Philosophy of the future

Core Question ^[1]

From the point of view of Rorty : "the main question of philosophy is the whole problematic of thinking as a whole, determining the objectivity of interpretation and the subjectivity of the interpreter." ^[1] It is argued that it is necessary to answer this question before thinking about others, this basic question always remains relevant and open. "The basic question of philosophy cannot be answered, but it can and should be answered by offering each time a new answer, a new interpretation of the existence and a project of its existence." ^[one]

What?

What is existence? What is man? These and similar questions were considered basic for European philosophy . “The question of“ what ”, being aimed not at a concrete something in a concrete situation, but at something in general, regardless of the place and circumstances, presupposes the disclosure of an essence that is thought to be eternal and true, because it depends on time and expresses the essence of a thing as such. ^[1] This metaphysical question Rorty considers illegal and unrelated to the real problems that philosophy faces in our time. ^[1]

Who!

Rorty proposes as a new basic question of philosophy - the question of "who are we?" This is a question of attributing oneself to a certain community, for which "coyness" determines the rules of the hostel, thanks to which this society exists. ^[1] "The basic question of philosophy, as Rorty puts it, is directly related to the basic question of nihilistic philosophy . To ask who we are is to ask what future we should try to build together." ^[1] "What is much more interesting is the study of metaphysical folios, which can give us nothing except snobbery and arrogance" ^[2]

What for?

Obviously, the questions “Who are we?” And “What can we hope for?” Are variations of the question “Why?”. ^[1] “Confronting opposing“ points of view ”is removed by reassessing their significance: the value of interpretation is now not to more accurately correspond to objective reality and thus represent the common, the real, but to produce a unique, irreducible to nothing cash, only the possible. Grand Narrative as a chronicle of the possible is intended to serve as the basis of the world philosophy of the future. " ^[one]

Postmodern Discourse ^{[18] [19]}

Rorty has repeatedly called himself a postmodernist . ^[11] In his opinion, there is the integrity of the interpreter and the interpreted, their identity . ^[20] During his trip to Europe, Rorty became interested in the ideas of M. Heidegger , M. Foucault , J. Derrida , G. Gademer , participated in discussions and launched an attack on the idea of ​​" philosophy as epistemology ", while trying to build bridges between European and American traditions, in particular - William James and John Dewey . ^[18]

Torture of Rorty

Rorty advocated "quietism" (peace of mind), which he said was trying to "dissolve without solving anything (dissolve rather then solve)" ^[4] . The term "dissolve" is the dissolution of a nonexistent problem, how to solve it. ^[21]

New Porthy Rorty ^[22]

Alternative names: neopragmatism, ^{[11] [20] [22]} postmodern pragmatism, ^[23] neopragmatist version of postmodernism, ^[13] postpragmatism. ^{[5] [19] [24]}

Rorty is a pragmatic philosopher who influenced postmodernism, arguing that we must abandon the search for objective truth.

- The Times

Rorty summarizes the thoughts of the pragmatists Charles Pierce and Witgershtein about the meaning of a word and a concept. ^[25]

Charles Pierce asserts - “the meaning of a concept is determined by the sum of practical consequences derived from it”. L. Wittgenstein - “the meaning of a word is its use in language”. “Any sign is preceded by other signs ... any language game is other language games,” summarizes Rorty . ^[25]

Rorty speaks of the endless rationale of intuition by intuition. ^[25] and confirms his conclusions with Pierce: "There is no knowledge that would not be logically determined by previous knowledge." ^[25]

Post-philosophy ^{[2] [20]}

Alternative names: postanalytical philosophy, ^[5] postanalytical tradition of American philosophy ^[18]

The philosophy of Rorty is considered to be the result of the contact of analytical philosophy, emphasizing the study of language and logical analysis of concepts with the continental tradition of understanding the language in the context of romantic and humanistic ideas. ^[five]

Prerequisites for a post-analytical approach

Changes in the consciousness of modern man demanded an introduction to the philosophy of new dimensions: convention , communication , solidarity . ^{[26] The} postanalytic tradition of American philosophy was an attempt to understand the significance of such positivistic linguistic innovations for the reorientation of modern thought. ^[18]

