A Critique of Richard Rorty's Neo-pragmatism

A Critique of Richard Rorty’s Neo-pragmatism Nataraju Adarasupally Debosmitha Chakraborty Abstract: Certain questions have always intrigued the minds of philosophers regarding the nature and essence of philosophy for ages. “What is philosophy?, What is philosophy for?, How should philosophy be done?”, etc. These questions were answered by many a thinker over the ages, and each of these answers had laid the path for a new theoretical discourse in philosophy. One such discourse is related to pragmatism that stresses on the practical application of philosophical theories. However, the pragmatic school of thought was vehemently criticized by analytic philosophy to such an extent that it was on the verge of extinction from the philosophical scenario. In the contemporary era, Richard Rorty is credited to have revived the spirit of pragmatism once again. Rorty revised the traditional pragmatic theories and put them in a new format and labelled it as neo-pragmatism. Our main aim in this paper would be to analyse the neo-pragmatic theory of Rorty and to argue whether or not his theory is successful in answering the age-old questions of philosophy that we cited above. Keywords: Pragmatism, linguistic turn, neo-pragmatism, Richard Rorty, representationalism. Introduction In the field of modern academic philosophy, it is believed that analytic philosophy was responsible for the decline of pragmatism.1 Pragmatism for 1 Cheryl, Misak, 2013, “Rorty, Pragmatism, and Analytic Philosophy”, Humanities 2 | Nataraju adarasupally aNd debosmitha Chakraborty much of the twentieth century was largely in eclipse and the reason for its departure was considered to be the reigning trend of analytic philosophy. Of late we find that there is a shift of interest from analytic to pragmatic approach in dealing with the problems of philosophy. The pragmatist philosophy which was eliminated from the philosophical scenario is now standing alongside the long dominating theoretic conceptions of academic philosophy. This revival in the spirit of pragmatism can be credited to the contribution of American philosopher Richard Rorty. Though Richard Rorty at the initial years of his career was fascinated by the analytic tradition and the linguistic turn taken by it, later he changed his position from a staunch analytic philosopher into a vigorous critic of this tradition, paving the way for a new theory called neo-pragmatism. From the time of Rorty’s 1979 presidential address (meetings of the Eastern Division of American Philosophical Association), he selfconsciously identified himself with the pragmatic tradition of William James and John Dewey. He took the basic assumptions of pragmatism and blending it with the linguistic turn taken by the analytic movement proposed a modern version of pragmatism popularly known as “neopragmatism”. The main aim of the traditional pragmatists was to blend human practices with philosophical suppositions. Neo-pragmatism accepts this maxim of traditional pragmatism and makes an advancement by applying the pragmatic principles to solve the issues of contemporary society. It also attempts to apply the pragmatic ideologies to the political sphere and redefine politics on the lines of philosophical principles. The neo-pragmatic theory of Rorty is supposed to be an evaluative analysis of the defining undertakings of philosophy. Neo-pragmatism also aims to exhibit what would be the outcome if we release our minds from the dominating allegories of mind and knowledge as these were the main elements of the traditional philosophical problems. MDPI- Publisher of Open Access Journal, ISSN: 2076-0787 (www.mdpi.com/ journal/humanities), pp. 369-83. a Critique of riChard rorty’s Neo-pragmatism | 3 The Influences In the middle of the twentieth century, many philosophical perspectives began to emerge and they were very critical about the validity of methods employed by the Anglo-analytic philosophers. Quine was one of them who questioned the legitimacy of the techniques of analytic philosophy. In Word and Object, he criticized the relation of correspondence between concepts and reality.2 Quine forwarded several arguments in favour of “ontological relativity” which challenges the notion that language can characterize or picture the uniquely non-subjective aspect of reality.3 The theory of “ontological relativity” claims that the existence of things in the world is completely dependent on one’s individual “mental language”. Mental language is essentially how words signify ideas in our minds to portray the objects existent in the external world. The theory of the “ontological relativity” of Quine influenced the neo-pragmatic theory of Rorty. Particularly its argument challenging the picture theory of language and representationalism, the view that every investigation aims to provide an accurate representation of reality with the means of language. Apart from Quine, Kuhn’s works motivated Rorty in shaping his neo-pragmatic theory. Kuhn claimed that the language which represents reality or as he terms it as “paradigm” are useful only if they are capable of providing future scope for further observation and experiment.4 Kuhn belonged to the area of philosophy of science, and in his work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions he holds that scientific progress is a sort of inaccurate term and that scientific advancement is possible only if we discard the baggage of old scientific standards along with their ideas and techniques and replace them with some new standards. This could provide new scope for experimentation and also put some novel scientific ontology. Besides Quine and Kuhn, the works of Wittgenstein, Sellers, Derrida 2 Quine, 1960, Word and Object, p. 221. 