelligence, still. As I frequently state, I see no deeper – and actual – truth in the universe than its character as a chaosmos and I do not see a deeper philosophy possible than that of the Chaosmos. I might be in the wrong, and I´d like to see someone presenting me deeper and more accurate views than mine (as I like it to be in the wrong against an intellectually and morally superior instance). But I am not so positive about this possibility. Therefore my musings are actually not philosophical musings but eschatological and transcendental ones. And the irony in them is actually humour. – On this occasion I felt the urge to clarify on this. I do not want to take many secrets to the grave. Truth has to be told or clarified. Constructiveness and bases for further developments need to be ensured. There also will be another note about Richard Rorty and the challenges he poses, and for which I am grateful.

All quotes from Richard Rorty: Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Cambridge 1989