"Pragmatism as Idealist Monotheism: Royce, Rorty and the Pragmatist Philosophy of Religion"

VIALE, CLAUDIO MARCELO

Josiah Royce for the Twenty-First Century. Parker y Skowronski (editores)

Lexington Books

Lugar: Lanham; Año: 2012; p. 179 - 199

Using Richard Bernstein’s label, a reader familiarized with the pragmatist literature immediately (and accurately) associates the title of this chapter with Richard Rorty’s well-known 1998 article “Pragmatism as Romantic Polytheism.” More accurately, the reader should conceive my article as the reverse of Rorty’s attempt. Although he does not refer to Royce in his article, it constitutes (together with other of Rorty’s works on this issue) a philosophical project in the antipodes of the Roycean one. It is not a novelty to say that Richard Rorty is one of the leading heads behind the revival of the pragmatist movement. From Consequences of Pragmatism until his death in 2007 he embodied the most radical spirit of tolerance and amplitude within pragmatism, through his attempt to transfigure American contemporary philosophy by showing an alternative path to analytical philosophy. For his detractors, however, Rorty would be to neopragmatism what William James was to classical pragmatism: the most brilliant and well-known, as well as the most irritating, of its exponents. Although Rorty’s role in the contemporary philosophical scene can be compared with the role of James in the “classical” period, in a Pyrrhic or a genuinely triumphant way, the doctrinal nucleus of his pragmatism is mainly based on John Dewey. Even if Rorty’s statements on Dewey are recurrently put into question, there are two Rortyan features that unquestionably follow Deweyan topics. The first concerns some pragmatist views of religion; the second relates to the place of Josiah Royce’s philosophy in a pragmatist narrative. These two axes are essential for the development of this chapter.