CHAPTER X

CHAPTER X

RORTY: FROM PHILOSOPHY TO

POST-PHILOSOPHY1

LI GUANGCHENG

It is a widely accepted opinion that Richard Rorty, in his provocative book, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (PMN),2 and other works,3 presents us with some challenging, exciting pictures of how philosophy was, is and will be. Two themes run through these books: the first is an attack on the tradition which sees philosophy as, essentially, epistemology; the second is a reco-mmendation of an alternative stance, a blend of hermeneutics, prag-matism, deconstruction, etc., or a post-philosophical culture.

For some years Rorty’s alternative has provoked heated reac-tions and resistance both inside and out of the philosophical com-munity. It was found unpalatable, not "fully exploring" or "at best a form of kibbutzing;"4 "not plausible, not clearly and consistently articulated,"5 "adventitious and unconvincing,"6 and that he "badly misappropriates" his heroes.7 Others, however, found it liberating and exhilarating. What was most impressive was his high sen-sibility and quick response to the latest developments not only in the field of philosophy, but also in the rest of culture. It seems to me, and to some critics, that since Rorty’s list of recommended heroes cover most of the forerunners in different areas, his con-ception of philosophy and of culture must be in the leading position as well. His constant experience and adventure seems to suggest that, in his opinion, the best way to do philosophy is to find, name or create new philosophical, post-philosophical or even post-post-philosophical genres. It is this conception of which I am now more skeptical. It seems to be just an illusion, an upshot of the "false attraction of fashion worship" by both Rorty himself and his admirers.

In this essay I shall argue that Rorty’s philosophical concep-tion and practice is based on this illusion. This makes his alter-native an attractive, but at same time a crude and in some sense an incoherent, blend. Part I is a sketch of his attack on traditional philosophy; Part II presents his positive alterative, based mainly on his PMN, his basic philosophical conceptions adopted from his heroes, and then his post-philosophical culture. Part III explains how this reflects the false attraction of fashion worship and the shortcomings which follow therefrom.

RORTY’S CRITIQUE OF EPISTEMOLOGICALLY-

CENTERED PHILOSOPHY

In PMN, Rorty mainly attacks the epistemologically-cen-tered philosophy from Descartes to Kant and its contemporary form, analytic philosophy. This tradition has as its basic conception that philosophy, in the first place, is epistemology. Its metaphor, owing mainly to Descartes and Kant, is that of mind as the mirror of nature. The task of epistemology is then to mirror something outside the mind, and to examine (repair or polish) this mirror, for the purpose of gaining an accurate representation of world and a valid foundation for knowledge.

In this context, Rorty points out that analytic philosophy (or more precisely such impure analytic philosophers as Dummett and Putnam), is still within this foundationalist tradition: they takes over Kant’s task for philosophy, namely, to seek "rigorous" and "scientific" foundations of knowledge and hence to see philosophy of language, especially the theory of meaning, as the foundation of all philosophy. Even three of his heroes, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Dewey, in their early years, were still foundationalists in the sense that they tried to find a new way of making philosophy foundational (see PMN 5).

To sum up Rorty’s critique of the Cartesian-Kantian-analytic tradition, we find four basic principles which characterize this tra-dition: (1) epistemology-centrism: philosophy’s first goal is to seek justified knowledge and accurate representation of reality; (2) foundationalism: to achieve this goal philosophy needs first to dis-cover the foundation of knowledge; (3) scientism: scientific or lo-gical method are necessary for gaining such a goal; (4) philosophy-centrism: philosophy thus grounded can serve as the foundation of the rest of culture. It is this idea of philosophy that Rorty thinks we should now be willing to abandon.

SOME BASIC PRINCIPLES OF

RECONSTRUCTING PHILOSOPHY

What functions, if any, can philosophy perform if episte-mologically-centered philosophy is coming to an end?

Rorty’s alternative, as we mentioned before, is a blending of themes suggested by the later Heidegger, Gadamer, Derrida, the later Wittgenstein, Dewey, Kuhn, Feyerabend and so on. He names this new philosophy "edifying philosophy," as opposed to "syste-matic philosophy." Sometimes, he prefers to call his alternative "post-philosophical culture," a term which suggests its break with traditional conceptions of philosophy. Although Rorty might deny that he has principles, it is fair to say some principles ground his conception of "edifying philosophy" and post-philosophical culture.

