2. Rorty’s Interpretations and the Possibility of Social Change

This paper explores Richard Rorty’s notion of eirenism as a key yet understudied dimension of his pragmatist philosophy. Building on his Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), I argue that Rorty’s pragmatist eirenism provides an antidote to post-truth polarization by reframing conflicting vocabularies as compatible rather than oppositional. Rooted in Rorty’s Jamesian inheritance, eirenism complements and extends ironism’s transformative potential, highlighting philosophy’s social function as a practice aimed at fostering contingency, solidarity, and peaceful coexistence while resisting the reductionism characteristic of dogmatism, fanaticism, and extremism.