I think it can do something to give them confidence in themselves. If you think of the Enlightenment of the 18th century, and the secularization produced by the Enlightenment as a period in which people were told "Look there isn't a source of authority; not the kings, not the priests. You're just gonna have to work it out for yourselves." I think of pragmatism as carrying through on the Enlightenment and saying human beings are alone in the universe. They can't look outside themselves either for comfort or for principles or for inspiration. They're at their best when they work together. So I think of pragmatism as sort of an extension of the secularism and rationalism of the Enlightenment. One way to think of it is the Enlightenment said: "Now that we have the scientist, we don't need the priests" Dewey was saying, "Don't think of the scientists as replacing the priests. Don't think that the priests claim to be in touch with God, the scientists claim to be in touch with Reality. There's no such thing as reality to be in touch with. Truth isn't correspondence to Reality. Truth is simply what gets human beings what they want and in particular what gets democratic communities what they want. So if you think of Enlightenment rationalism as having elevated science above religion you can think of pragmatism as saying, "Don't elevate anything above anything, just don't treat any area of culture as the place where you get the last word from because nobody's gonna give you any last word."
- Richard Rorty, 1997
15 мар 2023