Incommensurability Against Foundationalism

The first principle is that of incommensurability, which he borrowed from Thomas Kuhn. In Rorty’s opinion, traditional epis-temological philosophy was based on an assumption of commen-surability, namely, that "all contributions to a given discourse are commensurable" (PMN 316). It saw the process of constructing an epistemology as finding the maximum amount of common ground with others (PMN 316). This common ground within a tradition enabled its disputes to be resolved.

As an anti-foundationalist, Rorty sees as a distinctive charac-teristic of his new philosophy incommensurability, namely, that philosophy is no longer a rational inquiry into truth as an attempted discovery of foundations. Rather, it is a conversation between different conflicting paradigms whose aim is mutual understanding rather than total agreement.

What Rorty has in his mind as the model of this new image of philosophy is hermeneutics. But Rorty emphasizes that he is not putting hermeneutics forward as a successor to epistemology, because "hermeneutics is not the name for a discipline, nor for a method of achieving the sort of results which epistemology failed to achieve, nor for a program of research" (PMN 315).

Abnormal Philosophy Against Tradition

Rorty’s idea that after epistemology a new philosophy does not inherit the problem and method of epistemology comes from Kuhn’s distinction between normal and revolutionary science. Rorty takes over this distinction and alters it into a distinction bet-ween normal and abnormal as a feature of all discourse and culture. Epistemology is seen as normal discourse while hermeneutics is an abnormal discourse in the sense that the former is conducted with an agreed-upon set of conventions about what a good answer or argument should be whereas the latter does not follow the con-ventions of epistemology or even set aside its rules.

In his "Derrida on Language, Being and Abnormal Philoso-phy" Rorty takes Derrida as an example of an abnormal philoso-pher who does "not solve problems but rather overcomes prede-cessors."8 According to Rorty, the abnormal philosopher does philosophy "not by presenting arguments against one’s predece-ssor’s view, but by violent and erotic struggle with one’s image of them."9 In short, abnormal philosophy is anti-traditional in its most extreme sense. By recommending abnormal philosophy, Rorty tries to justify his call for an end to epistemology. Since normal dis-course should be, and in fact always is replaced by abnormal discourse we should always support the latter.

The principle of "preferring abnormal to normal" is a key clue for identifying Rorty’s "false attraction of fashion worship." In some sense Rorty’s philosophical practice becomes a game of hunting for novelty or abnormal discourse. In so doing, Rorty has the image of being a philosophical representative of post-modernist literature and arts, and indeed he tries to impress people with this image.10 I shall challenge this image in the final section.

Edifying Philosophy Against Systematic Philosophy

If philosophy is no longer an attempt to seek truth and the foundations of knowledge, what positive functions can it play? After giving a long list of great philosophers, such as Goethe, Keir-kegaard, Santayana, William James, Dewey, the later Wittgenstein, the later Heidegger, Derrida, etc., Rorty calls on us to learn from these philosophers, because, they all see the aim of philosophy as a desire for edification, rather than an inquiry into truth.

What is common to edifying philosophers is that they all object to, and even "make fun of the classic picture of man, which picture contains systematic philosophy or the search for universal commensuration in a final vocabulary" (PMN 368).

Great systematic philosophers are constructive and offer arguments. Great edifying philosophers are reactive and offer satires, parodies, aphorisms. . . . Systematic philosophers want to put their subject on the secure path of a science. Edifying philoso-phers want to keep space open for the sense of wonder which poets can sometimes cause -- wonder that there is something new under the sun (PMN 369-70).

Edifying philosophy in the end plays a role in post-philosophical culture: philosophy as a conversation of mankind. Like poetry phi-losophy is best seen as one of the many voices in this conversation.

Post-philosophical Culture Against Philosophy-Centrism

In Rorty’s opinion, the conception of philosophy as a con-versation of humankind ends tradition and begins a new era in philosophy. The term post-philosophical culture suggests both its novel and broad characteristics. By introducing this conception, Rorty attempts to destroy the traditional distinction between philo-sophy and literature, to overcome philosophy-Centrism, that is, philosophy as the master of the rest of culture, and to offer a broader conception of philosophy-culture.