Changes in the study of human intelligence

• In the 1950s-1970s, a so-called “naturalistic turn” occurred, which led to the creation of a new cognitive science of thinking. ^[five]
• New discoveries in physics , chemistry , biology and psychology - completely changed the philosophy . ^[27]

Infused with ideas of neo-pragmatism, as well as under the influence of Wittgenstein ’s postmodernist ideas, Rortti criticizes the analytical tradition that dominates the English-speaking world. ^[18]

Criticism of the identification of an object with its theory

The main feature of the analytical tradition (analytical or linguistic philosophy) ^[28] Rorty understood the identification of the object with the theory of the object, which removed the question of the existence of the objective world and limited philosophy to the analysis of a logical language. ^[18] Conducting an audit of analytical philosophy from a hermeneutic position, R. Rorty believed that such a philosophy of language had exhausted itself and the main lesson of hermeneutics was the final de-epistemologization and detranscendentalization of philosophy in a pragmatic spirit. ^{[5] [26] [29]}

A word can have multiple meanings.

Rorty believes that the word has different meanings that vary depending on the discourses in which it is considered. And, since it is impossible to establish the meaning of a word once and for all, then there can be no one solution to the problem it signifies. ^[thirty]

New Hermeneutics

Understanding Rorty's hermeneutics is different from the traditional. It is the analyst of the existentiality of existence , the doctrine of the connection between man and the world, but not the methodology of the humanities or the technique of interpreting historical texts. ^[20]

Truth as a Myth

Truth is interpreted by Rorty as a worn out metaphor, an accomplished lie or delusion, which has received a value-normative status. ^[20] In his opinion, the dream of scientific philosophers about science was based on the belief in the possibility of justifying knowledge and such a Platonic-Cartesian-Kantian tradition, was guided by myth - believed in the Truth . ^[18]

Deconstruction of ideas about consciousness as a subject of philosophy

Rorty ’s views on consciousness are classified as eliminative materialism : consciousness as a “nomological idler” ^[31] Since the concept of “ consciousness ” does not have a referent and is based only on the intuition of its own Self, the problem of consciousness should not be solved, but eliminated . Rorty considers not only epistemological, but also ethical tradition to be false. ^[32]

Rationalistic error of the source of knowledge

Rorty, cites Hans Reichenbach ’s thought from The Rise of Scientific Philosophy, that a new scientific approach to philosophy, like giving up a battle of conflicting opinions and evading the assumption of supernatural origin according to moral standards and opening the way to truth, step by step, recognizes in traditional philosophical systems the historical function of asking questions, but not giving a solution. Rorty indicates that the examples of the philosophy of Plato , Spinoza , Kant, and others. - H. Reichenbach illustrates the "rationalistic error" - considering the source of knowledge, revealing both the physical world and moral truth - only one mind , without observation . ^{[27] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37]}

Criticism of ideological dominant

With all its leadership in the military, political and economic spheres, the United States is not a philosophically open country. American thinkers who have achieved worldwide recognition are, first and foremost , analytical philosophers. But, this tradition seems to Rorty lost its former value and detached from history, culture and public life. ^[38] Rorty states that in the departments of prestigious US universities, the analytical tradition of philosophy, advocating an orientation towards science and the idea of ​​logic, as the essence of philosophical knowledge, has become a kind of ideological dominant. ^[18]

1) Text and Meaning

Understanding the text as a reinterpretation of its interpretation

The text, the teaching, the tradition initially has no inner meaning , therefore it cannot be comprehended. The purpose of representation is to create meaning again. The main thing that defines the meaning space of human words is what a person utters them. The only mode of existence of which is to understand the predicted reality . Rorty believed that clear and provocative interpretation of the text always precedes the author. The text is created anew each time and exists only by virtue of its assignment to other texts, followed by the entire set of meanings of the existing dictionaries. ^[20]

The gap between the word and the thing

Metaphoric language, as a fundamental gap between the word and the thing . Only interpretations exist, so understanding is a reinterpretation of interpretation. ^[20]

What is the essence of the number 17?

