7. Rortyan Irony as Civic Virtue in Our Myside Society

The figure of the liberal ironist is central to Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Joining various attempts in Rorty scholarship to foster its public role, this chapter provides a reassessment and a partial redescription of Rortyan irony as a civic virtue that entails fallibilist open-mindedness and conversability. The political “cash value” of this project is that Rortyan irony serves as a valuable resource for revitalizing democratic discourse in our increasingly fragmented public sphere, especially in view of the latest research in moral psychology, which suggests that our current predicament is best described as a ‘myside society.’