Such a hypothetical culture would contain nobody called a philosopher (Consequences of Pragmatism -- xxxix). Doubtless, such a culture would contain specialists, but they "had no special problem to solve, nor any special method to apply; they abided by no particular disciplinary standards, had no collective self-image as a `profession’" (CP -- xxxix). This non-professional philosophy is a "larger and looser activity,"11 like literary criticism in its broadest sense, including literary, historical, anthropological and political considerations, all mixed up together. A post-philosopher is an all-purpose intellectual free to comment on anything at all.

A most important feature of the conception of philosophy in CP, and in some papers afterwards, is that Rorty joins with some recent European and American thinkers in trying to redefine philosophy as literature. Rorty owes this conception mainly to Der-rida’s deconstruction. According to Derrida, the idea that there is a sharp distinction between philosophy and literature is just a "white mythology", a myth that philosophy uses pure language and poetry uses metaphor. As Derrida tells us, in fact, philosopher and poet both use the same metaphorical language. Rorty accepts Derrida’s basic idea that philosophy is just a kind of writing, and thinks that it leads to a new conception of philosophy, that is, to philosophy as just one more literary genre.12 In another place, he calls this "narrative philosophy," opposite to "argumentative philosophy." Accordingly, to do philosophy is to "tell stories,"13 rather than to give argument. Rorty thinks that "This strategy of using narrative is what makes Heidegger and Derrida so attractive."14

Carrying on his searching for allies in his project, Rorty found the same voice in textualism, an intellectual genre, based on Derrida’s slogan "There is nothing outside the text". It is jointly held by literary critics, post-structuralists, some historians and social scientists. The main aim of textualism is "to place literature in the center, and to treat both science and philosophy as, at best, literary genres" (CP 141). As we can see, this is to reverse of philo-sophy-centered tradition into a new literature-centered culture. Rorty regards "textualism as a specifically post-philosophical form" (CP 143).

Rorty seems unsure as to who will be the leader in the post-philosophical culture, philosophy or literature? Sometimes he tries to put both on the same level: to weave philosophical and literary texts together can "help one get rid of the idea that philosophy is somehow on another level."15 Sometimes he seems to support the literary critics’ attempts to take over philosophy as the leader of post-philosophical culture (see CP 141). In this context, Michael Fischer’s conclusion that Rorty still allows philosophy to decide literature’s fate seems a misunderstanding.16

THE FATAL ATTRACTION OF FASHION

Rorty’s conception, obviously, is open to criticism for dif-ferent reasons. Some, from a traditional point of view, tried to argue that philosophy needs a theory;17 some tried to show that the end of epistemology is not in sight;18 some attempted to reverse Rorty’s conclusions.19 Although I might agree with some con-clusions from this sort of criticism it is not the most effective because it will not convince Rorty or his sympathizers. The best way to argue against Rorty who claims that he is not an argu-mentative philosopher is to show that his own description of his project is inaccurate and incoherent. That is, to find a way to let him disprove himself. One possible way is to ask: is his alternative a coherent one? If not, Rorty will lose the rational ground upon which to hold together all the different theories he mentions. As a result, we are in a good position to see why Rorty holds such a con-tradictory blend of different theories, that is, we can see that his real motive, rather than theoretical coherence, is searching for new phi-losophical-literary genres: "false attraction of fashion worship."

To begin with, there is a problem in Rorty’s way of doing philosophy. He simply puts all his favorite philosophies under the name of pragmatism, or sometimes of hermeneutics, or another name. This is first an oversimplification. To take pragmatism as an example, according to Rorty pragmatists, especially Dewey, see philosophy as an edification, rather than an inquiry into truth and method. In fact, however, pragmatism is mainly a theory of truth, although in a different way from the correspondence theory. Both Peirce and Dewey consider the inquiry into method as a central theme.