Rorty gives an example of the number 17. You can offer a different description of this number, and they will be qualitatively different from each other. None of these descriptions is a more adequate representation of what is actually the number seventeen. None of the descriptions fix the “inner essence” of the number 17. The choice between them is the question of deciding which of the descriptions is the best tool for the purpose that we have in mind in a particular case. ^[eleven]

Rorty assumes that it is just as difficult to be an essentialist in the case of tables, values, truth, stars, electrons, people, academic disciplines, social institutions, etc. He argues that we can learn nothing except the structure of the relationship of these objects. Thus, all statements about objects are an implicit or explicit expression of their relationship to one or several parts of the Universe. Therefore, the unconventional version of Rorty's neo-pragmatism allows us to view all theories created so far by human culture as a "measurement of measurement." That is, for example, to see physics - a literary genre or, if you want, from another point of view, to see literature or philosophy - a way of conducting research that has the same basis as physics. ^[eleven]

Tradition

Tradition is understood by demetaphorization, the dying of living metaphors and their transformation into frozen truths that cannot be considered characteristics of being, since they are linguistic-semantic constructs, products of poetic creativity. Proclaimed ironic attitude to tradition, demythologization and its further utilitarian use. ^[20]

History

The recognition of historicism as an accident. Self-sufficiency and fragility of dictionaries. The denial of teleology and the assertion of the right to unlimited creativity . ^[20]

Literary criticism ( dialectics )

It is understood by the art of experimenting with the text and the relation (game) of some finite dictionaries with others. Recontextualization is the placement by the original thinker of his predecessors in a new context . ^[20]

Philosophy

Rorty does not dispute the building of philosophy, but believes that this building lacks a foundation of criteria for distinguishing between true and false, and philosophy itself is a language game and may well be part of a culture, like a literary genre or criticism. ^[18]

Justifying knowledge instead of searching for its base

The essence of philosophy , in the traditional sense - the search for grounds. Abandoning which the philosopher abandons philosophy, that is, ceases to be a philosopher , in the previously existing understanding. ^[thirty]

2) Irony is anti-metaphysics

Language and reality

Rejecting the idea that sentences or beliefs are "true" or "false" in any sense other than success within the framework of broad social practice, Rorty opposed the idea that the main function of a language is to represent or depict fragments of an objectively existing reality. ^[39]

Fighting Metaphysics

In mathephysics, he rejected both realism and idealism as the results of erroneous assumptions about language. ^[39]

Following L.Vitgershtein, R.Rorty is convinced that the approach to philosophy as metaphysics has exhausted itself. ^[thirty]

In this connection, E.Uskova expresses the opinion that Rorty expounds Kant 's thought that the tendency to metaphysics is inherent in the human mind. But if Kant considers metaphysics unreasonable for the human mind to go beyond experimental knowledge, and an attempt to judge what it obviously cannot know, then Rorty says that entities beyond real human experience cannot be known, because it is doubtful the concept of "knowledge" of Kant and other philosophers. ^[thirty]

Irony and creativity

According to Rorty, irony is a characteristic of an individual who embodies the creative ability to “rewrite” his position and his life as a whole. Allows you to cause yourself.

But true irony is the lot of the creative minority, the avant-garde of the human race.

It is the minority that creates new “rewriting”, new words and new dictionaries. ^[13]

Solidarity

An important characteristic of culture and society as a whole. Its formation is much more dependent on the upbringing and development of feelings than on the state of mind or reason. It rests on universal respect for human rights, on the triumph of values ​​such as equality, dignity and brotherhood, which depend on the goodwill of people. ^[13]

Rorty calls for harmony between the practices of irony and solidarity . ^[13]

3) Conversation , as hope for an agreement , instead of seeking truth.

