Rorty's Philosophical Foundations Of Democracy

Rorty started out with talking about the history of philosophy and the different stances on it. “Philosophy is a ladder that western political thinking climbed up, and then shoved aside” (Rorty). During the seventeenth century, philosophy played a major role in the establishment of democratic organizations in the West. Political thinking become more secular, which led to the thinking that human beings should act on their own and shape their own laws. Throughout centuries, views on democracy and philosophy changed. During the eighteenth century political institutions and opinions were shown through many different philosophical views. Rorty stated that, now people decide upon a political outlook and then they use philosophical principals to back it up. Rorty defined democracy in two ways. First, democracy is constitutionalism. Constitutionalism refers to the belief of equality of opportunity. Secondly, democracy is egalitarianism. This is the belief that all children born have an equal chance in life- no matter the race, gender, or being homosexual.

The religious people who are on the political left, typically keep their religious and political stances separate. This differs from the people on the political right, because they combine their religious and political views. Rorty believes that philosophical foundations of democracy are useless. For example, Rorty says, “If I asked to justify their preference for constitutional government, both sides (the left and right) would be more likely to appeal to historical experience rather than to either religious or philosophical principles.” Rorty is emphasizing the importance that philosophical principles do not matter when it comes to democracy, because most people will use historical