3 Quine, 1969, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, pp. 50-51. 4 Kuhn, 1970, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p. 120. 4 | Nataraju adarasupally aNd debosmitha Chakraborty and Heidegger hugely impacted Rorty in formulating his neo-pragmatic theory. In the later writings of Wittgenstein, especially in Philosophical Investigations, we can notice some contradictions from the ideas which he expressed in Tractatus Logico Philosophicus. Wittgenstein contradicts his previous arguments and states that language does not function to represent reality, but instead it should accomplish the task of doing some work for the community.5 Rorty used this view of Wittgenstein in his theory of neo-pragmatism. The importance which Wittgenstein puts on the usage of language to achieve community goals and the issues which he identifies while attempting to commune among two distinct language games were some of the themes entertained by Rorty in his philosophy. Some philosophers have criticized neo-pragmatism to be a new version of idealism, but it can be differentiated from idealism because neo-pragmatism denies that the actual states of existence of the objects in the world are capable of being affected by the beliefs of the individual’s mind. Though neo-pragmatism is affirmative towards the idea of reality which is independent of the mind, at the same time, it retains that it is impossible to know the world by following the traditional Cartesian usage of the term “know”. Again, the distinction between neo-pragmatism and epistemic relativism is based on the view that for an epistemic relativist the most important task is to find out whether his ideas are correct in accordance with the reality. But the neo-pragmatists were not concerned about justifying their ideas in correspondence with the reality as it has no practical utility. What concerns the neo-pragmatists like Rorty is the advancement of habits as well as beliefs that permit an individual to improve and get habituated with his environment rather than producing pictures that are used for the description of reality. The theory of neopragmatism discards the idea of producing accurate images of reality and hence the concept of epistemic relativism is of no importance to them. 5 Wittgenstein, 1953, Philosophical Investigations, p. 23. a Critique of riChard rorty’s Neo-pragmatism | 5 I Rorty’s Critique of Analytic Philosophy Rorty’s theory of neo-pragmatism cannot be elaborated without discussing his critique of analytic philosophy. Rorty deconstructed analytic philosophy by using its own technique. His criticism is that analytic philosophy was always very supportive of the worthiness of scientific knowledge as it is supported by strong reasons derived from experimentation, but it did so at the cost of other forms of knowledge such as art and poetry. Rorty’s thinking can be better understood in the background of the historical context. Starting from the early Greek thinkers, the effort was to create some sort of ontological synthesis that provided the culture with unity, clarity and consistency concerning its incorporation with reality. According to Dupre: When this synthesis began to unravel in the fifteenth century, language and reality, power and dependence, immanence and transcendence separated into oppositional poles. Metaphysics, the traditional reflection upon this unity, came to be replaced by an epistemological search for “foundations” of each of these fragments.6 This situation led the philosophers of the twentieth century to put forward their philosophical views as they failed to catch hold of the situation. Some of the famous philosophical schools that resulted from such dilemmas are the schools of structuralism, logical positivism, deconstructionism, existentialism, etc. It was an effort made by the twentieth-century philosophers to provide a clear and distinct voice to their respective consistent standpoints. All these different schools of philosophy were considered to have a modernistic perspective. The most fundamental principle of modernism is that it looks upon the world from a mechanistic viewpoint. It means that the organization and unification of the world are managed in a way that it can calculate the cause and the effect. 6 Dupre, 1993, “Post-modernity or Late Modernity?”, p. 294. 