Fighting Epistemology

In the epistemology, Rorty argued against the substantiation of knowledge with statements that did not require justification. ^[39] Opposed to the philosophical study of truth. Instead, he understood the role of philosophy - in conducting an intellectual “ conversation ” between contrasting, but equal forms of intellectual research, including science , literature , politics , religion, and many others, in order to achieve mutual understanding and conflict resolution. ^[39]

Rorty’s gaze is aimed at a new meaning of wisdom, like the ability to continue a conversation for the hope of reaching an agreement. ^[38]

Each person has the right to build his own world, with its own rules, according to which he will live as a guest of this world. Coordinating their activities with other people, worlds, through the establishment of relations similar to the relationship between different discourses . Therefore, hermeneutics comes to the fore, which R. Rorty understands as a conversation in which there is hope for an agreement to which people can come, but not because of the common criteria for resolving issues, but only because they are people . ^[thirty]

And this new approach is necessary, first of all, to hermeneutics itself - which should become a teaching about the connection between man and the world, instead of the methodology of humanities or the interpretation of historical texts. ^[thirty]

Search for agreement between different discourses

In the post-analytic tradition, the purpose of the philosophy of Rorty understands not the search for truth, as was the case in previous traditions, but conversation and communication ^[18] , but not on the basis of searching for a foundation that combines rationality common to all, but on the basis of hermeneutics, for which rationality is overcoming epistemology . ^[38] Science and philosophy are understood as one of the ways of such hermeneutic communication. ^[26]

The truth of interpretation is the creation of an extensive network of semantic relations. Reflection is more important than comprehending or revealing the truth , because it determines the existence of man . ^[20]

Normal and Abnormal Discourses

Rorty speaks of the need for an alternative philosophy, on the division into systemic (systematic), representing normal discourse and instructive, representing abnormal discourse. ^[30] According to Rorty, not only the meanings of words can be different, but the meanings that were rejected by the old linguistic philosophy. ^[thirty]

Rorty on religion, politics, science, art and art criticism

About religion

Speaking of religion , Rorty emphasizes that "neither those who claim nor those who deny the existence of God cannot believably claim that they have evidence of their views." ^[40]

About politics

In politics, Rorty opposed programs of both left and right in favor of the traditional left “bourgeois liberalism.” ^[39] Rorty says: “ The goal of social organization is to give everyone a chance for self-improvement to the best of their abilities and that the goal, in addition to peace and wealth , also requires“ bourgeois freedoms ”. ^[41]

About art

"My vision of utopia, " says Rorty , "assumes that, as a central sphere of culture, art and literature became the successors of science, just as science , in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, became the successor to religion ." ^[42]

Rorty compares the poetic metaphor with "stunning visual images": "At first glance, they have no meaning , but they are somehow strangely attractive, and then gradually they make sense, constantly using them again and again, and putting in more and more more contexts until they are familiar enough. Ultimately, it’s as if they just had a literal meaning . " ^[43]

About art criticism

In an interview with Flash Art, Rorty talks about the uselessness of a pragmatist philosophy for both the plumber and the art critic. A critic can make a work of art resonate with concepts of meaning and truth, but this will be a substitute for "accurate representation" - "a way to cope with reality and spirit." "You can be a pragmatist and at the same time - one of the 19 types of art historians." ^[43]

Founder of the Direction - Richard Rorty

Richard McKay Rorty (1931-2007) - American pragmatist philosopher and social activist. Since 1956 - Ph.D., Yale University . He taught at Wellesley College , at Princeton and Virginia Universities . ^{[39] [44] [45]}

Followers

According to the founder of the direction - "mainly in Oxward ." ^[30] A follower of R.Rorty in criticism of analytical philosophy, as well as a critic of Rorty himself is called R.Shusterman . ^[46]

The Study of Epistemological Relativism

The name of R.Rorty is included in the series of researchers of epistemological relativism: Peter Winch , Thomas S. Kuhn , Paul K. Feyerabend . ^[47]

