Original scientific paper

Dewey as Rorty’s Philosophic and Democratic Anchor

Danko Plevnik orcid.org/0000-0001-5987-3365 ; Karlovac, Croatia

Abstract

Dewey inspired Rorty in the first place as his father’s friend and political mate. Whenever the younger man was at some kind of a cognitive crossroads Dewey would act as his philosophical anchor. Dewey’s pragmatism and democratism helped him in casting off philosophical, social and cultural dogmas, at the same time encouraging him to turn towards the enthusiasm of America’s patriotism that was for both of them an essential component of citizenry. Their critics described this component and the principles of Dewey’s and Rorty’s social ethics as some kind of naïveté. Rorty followed the so-called naïveté of Dewey pleading for liberty as some kind of fundamental fairer equality. Rorty applied Dewey’s heritage of enlightened cathartic social ethics using it with great belief in public good, and as a means of saving himself from the creative nihilism of his own ironic “antiism”.

Keywords

America; functionalism; democracy; Left

Hrčak ID:

72735

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/72735

Publication date:

25.7.2011.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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