This paper is focused on the contents of Richard Rorty’s narrative on
the decline of «redemptive truth» and the overtaking of «literary culture» with
particular reference to the texts Philosophy as a transitional genre and Redemption from Egotism. Here Rorty argues that once the idea of reaching a truth
that can tell how things really are is abandoned, the call for a better society
passes through a modus operandi different from the one traditionally offered by
religion and philosophy, which is provided by literature. I will therefore try to
understand what, according to Rorty, distinguishes literature from religion and
philosophy and thus why he claims that the literary works are more useful to
«moral progress» than religious and philosophical treatises.