So, basically you are saying that a fundamentalist can be (and in most cases actually are) morally responsible, nice people showing solidarity towards the others? And that intolerant, aggressive behaviour is not always linked to a fundamtentalistic doctrine? And even that some people with ironic attitude might show social non-resposibility by being over-permissive? If so, then does that mean that our philosophical views don't hold a special position determining our moral behaviour?

As, I guess this is exactly what Rorty wants to say. He argues against the view "that being right about philosophical matters is important for right action." Rorty thinks that it is solidarity which really matters. So, if we take this point seriously, it shouldn't be a big deal if people are fundamentalist or ironists - as what really matters is how these people get along with each other.

(But then, in the other hand, I still think that many of the fundamentalists like to think that it is important to have the right world view. Abandoning this sense of importancy equals to rortyan irony, does it?)

Oh well. But at this point I find myself again thinking that now there are two lines to go by. 1) Asking what did Rorty think and do I understand him correctly. 2) Asking what is my personal opinion on the matter. I hope that I can take a deeper look at both of these questions in the posts to come. But for now, a brief comment for each question:

I'm not sure if Rorty is using the word "fundamentalism" pejoratively. In his 1993 paper "Hilary Putnam and The Relativist Menace" Rorty writes: "Here I think Putnam has a good point. There is a tone of Carnapian scorn in some of my writings (particularly in the overly fervent physicalism of Philosophy and The Mirror or Nature), and there should not be. I should not speak, as I sometimes have, of 'pseudo-problems', but rather of problematics and vocabularies which might have proven to be of value but in fact did not. I should not have spoken of 'unreal' or 'confused' philosophical distinctions, but rather of distinctions whose employement has proved to lead nowhere, proved to be more trouble than they were worth." Well, of course it remains open for discussion if a distinction like "true belief / false belief" has indeed been proved to lead nowhere. And it might be a matter of taste if it is pejorative to say that foundationalism is of more trouble than it is worth... (Now WHAT did Rorty actually mean? Someone should write a doctoral thesis about this =) )

What comes to my own opinion, I tend to think that fundamentalism and a social order based on strong beliefs might have served us well for a long time since the dawn of civilization. And that post-modern over-permissive laissez-faire relativism doesn't take us very far. It might have some good effects on liberating us from authoritarian structures, but it comes with a set of new problems. So, I'd say that instead of going back to some sort of fundamentalism we'd better go on with our cultural evolution. Finding new ways of thinking that could help us navigate in the 21st century situation. And personally I feel that building on some sort of rortyan attitude of irony might prove fruitful. But I'm not to say that it is the only option which works.

And, lastly, returning back to the main thing - solidarity. I guess that the old Cartesian way of thinking sees it so that human action is based on human decisions, and decisions are based on beliefs, and beliefs are propostions, and a coherent set of propositions form a world view. So, if we see people behaving badly, we can infer that there must be something wrong with their world view - that they believe in false propositions. From this point of view it seems fundamentally necessary to find the right set of propositions to believe in, as that would also guarantee the moral behavior of believers. (And, to some extent I guess this kind of attitude is still well alive in some forms of psychology and maybe in the theory of cognitive therapy.) Well, we could examine this with methods of psychology, introspection, literature, art, and maybe also with methods of philosophy. Personally I think that most of the time we act accorind to how we feel - and that there is nothing bad about that. The solution is not to better control our feelings, to force oneself to behave according to a set of beliefs no matter how one feels. I see that a more solid approach would be to work with ones emotions and feelings, finding more peace, benevolence and solidarity. Philosphy might play a part in that process. (ah, again I say that of course we also need social control, a set of moral rules, legislation and law enforcement. I'm just saying that they alone might not be enough to guarantee maximum solidarity.)