Nancy Fraser on Richard Rorty

hoov hoov at freenet.tlh.fl.us
Tue May 26 15:54:08 PDT 1998



> Chapter 5 of Nancy Fraser's _Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender
> in Contemporary Social Theory_ has a pretty good critique of Rorty
> Last but not the least, Rorty limits 'real politics' to those who play by
> the rules of bourgeois liberalism, by making those who do not play by his
> rules (whether marxists or social movement activists) 'non-political by
> definition' (104).

Charlotte Witt writes, in her essay *Feminist Metaphysics*:

"Rorty's celebration of modern, liberal democracy and his rejection of the utility of any deep criticism of existing social categories ought to make feminists who accept his metaphilosophical views on their intrinsic merit reconsider them in light of their political implications. Rorty is a metaphilosophical radical, but a political moderate; his metaphilosophy only allows for a critique of patriarchy based on pragmatic concerns. But surely feminists want to do more than claim that gender bias based on biologism is not useful; surely we would want to claim that it is false ..." (in _A Mind of One's Own: Feminist Essays on Reason & Objectivity_, p277)

Michael Hoover



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