All of us know how much trouble the use of irony caused Socrates and, thus, the cause of philosophy. As philosophers, and educators, we think of his use of irony in questioning various Athenians about their beliefs and lives, and we recall its seemingly corrosive effect among the decadent aristocratic youth of Athens. In questioning people like Euthyphro and Callicles Socrates' irony evokes bitterness and woe; in this context, we wonder whether his jury might have been more temperate with him if he had treated them less ironically. Even his loves, like Alcibiades as described in the Symposium, fall prey to an irony that breeds misunderstanding, and, thus, pain. Since the time of Socrates, the majority of philosophers, chastened by his example, have seemingly resisted irony. Instead of following the example of Socrates the enigmatic ironist, they have made Plato, apparently the champion of metaphysics, clarity and total explanation, their hero.
Thus, Richard Rorty should have known how philosophy, in general, would respond (badly, of course) to his irony. These days the name Rorty is about as welcome in most philosophy departments as is the name Teddy Kennedy in meetings of young Republicans for Pat Buchanan. In these remarks I want to talk about Rorty's irony, about his view of the relationship of his irony to politics and in conclusion, briefly, about how such ideas reflect educational ideas and concerns. I mean (somewhat ironically, I suppose) to argue that, if anything, Rorty does not trust his irony enough, that a neo-pragmatic philosophy of education will perhaps make even more of irony than Rorty does.
First of all what, for Rorty, does irony amount to? 1 In his Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, he distinguishes the ironist, as an ideal type, from both the common sensist and the metaphysician. He begins his discussion of these types by noting that each of us in our thinking and acting necessarily makes use of a "final vocabulary," a conceptual network embodying a complex set of beliefs, attitudes and orientations that ground our enactment of who we are. I understand Rorty here to be referring to the sort of thing G. H. von Wright, in characterizing Wittgenstein's views in On Certainty calls vor-wissen. 2 The ironist says Rorty, is someone who comes to understand that a vor-wissen is not indubitable, incorrigible, in short, known with certainty, or known at all. The fact that our vor-wissen is what it is, that we think of ourselves and our world as we do, is radically contingent upon our place in history and society. The common sensist