Abstract

This chapter traces the role of what Rorty calls anti-authoritarianism in his work from Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature onwards. It begins by examining Rorty’s hope of replacing the idea that human conduct is governed by a non-human authority (be it theological or secular) with an account in which normative authority is constituted by, and located within, social practices. It considers why Rorty takes this position to be consistent with aiming at objectivity, once this is re-described as a matter of securing solidarity between the members of social practices. The chapter then turns to the “ideally liberal society” first described in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. In that society, the only authority citizens recognise is that of free democratic consensus. Rorty’s later engagement with feminist theorists led to a shift in his view of what that society looks like, and how it might be achieved.