6 | Nataraju adarasupally aNd debosmitha Chakraborty Such pursuit was an effort to break free from the historical bindings and search for the conditions that are non-historical regarding the nature and existence of human beings. Their intention was to determine the foundation of knowledge by ascertaining the justification of knowledge claims and also the apprehension of the mind. Descartes was the first to begin this search as he made the mind–body distinction by giving an independent status to the mind and believing it as a distinct entity from the body. Descartes proposes the mind to be something that attributes mental properties. As Bernstein says that Descartes is the initiator of the idea called “cartesian anxiety”,7 i.e. a fashion that tries to utilize reason as a mode to search for the foundations of knowledge. The reason behind the search for a philosophical foundation must be understood at the backdrop of the decline of the dominance of religion in the Western world. According to Rorty, the preachers of religion, the theologians were the guardians of moral values but eventually, they were overthrown by the philosophers who replaced them. Rorty claims that philosophy in spite of overpowering the theologians did not take the charge but it was the sciences that took the charge after theology, and as sciences became distant from the society, the position of moral guardians was adopted by the novelists and also by the poets and in this way philosophy became off-track and eventually lost the unique position which it held previously in the society.8 Rorty accuses analytic philosophy of distancing itself from the established culture. It has been observed that during the late 1960s and the beginning of 1970s, the Western tradition was in serious need of some guidance that could direct them to the right path, but philosophy had nothing to put forward. To quote Rorty, One way to see how analytic philosophy fits within the traditional Cartesiann– Kantian pattern is to see traditional philosophy as an attempt to escape from historical … an attempt to find non7 Bernstein, 1983, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, p. 18. 8 Rorty, 1979, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, p. 5. a Critique of riChard rorty’s Neo-pragmatism | 7 historical conditions of any possible historical development. From this perspective, the common message of Wittgenstein, Dewey, and Heidegger is a historicist one. Each of the three reminds us that the investigations of the foundations of knowledge or morality or language or society may be simply apologetic, attempts to eternalize a certain contemporary language-game, social practice, or self-image.9 Rorty believed that these three distinct philosophers who were crucial in putting an end to the legacies of Descartes, Locke and Kant were Wittgenstein, Dewey and Heidegger. These philosophers were interested in discovering ways through which they can be able to call philosophy as a “foundational” discourse. At the initial phase of their works, they tried to devise some ideal framework of thought. Wittgenstein attempted to bring into light a noble notion of representationalism and considered it to be distinct from mentalism. Wittgenstein’s investigation of language leads him to critique extreme form of mentalism that says that there are mental states which are independent of objective reality. For him, an inner process stands in need of outward criteria. There is no inner space in which thoughts can occur. Heidegger aimed to establish a distinct set of categories that are philosophical and those categories would not in any sense be connected with the epistemology, science and also the search for certainty which was the ideal for Cartesianism. Heidegger says, “Truth is unconcealment. Unconcealment does not exist somewhere in itself, but is only in so far as it happens as the history of human beings.”10 Dewey was focused on providing a naturalistic touch to the version of history. However, each one of them eventually realized that their previously mentioned thoughts were self-deceptive and thus they made an exit from following the path of Kantian philosophy and believed philosophy to be foundational. Rorty states that each of these three philosophers, in the second phase of their careers, was very cautious and even warned the next generation of philosophers not to be lured by 9 10 Rorty, 1979, op. cit., p. 9. Heidegger, 2010, Being and Truth, p. 171. 