Secondly, given Rorty’s way of doing philosophy, inco-herence within his conception of philosophy is inevitable because his conception of philosophy is simply to blend the ideas of many different philosophers, apart from which he has no proper con-ception of philosophy at all. When Rorty uses the name of some great philosophers, he never claims one idea from among that philosopher’s many ideas; rather, he claims that what he borrows is this philosopher’s most important, even only, idea. This suggests that all these philosophers are essentially, if not totally, the same so that when he puts them together his whole system is coherent. Actually, this puts him in a very difficult position, for once one proves that these philosophers are different in many ways, or even in some crucial ways, the incoherence between these philosophers automatically becomes incoherence within Rorty’s framework, and he thereby loses his basis for holding these different philo-sophers together. If, however, Rorty honestly admits that he just borrows one idea from this philosopher and another from another philosopher (as most philosophers do in forming their own thought), then he can hold coherently his conception of philosophy no matter how different the philosophers on which he based it. But if he takes this position then the philosophers he mentions are essentially different and he misrepresents the idea he takes from them. Secondly, why does Rorty select the ideas he does, com-mending some philosophers and ignoring others; the answer seems to be only that some are intellectually fashionable, while others are not.

As for the first aspect of my critique of Rorty’s incoherence, I see no common ground between Heidegger and Dewey, or Wittgenstein and Dewey in most important aspects. For Heidegger, philosophy is an ontological inquiry into the meaning of Being, from Dasein in his early years to poetry and language in the later years. For the early Wittgenstein, philosophy is an explanatory ac-tivity of logical clarification of thought; metaphysical or ontolo-gical problems are what cannot be said; for the later Wittgenstein, philosophy is a pure descriptive activity and a kind of therapy, which differs also from the later Heidegger’s inquiry into language. For Dewey, philosophy is close to human interests and serves as a means leading to a better life, so he has interests neither in metaphysics and ontology as does Heidegger, nor in "language-games" as does Wittgenstein.20

Rorty’s reason for putting them together is that they all "set aside" Kantian traditional philosophy. Even if this is correct it must still be asked, if "setting aside tradition" is the key criterion for Rorty in putting these three philosophers together why does he not recognize logical positivism as his ally? As logical positivists directly announced that their goal is to overcome metaphysics, to be coherent they should be most close allies in Rorty’s anti-tradi-tional philosophy project.

In fact, Rorty himself admitted that in carrying out his project he was carrying out the "positivist’s original programme," and that this programme was a "therapeutic enterprise" a common feature he refers also to the later Wittgenstein and Heidegger.21 This shows again that Rorty cannot talk about "setting aside tradition" without referring to logical positivism or the early analytical philosophy of Russell and Carnap. But he denied this in his PMN because, as he said later, he was "sick of" that philosophy at that time.

Similarly, from a coherent point of view one can ask if ana-lytic philosophy’s inquiry into the theory of meaning can be classi-fied as a foundationalist project, why the later Heidegger’s inquiry into language and poetry is not so, for according to a widely accepted opinion Heidegger’s whole life was concerned with the single theme: the meaning of Being as a foundation and "condition for the possibility of any ontologies."22 The fact that the later Hei-degger turned to language and poetry does not mean that he gave up seeking the meaning of Being as foundation, but only that he found that the meaning of Being is to be found in language and poetry since "language is the house of Being" and only poetry and philosophy "are beings not related to other beings, but to Being."23 There is no reason to treat the early Heidegger as a foundationalist and the later Heidegger an anti-foundationalist. This case suggests again that the reason that Rorty prefers the later to the early Heidegger is not that he really found some sharp distinction be-tween them, but rather than from the seventies the later Heidegger became a hot topic among philosophers and literary critics.

Rorty’s interview is obvious evidence in favor of my suggestion. In this interview, Rorty revealed that he "agree(s) with the later Heidegger that the science/poetry/philosophy distinction we have lived with are outmoded" (my emphasis).24 Heidegger gave up this distinction not because it is outnoted, but because in ancient Greek thinkers there was no such distinction. For Hei-degger, "the earlier the better;" for Rorty, "the newer the better."

