Richard Rorty’s Syncretism: are there any “Pure” pragmatists at all

The article presents a response to Igor Dzhokhadze’s critical review of Oksana Tselishcheva’s book Richard Rorty: A Marginal Analytical Philosopher.” The main reproach of Dzhokhadze lies in the incorrect, from his point of view, depiction of the figure of Rorty, who, according to Dzhokhadze, is “a monoideist philosopher who, for 35 years of his life, adhered to one essentially unchanged position [of a pragmatist].” The author rejects this “monoideism” attributed to Rorty, showing that, firstly, Dzhokhadze ignores Rorty’s assessment of his own philosophy, and secondly, wrongfully restricts his philosophical evolution — from a linguistic turn to analytical philosophy and its criticism and the subsequent turn to an increasingly rich palette of philosophical prose with its inherent relativism syncretism, ecumenism and pluralism.

The author questions Dzhokhadze’s confidence that Rorty’s “pragmatism” excludes the above-mentioned evolution of the philosopher’s views, showing that pragmatism itself acts as an umbrella term for a rather diverse philosophical techniques and views. The article refutes the popular view supported by Dzhokhadze that criticism of analytical philosophy resulted in Rorty’s final rejection of its methods and values, and shows that the evolution of his philosophy led to the recognition of its parity with the “instructive, revolutionary, hermeneutic” philosophy recognized by him. This is evidenced by the title of Tselishcheva’s book, quoting Rorty’s own confession. Unlike Dzhokhadze, the author considers Rorty’s re-description of himself to be the most important topic, which is reflected in the evolution of his views on the essence of philosophy, from “philosophy as the conversation of mankind” to “philosophy as cultural policy.” Critical assessments of other researchers, in order to limit the consideration of Rorty’s work to the “more or less accurate and well-founded” opinion of one researcher (in this case, Dzhokhadze), are not motivated by scientific considerations, which are indicated in this article.