{"title":"Postpragmatism: Quine, Rorty, and a thoroughgoing Atheoreticism","authors":"Albert Piacente","doi":"10.1163/18758185-bja10087","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper develops the pragmatic “atheoreticism” of Quine and Rorty. A position I dub “postpragmatism”—paralleling the post phases of modernism and humanism—my purpose here is to bring to a culmination what Quine and Rorty started decades before. By doing so, I argue, it becomes possible for Quine, and more so Rorty, to avoid the most common critiques of their atheoretic form of pragmatism. Chief among them, that it is mired in self-contradiction. Rather than rely upon theory to justify atheoreticism—the very stuff of their self-contradiction—I rely instead upon Rorty’s own insouciance, syncretism, and eclecticism to shift the ground of debate from concern with what is justified to concern with what is interesting.</p>","PeriodicalId":42794,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Pragmatism","volume":"143 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Contemporary Pragmatism","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18758185-bja10087","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"PHILOSOPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This paper develops the pragmatic “atheoreticism” of Quine and Rorty. A position I dub “postpragmatism”—paralleling the post phases of modernism and humanism—my purpose here is to bring to a culmination what Quine and Rorty started decades before. By doing so, I argue, it becomes possible for Quine, and more so Rorty, to avoid the most common critiques of their atheoretic form of pragmatism. Chief among them, that it is mired in self-contradiction. Rather than rely upon theory to justify atheoreticism—the very stuff of their self-contradiction—I rely instead upon Rorty’s own insouciance, syncretism, and eclecticism to shift the ground of debate from concern with what is justified to concern with what is interesting.