Rorty’s questions might be rephrased as: What is the text good for getting me out of? What can I use it to get out of? What can I make it mean in order to free me of a previously confining belief or desire? The pragmatist who knows and wants to find out what he doesn’t want, but doesn’t need to know in the same way, with the same certainty, what he really does want, says to the text: get me out of here.