When recalling his path to philosophy, Rorty once again revealed this fashionable motive for doing philosophy. As Rorty told us, by reading Sellars and Wittgenstein he changed himself from an old-fashioned philosopher into an out of date analytic philosopher because of the pressure from his peers at Wellesley telling him that his interests in historical philosophy and meta-physics was out of date. This fear of being left behind became a key motive for Rorty in choosing what kind of philosophical books he should read and what kind of philosopher he should be.

Rorty further told us that after ten years as an analytic philo-sopher, he got sick of that and tried to do something larger and newer in PMN. During that time he faced the dilemma, on the one hand, of avoiding contact with contemporary discussion, and on the other hand, of becoming immersed in contemporary discussion.25 Rorty’s list of publications shows that it was the latter temptation which took control of his mind.26

Rorty’s motive for introducing some new literary genres into philosophy remains the same: the situation in philosophy "has lag-ged behind", so philosophy needs some new stimulations to keep alive.

Thus my conclusion that Rorty’s motive of doing philosophy is based on a "false attraction of fashion worship." In this chapter I do not intend to discuss why philosophy should not become a fashion business, and why we should not do philosophy and judge philosophy according to the fads; that would need another essay, perhaps, a very controversial one. However, one thing is sure: if one day in the future, Rorty gets sick of his present heros, Dewey, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Derrida, or if his own philosophy, if any, becomes old-fashioned there is no need for surprise because Rorty is fully aware that an edifying philosopher like him does not dream of building for eternity, but of destroying for their own generation.

NOTES

1. I would like to thank Dr. Jane Heal for her assistance and comments on this essay.

2. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Oxford: blackwell, 1980) (hereafter PMN).

3. Mainly in Consequences of Pragmatism (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980) (hereafter CP).

4. Richard Bernstein, "Philosophy in `Conversation of Man-kind’," Review of Metaphysics, 33 (1980), 745-76, 767.

5. Kai Nie0lson, "Scientism, Pragmatism, and the Fate of Philosophy," Inquiry, 29 (1986), 277-304, 279.

6. Joe McCarney, "Edifying Discourse," Radical Philosophy, 32 (1982).

7. Isaac Levi, "Escape from Boredom: Edification according to Rorty," Canadian Journal of Philosophy, XI (1981), 4, 589-602.

8. Richard Rorty, "Derrida or Language, Being and Abnor-mal Philosophy," Journal of Philosophy , 74 (1977), 679.

9. Ibid.

10. In one place, he writes, "Pragmatism is the philosophical counterpart of modernism," "Nineteenth Century Idealism and Twentieth Century Textualism" in CP, p. 139.

11. Richard Rorty, "From Philosophy to Post-Philosophy" (interview), Radical Philosophy (Autumn, 1982).

12. Richard Rorty, "Deconstruction and Circumvention," Critical Inquiry, 11 (September, 1984), 20.

13. Richard Rorty, "Philosophy without Principles," Critical Inquiry, 11 (September, 1984-1985), 462.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., p. 463.

16. Michael Fischer, "Redefining Philosophy as Literature: Richard Rorty’s Defence of Literature" in Reading Rorty, Alan Malachowski, ed., (New York: Blackwell, 1990), 233-43. This reaction is a misunderstanding of Rorty’s conception of philo-sophy. In fact, for Rorty, to see literature as lacking rules and ar-guments is not the same as to say literature is junior to philosophy. On the contrary, argumentative rigor is seen by Rorty as the shortcoming of traditional philosophy and has no place in his new post-philosophical culture.

17. James Young, "Pragmatism and the Fate of Philosophy," Dialogue (Canada), 23, (1984), 683-85.

18. Ian Hacking, "Is the End in Sight for Epistemology?" Journal of Philosophy, 77 (1980), 579-87.

19. Hugo Meynell, "Reversing Rorty," Method, 3 (1985), 48.

20. I do not intend to make a detail comparison between those three owing to the limitation of space.

21. See "From Philosophy to Post-Philosophy" (interview), Radical Philosophy (Autumn, 1982).

22. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (London: Blackwell, 1962), p. 34.

23. Martin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), p. 26.

24. Interview.

25. Interview.

26. See Reading Rorty, "Bibliography of the Works of Richard Rorty," Alan Malachowski, ed., pp. 371.