Rortyan Intercultural Conversation and the Problem of Speaking for Others.

This paper examines Rorty's proposals for intercultural conversation as a path to global justice. Three primary claims are advanced: that Rorty's embrace of philosophy as cultural politics is of a piece with his call in the mid-1970s for philosophers to be more involved in the cause of enlarging human freedom; that his most explicit turn away from philosophy and theory toward novels and narrative is an attempt to expand the conversation beyond the West; and that his essay "Feminism and Pragmatism" offers a picture of social change that values the contribution of marginalized voices. After underscoring some important contributions, I argue that rather than merely assimilating non-Western voices to "our" conversation, what cultural politics demands is attention the creative power of difference, which may mean ending this conversation and starting another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]