I was delighted to read Sean Sayers's article on Richard Rorty (THES, June 6).
On the one hand, I am the first to support academic freedom, on the other I am also the first to argue that that freedom has very weighty responsibilities associated with it. I am inclined to take the view that Sayers has indulged in an irresponsible use of the mentioned freedom. Why? The discipline of philosophy is done no favours by giving time to a thinker who is an arch-reactionary.
This description is evident from Rorty's rejection, carte blanche, of any form of an alternative to capitalism, as indicated in this article and also in his published writings such as Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers Volume 1. Certainly in the past 20 years or so, many philosophy departments in the UK have had to fight tooth and nail simply to survive - some lost that fight.
This is in part due to the activities of "post-modern relativists" of Rorty's ilk. Richard Rorty has, it must be said, done something to bring the fascinating subject that philosophy is to a wider audience. However, there is nothing original in Rorty's position.
He, like many of his compatriots in the liberal democratic west, is insufferably conceited. Why? Allow me to quote John Le Carre, "The mere fact that communism didn't work doesn't mean that capitalism does. In many parts of the globe it's a wrecking, terrible force, displacing people, ruining lifestyles, traditions, ecologies and stable systems with the same ruthlessness as communism." It is this realisation which drives the best of what takes place in modern political philosophy. Unfortunately, Rorty just is not one of the best and Sayers ought to know that.
Ken Wilson Dalkeith Road Edinburgh