The Problem with Getting it Right: Richard Rorty and the Politics of Antirepresentationalism

Abstract

To engage constructively with aspects of his writing sometimes given short shrift, in this paper I contend that Rorty can be fruitfully approached as a political theorist concerned with promulgating a new picture of the political world. Situating his recent thought as a political intervention aimed at revitalizing a moribund left allows us to take seriously his antirepresentationalist claims and evaluate his thought in terms of its political effects rather than accuracy of representation. By reading Rorty's notion of ‘metaphorical redescription’ through Sheldon Wolin's conception of political theory as a kind of ‘vision’, I highlight the value of imaginatively constructing new perspectives on our world as a prelude to changing it. Yet even as it authorizes the creative power of imaginative language, Rorty's antirepresentationalism limits the critical potential of his project by severing his redescriptions from political reality. Where Rorty seeks to alter our vocabularies, the great political theorists sought to alter the world. © 2004, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.