Ricerc@Sapienza

In the paper I examine Rorty’s argument elaborated in Philosophy and Social Hope where he places himself within the liberal democratic tradition stemming from Mill and Dewey. Rorty argues that this tradition does not need to be revised, it only needs to be supplemented by what we have learnt from contemporary post-modern critics such as Foucault. I argue on the contrary that Rorty’s project of freeing liberal democracy from foundations – a task which he places within the private concerns of the liberal ironist – requires him to revise the tradition.

Max Weber’s account of the rise of capitalism focused on his concept of a Protestant ethic, valuing diligence in earning and saving money but restraint in spending it. However, such individual restraint is foreign to contemporary understandings of finance, which treat ever-increasing consumption and debt as natural, almost essential, for maintaining the economic cycle of buying and selling.