8 | Nataraju adarasupally aNd debosmitha Chakraborty the ideas of Kantianism. Rorty, therefore, claims that their works are not constructive but therapeutic. They were interested in edification and not in systematization of philosophy.11 Wittgenstein, Dewey and Heidegger rejected representationalism because the mind was not worthy enough to provide a special status for the inquiry. Though they discarded the reason or being as a conventional aspect of philosophy, yet they provided a fresh new approach for the philosophers to explore. Rorty was one among those who attempted to explore the new path and he did so in the first place by discarding the theory of essentialism. By essentialism, it means the purpose of establishing a list of finite characteristics that can be used to determine if a thing be affiliated to a specific group. But for Rorty, the desire to discover a finite list of characteristics relies upon the Cartesian quest to determine the foundations of knowledge. The analytic philosophers, as Rorty believed, desired to find a “final set of vocabularies”12 that would initiate the formation of a chain of other vocabularies and he considers this to be similar to the desire to reach certainty in Cartesianism. Rorty believed that there is no omniscient viewpoint that would authorize the arbitration between the knowledge claims that are competing, and hence he denies the relation of correspondence between human knowledge and the world. Instead, Rorty says that there exists some particular set of perspectives relying upon the control of our habits, atmosphere, and surrounding. And from this, it can be assumed that the fixed set of norms and reasonable goals of inquiries provide the rationality within a group of users of the language. Rorty discards the dichotomy between the subject and the object as he considers it to be devised to correspond to the difference between fact and value which was commenced by the logical positivists. Rorty’s opinion was that such kind of dichotomy results in more problems rather than providing solutions. Hence, it can be assumed that any discussion concerning metaphysics is useless. He strongly suggests that it is high 11 Rorty, 1979, op. cit., p. 5. 12 Rorty, 1988, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, p. 73. a Critique of riChard rorty’s Neo-pragmatism | 9 time to go back to Socrates and concentrate on the art of listening, conversing and contemplating. Such kind of acts, Rorty believes, include only moral virtues and one need not pay attention to any sort of quest that is epistemological or metaphysical. Rorty’s primary line of reasoning against analytic philosophy was its inclination towards the notion of dualism of Cartesianism. He rejects the Cartesian dichotomy and its effort to discover the foundations of knowledge. Specifically, he rejects the notion of essentialism and considers that there cannot be any sort of characteristic of ahistorical knowledge claims. Precisely, Rorty believes that there exists nothing called final vocabulary. Rorty was convinced that there is a need for a fresh perspective because modern philosophy was incapable of holding the different characteristics of human beings’ lives that are important. The unique path led by philosophy started to go off the track. The reason behind this is that the subject matter of philosophy is now claimed to be the subject matter of many other disciplines including some special branches of sciences. Rorty believes that instead of doing the task of determination of other disciplines, philosophy must adopt an independent role. Philosophy must be an upgraded, well informed and logical ongoing discussion in which everybody can participate. From Pragmatism to Neo-Pragmatism Neo-pragmatism is often referred to as linguistic pragmatism because of the emphasis it puts on language. Neo-pragmatism attempts to modify and represent some of the themes of classical pragmatism. It is also referred to as the post-modern model of pragmatism. Richard Rorty is credited to be the originator of this theory. Being influenced by the works of Heidegger, Sellars, Dewey, Derrida and Quine, he attempted to provide a new perspective to approach the problems of philosophy. Rorty’s neo-pragmatic theory rejects the notions such as representationalism, universal truth, epistemic objectivity and foundations of epistemology. He concentrates on the utilization of language and not on experience as 10 | Nataraju adarasupally aNd debosmitha Chakraborty the traditional theory does. His theory is supposed to have a nominalistic approach, as it does not accept that linguistic entities have substantive metaphysical connotation. Rorty’s neo-pragmatism marks an advancement from the classical pragmatism as it exhibits some kind of accordance with the linguistic turn in philosophy. The classical pragmatism always emphasized the importance of actions, but neo-pragmatism puts greater value on language while coping with actions. Neo-pragmatism agrees with the notion of classical pragmatism that the theories of philosophy must be applied to the practices of different aspects of human life. Neo-pragmatists apply this basic pragmatic perspective to the issues of philosophy. Neo-pragmatism attempts to find out how it would turn if we apply the perspectives of pragmatist principles to the contemporary world. The difference between classical pragmatism and neo-pragmatism is because of the impact of the linguistic turn in philosophy which took place sometime between the early and the middle phases of the twentieth century. After the linguistic turn, the topic of discussion in philosophy began to change. From the discussions on idea, mind and the world it shifted to the