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9. Richard Rorty: Philosophy beyond Argument and Truth?
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163 9 WOLFGANG WELSCH Richard Rorty: Philosophy beyond Argument and Truth? Translated by Andrew Inkpin and William Egginton 1. INTRODUCTION Intent Richard Rorty’s position within American philosophy is paradoxical.* Once he bore all the hopes of analytic philosophy,1 but ever since his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature of 1979,2 in which he criticized this school of thought, he has been practically ignored by most analytic philosophers. His shift to pragmatism has also brought him little recognition.3 Analytic philosophers have reproached him for his excessive criticism, the pragmatists for his lack of orthodoxy. On the other hand, the general intellectual audience has taken notice of Rorty’s emphasis on contingency and his ideas about liberalism —as well as, recently, his plea for a renewal of social-democratic thought.4 Rorty links the analytic and continental philosophical traditions as few other philosophers do (and I think that such a link will also prove increasingly decisive in this country). Nevertheless, in Europe as well Rorty’s reputation is predominantly negative. Rorty the speaker attracts an audience, but the reaction of the philosophers’ guild ranges from reserved to aggressive. 164 Wolfgang Welsch I consider this scepticism towards Rorty to be partially well-founded; philosophically, however, one should not only point out dangers and put up warning signs, as intellectuals are prone to do, but rather sound out argumentatively precisely wherein the tenable and untenable lies; and one should also ask whether some parts of the untenable could be corrected so as to become tenable. This is what I would like to attempt in the following. I shall limit myself to the analysis of a single thesis—albeit a central and particularly objectionable thesis of Rorty’s,5 one found time and time again ever since the Mirror of Nature.6 Rorty says that, strictly speaking, it is not possible for one philosophical position to argue against another. All that one can do is to play one’s own vocabulary off against the other’s and make one’s own position appear attractive.7 Sometimes Rorty even links this renunciation of interconceptional argumentation with the call to abandon the idea of truth.8 I hope to be able to show that this provocative thesis, which touches upon the very nerve of philosophy,9 is not sound.10 At the same time, however , my criticism has a constructive component. I believe that some of Rorty’s points can be better defended than he himself has done. A brief characterization of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity I shall refer primarily to the two books Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, from 1979, and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, from 1989.11 I would like, therefore, to outline briefly their theses beforehand. In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature Rorty criticizes what he sees as the guiding epistemological model since the seventeenth century, according to which the mind is a mirror of the world whose purpose is to reproduce reality as accurately as possible, making it necessary—by means, say, of a critique of reason or logical analysis of language—to polish this cognitive mirror and thus free it of blind spots. Rorty considers the modern representational model of cognition to be fundamentally flawed and pleads for an understanding of epistemological—or, as he also puts it, ‘systematic’—philosophy based on this model as being just one type amongst several,12 as well as advocating a stronger shift towards another type, for which he coins the collective name “edifying philosophy,” adducing Dewey, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein as prime examples.13 The aim of edifying philosophy is the invention of new, interesting, and fruitful self-descriptions14 as well as keeping going (rather than systematically winding up) philosophical conversation. In Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, Rorty makes the connection between edifying philosophy and awareness of contingency more precise, emphasizes the distinction between private and public, and outlines a utopian combination of private irony and liberal hope. He attempts to show that the [107.23.85.179] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 07:06 GMT) Richard Rorty 165 concept of edifying philosophy is the one best suited to assist liberal democracy —and although he is unable to substantiate this claim, he also considers it in no need of philosophical substantiation. 2. RORTY’S ANTIARGUMENTATIVE THESIS To begin with, I want to cite some formulations of Rorty’s antiargumentative thesis. The actual reasoning will follow afterwards. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature In Philosophy...