Criticism of pragmatists and analysts, the charge of

• "the vulgarization of pragmatism" (S. Haaq);
• disregard of Dewey's immanent realistic intuitions (T. Levin);
• "Irrationalism" (S. Hook);
• methodological "relativism" and "anarchism" (D. Guinlok);
• having nothing to do with the scientific approaches to cognition, cultivated by Dewey and his followers, in anti-realism (Charles Hartshorne);
• lack of understanding of the philosophy of pragmatism in general and Dewey's instrumentalism in particular (J. Stur);
• reductionism (F. Farrell, J.-C. Wolf);
• quasi-philosophy, describing his texts as a good example of how one should not philosophize at all. The prevailing tendency of criticism of Rorty is the presentation of his views with the aim of showing the inconsistency of neopragmatism as a philosophical doctrine as a whole. ^[20]
• Hilary Putnam doubts Rorty’s ability to support his right to be a pragmatic realist. There are still many examples of criticism. ^[22] Rorty is considered a “defector” and refuses to recognize the validity of his conclusions regarding the “pragmatization” of analytical philosophy (D. Davidson, W. Quine, X. Putnam). ^[20]

Rorty himself denied accusations of relativism and subjectivism, stating that he rejects the terms that these doctrines suggest. However, some critics have argued that his views ultimately lead to relativistic or subjectivistic conclusions, regardless of whether Rorty wanted to characterize them in these terms or not. ^[39]

Criticism of Richard Schusterman

The concept of Rorty , preferring the "rotovsko-faustovskomu" genre, does not "take into account" the existence of other genres of "aesthetic life":

1. Enjoyment of beauty, "contemplation and consumption of beautiful objects."
2. Not so much the “consumption” of the aesthetic as the romantic (classical) desire of a person to turn his life into a work of art. ^[48]

According to Shusterman, there is a “non-oriental” perspective of aesthetic life, a combination of the first and second genres. Criticizing Rorty , Schusterman justifies his version of "aesthetic life" by offering a more pluralistic interpretation of aesthetic life, which is characterized by a more traditional understanding of aesthetic. ^[48]

Criticism of Slava Zizek

Zizek insists that we do not live in a post-ideological world, as claimed by figures such as Tony Blair, Daniel Bell or Richard Rorty . To understand modern politics, a different concept of ideology is needed, which has not so much disappeared from the political landscape, but has become independent. ^[49]

The range of assessments of the Rorty doctrine in Russia is from enthusiastic, as one of the heights of modern philosophy, with which it is necessary to acquaint the Russian reader, to doubt the significance. ^[20]

Popularity as an example of anti-philosophy

Today, Rorty remains one of the most published, cited and criticized authors. However, his texts are rather an example of anti-philosophy, an example of how not to philosophize. ^[6]

Atypical product of the postmodern era

Rorty threw a postmodernist challenge to the tradition of rationalistic thought, which requires the development of counter-arguments. ^{[23] [50]} Such a project of reconstruction of Western philosophy, as well as a radical-critical assessment of its condition, are quite atypical (both in content and in form) for the Anglo-Saxon analytical tradition and constitute a specific “product” of the so-called “post-modern era” . ^{[6] [7]}

• A new paradigm of scientific knowledge, the birth of which was contributed by R.Rorty can be called convergent. ^[44]

• "Criticism of Rorty sees avant-garde motifs in it - the interchange with Feyerabend's " methodological anarchism ", the idea of" two cultures "by Charles Snow , the ideas of existentialism , postmodernism , with the innovations of counterculture , etc. But the philosophy of Rorthy can be considered a new turn in the development of long - lasting romanticism - the tradition of European thought. And its characteristic intention to end the eternal oscillations of philosophy between science and art , hiding it, as a type of literary art, under the umbrella of the latter. " ^[ten]
• The visit of Richard Rorty to Russia in 1997 at the invitation of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences sparked a growing interest in the work of an American pragmatist. ^[51]

Richard Rorty, Philosophy in America Today ^{[52] [53]}

Richard Rorty, Richard Rorty, books ^[54]

Hans Reichenbach, "The Rise of Scientific Philosophy" ^{[27] [55]}

G. Reichenbach, "The Direction of Time" ^[56]

G. Reichenbach, “The Philosophy of Space and Time” ^[57]