Rortyan Communitarium

The Communitarium Project draws heavily on Richard Rorty’s ideas about language, contingency, and solidarity, but it also pushes beyond them, seeking to create a collective space where individuals can engage in shared meaning-making and community-building. While Rorty’s philosophy often focuses on the individual ironist and their capacity for reimagining their beliefs, the Rortyan Communitarium takes these ideas and collectivizes them, embedding them in the fabric of community life.

Rorty’s concept of the ironist is central to his philosophy of contingency. The ironist is someone who recognizes the contingency of their most deeply held beliefs and is constantly willing to reimagine and revise them in light of new experiences and vocabularies. For Rorty, this is an individual process—an intellectual stance that allows people to stay open to new possibilities and new ways of being.

The Rortyan Communitarium extends this idea, imagining what might happen if entire communities adopted an ironist stance. In this context, the process of reimagining and revising beliefs is no longer a solitary act but a collective effort. The community, rather than the individual, becomes the locus of ongoing reinterpretation, with members engaging in shared reflection on the values, practices, and vocabularies that define their collective identity.

• Example: In the Rortyan Communitarium, the community might gather regularly to engage in collective deliberation, where members reflect on their evolving understanding of key concepts like solidarity, justice, or freedom. These sessions are not aimed at achieving a final consensus but at keeping the conversation open, allowing for new interpretations and possibilities to emerge over time.

One of the most important ways that the Rortyan Communitarium builds on Rorty’s philosophy is by embedding the concept of contingency into the community’s practices and institutions. While Rorty emphasizes the contingency of individual beliefs and vocabularies, the Communitarium takes this idea further, recognizing that entire communities—like individuals—are always in a state of flux, shaped by changing circumstances and shifting vocabularies.

In the Rortyan Communitarium, this contingency is not seen as a threat to solidarity but as a creative force. The community recognizes that its shared practices and vocabularies are contingent, and it actively works to adapt these practices in response to new challenges and opportunities. Rather than trying to preserve a static sense of solidarity, the Rortyan Communitarium fosters an adaptive solidarity—one that is constantly being renegotiated and reimagined.

• Example: Imagine a Communitarium facing a shift in social or political conditions that challenges its existing norms. Rather than trying to hold onto old practices or vocabularies, the community engages in collective reflection to explore new ways of understanding its role and purpose. This process allows the community to adapt its solidarity to the new context, without losing its coherence or sense of identity.

A key feature of the Rortyan Communitarium is the use of rituals and practices to sustain adaptive solidarity. While Rorty’s focus is on individual intellectual flexibility, the Communitarium recognizes that communities require more structured practices to maintain cohesion as their vocabularies and values evolve. These practices help the community remain flexible, while also providing a shared framework for navigating change.

• Rituals of Solidarity: In the Communitarium, rituals are designed to anchor the community’s sense of solidarity, even as its vocabularies shift. These rituals might take the form of regular gatherings, communal decision-making processes, or shared work projects, where members come together to perform solidarity in practical ways.

• Example: A Communitarium might have a weekly forum where members discuss the challenges they are facing and explore new ways to address them. These forums are not just about resolving issues—they are about reinforcing the community’s solidarity by ensuring that every member has a voice in the collective process of adaptation.

Another central feature of the Rortyan Communitarium is the role of deliberation in maintaining adaptive solidarity. In Rorty’s philosophy, deliberation is often an individual process—an ironist reflecting on their own beliefs and vocabularies. In the Communitarium, however, deliberation becomes a collective practice, where the community as a whole engages in ongoing dialogue about its values and practices.

• Dialogic Solidarity: Deliberation in the Rortyan Communitarium is not about achieving a final consensus but about keeping the conversation open. The goal is to create a space where different perspectives can be explored and integrated into the community’s evolving framework. In this way, deliberation becomes a tool for ensuring that the community remains flexible and responsive to change, while also maintaining a strong sense of solidarity.

• Example: In a Communitarium, members might gather to deliberate on the role of new technologies or external political pressures. Rather than simply voting on a solution, the community engages in an extended dialogue where each perspective is considered. This process allows the community to adapt its practices and beliefs in ways that reflect the changing context while maintaining a commitment to solidarity.

The Rortyan Communitarium is particularly well-suited to navigating moments of crisis, where the community’s existing vocabularies and practices are challenged. Rorty’s philosophy teaches us that crises often arise when the vocabularies we rely on no longer make sense of new circumstances. The Communitarium embraces this idea and turns crisis into an opportunity for adaptive growth.

In times of crisis, the Communitarium engages in collective reflection and reimagination, using the tools of deliberation and ritual to adapt its solidarity to the new circumstances. This ensures that the community remains resilient and cohesive, even as it navigates moments of disruption.

• Example: Imagine a Communitarium facing a political upheaval that threatens its existing practices and values. Rather than clinging to the old ways of doing things, the community uses the moment as an opportunity to explore new possibilities for collective action and solidarity. Through deliberation and ritual, the Communitarium reimagines itself, adapting to the new reality without losing its core identity.

The Rortyan Communitarium builds on Richard Rorty’s ideas of contingency and solidarity but moves beyond the individual ironist to create a collective framework for adaptive community-building. By embedding practices of deliberation and ritual, the Communitarium ensures that solidarity is not a fragile, contingent phenomenon but a resilient, adaptive process that can withstand the challenges of linguistic and cultural change. In this way, the Rortyan Communitarium becomes a space for ongoing collective reimagination, where contingency is harnessed as a source of strength, not fragility.

For more on how the Communitarium integrates Rorty’s ideas, see:

• Solidarity in the Communitarium
• Contingency in the Communitarium