Between Argumentation and “Conversation”: Richard Rorty’s Neopragmatist Rhetoric
Oksana TselishchevaThe article is devoted to the study of the position of R. Rorty in relation to two different methods of philosophical discourse - argumentation and “conversation”. The first of these correlates with the epistemological tradition, the heir of which is declared analytical philosophy, while the second - with continental philosophy. The research method consists in the analysis of Rorty’s neo-pragmatist rhetoric, which claims to find a balance between the argumentative style in philosophy and the understanding of philosophy as a “conversation of humanity”. Rorty’s motivation for this understanding is that philosophers-as-poets do not follow the standards of philosophical argumentation and offer new types of conversations. The author traces the origins of the concept of Rorty’s philosophy as a “conversation”, going back to the appeal of M. Heidegger and G. Gadamer to the poetry of F. Hölderlin. The article shows, that despite the slogan “philosophy as a conversation of humanity” in the spirit of hermeneutics, Rorty does not in any way reject argumentative practice. Moreover, he is trying with analytical precision to make the “conversations” believable, presenting them in the framework of an argumentative reasoning. On the other hand, Rorty cannot afford the full approval of the argumentative practice of analytic philosophers to the detriment of the evasive linguistic practice of continental philosophers. In this regard, Rorty was forced to keep a certain kind of neutrality. Such a neutrality of Rorty is analyzed in his evaluation of the work of J. Derrida, in which he calls many of Derrida’s arguments (in controversy with his opponent J. Searle) awful, and yet Derrida remains one of his heroes. Rorty shows a scornful attitude towards Serl to prevent analytical philosophy from winning too much. The article concludes that Rorty’s interpretation of opposing argumentation and “conversation” in philosophical discourse is a reflection of his philosophical “ecumenism”. Rorty was between two opposing trends in characterizing the essence of philosophy, not daring to choose between argumentation and conversation. The famous slogan of Rorty - philosophy is the conversation of mankind - is supported by his considerable argument. Such a mixture of genres speaks of the instability of the concept of neopragmatist rhetoric, which among its followers takes the form of a new style of philosophizing.