Nietzsche, Pragmatism, and Progress

Abstract

In this paper I argue that in Richard Rorty’s pragmatism we find a view of political progress at once at home in Nietzsche’s thought and in the Enlightenment tradition. If we think of progress as indexed to some permanent standard, and then agree that it is Nietzsche who dispels the authority of any such standard, then we may perhaps conclude that after Nietzsche, progress is ruled out. I want to show, however, that we find in Nietzsche comfort for a continued vision of human progress through engaged political action. I suggest that we look to Jacques Derrida and Rorty as offering a vision of a post-Nietzschean democracy the engine of which is what I call a progress without end.