Life Chances in an Open Society: Operationalization of Normative Neopragmatic Content

Neopragmatism has two thrusts: one that is directed ‘inwards’ generally towards science and especially towards philosophy, and one that is directed ‘outwards’ towards society. The latter aims to defend an ‘open society’. Before turning to the operationalization of neopragmatism for social science spatial research, the understanding of an open society is operationalized. This operationalization seems necessary, as statements by Rorty and other neopragmatists on this topic remain rather generic. Accordingly, if the philosophical considerations are to be transferred into a social and spatial science research program, they must be made more specific and delineated. Richard Rorty’s ‘romantic utopian’ concept of private self-creation and public solidarity also fails to take into account aspects that stand in the way of this private self-creation and public solidarity (and the beneficial aspects can also be further distinguished). To remedy this desideratum, this chapter presents a more thoroughly developed life chances approach and relates it to the concept of private self-creation and public solidarity.