talks about the value of language in the world. Philosophers changed their discussion from the subject of the ideas that exist in the individual’s minds and began to discuss the mental language as well as about the words that can be utilized for implementing the concepts. The school of linguistic philosophy that was dominant in the early twentieth century was of the view that through linguistic analysis one can discover the notions of objectivity, meaning and truth regarding the actual reality. The linguistic philosophers claim that truth can be derived by placing the linguistic and non-linguistic entities in a proper relation of correspondence. This view is termed as the theory of representationalism. The idea is that truth and falsity of propositions should be determined based on whether they correspond to the facts existing in the real world. This theory is termed as the correspondence theory of truth. But Rorty’s neo-pragmatic theory rejects both correspondence theory and representationalist theory. It believes in the implementation of the a Critique of riChard rorty’s Neo-pragmatism | 11 conversational method in philosophy. Rather than depending on the bizarre correspondence between the mind and the world, neo-pragmatism asks us to focus on the conversations between human beings through which knowledge would generate. To quote Rorty, If we see knowledge as a matter of conversation and of social practice, rather than as an attempt to mirror nature, we will not be likely to envisage a meta-practice which will be the critique of all possible forms of social practice.13 Rorty and Neo-pragmatism Rorty’s neo-pragmatism does not rely upon any sort of theoretical aims and ideas to search for the foundations of knowledge and the task of discovering the truth. It suggests a new path for the advancement of philosophy. Basing mainly on the ideas of classical pragmatists’, especially William James, Rorty intended to adopt a socio-historical viewpoint. He did not care about the questions regarding the relationship between language and reality and was not interested in exploring what “being-qua-being” means. Rorty understood that the efforts made by the philosophers to attain comprehensive knowledge about the constitution of the world and precisely the nature of truth and reality is something that is beyond the limits of human beings. Knowledge is not an affair of justification regarding the alliance between the subject and the reality, but production of knowledge is supposed to be a social occurrence. Hence, there exists no higher authority which can give some final judgement, rather it is the purpose of the community in which the individual is a member. The need of the hour is to maintain some kind of balance between the principles and norms of discrete rationality. Therefore, the validity or invalidity of an argument can be derived from their confirmation or denial of the community norms. Consequently, Rorty states that the intention is to consider the importance of conversations and not assuming that the path through which truth can be known is the path of inquiry. In neo-pragmatism, 13 Rorty, 1979, op. cit., p. 171. 12 | Nataraju adarasupally aNd debosmitha Chakraborty we find that the theory and practice are entwined and both are entitled to mutual development. Human beings must have the acceptance of the revisionist contingency concerning social practices as they describe what human beings are. Thus, neo-pragmatism aims to establish a “coping” programme with the help of initiating dialogue between human beings. The neo-pragmatic theory has been set up while keeping in mind the ideas of practicality, sensibility and morality. Rorty rejects the subject–object dichotomy and also the distinction between fact and value. As an alternative, he gives space for unconventional narratives as well as encourages intellectual liberty. Rorty states that what is observed at the primary stage of action is the plan of the action and what shapes the meaning of such actions is the aggregation of these consequences. Following the line of traditional pragmatism, neo-pragmatism also gives importance to the practical consequences of actions. In neo-pragmatism what matters most is the productivity and constructive nature of the actions and not the realization and descriptions of objectives. Thus neo-pragmatism discards the foundations of knowledge. It attempts to provide a critical viewpoint which is considered to be the description of the modern philosophical projects. Neo-pragmatism tries to exhibit that our intellectual society would become much better if we try to liberate ourselves from the dominating allegory of knowledge as well as the mind, as Rorty believes that they are the root cause of all the conventional issues in epistemology and metaphysics. The two philosophers who are significant contributors to pragmatic theory are James and Dewey. James and Dewey have always differed in their views from the traditional philosophers. The attitude of the pragmatists was radically opposed to that of the traditional Western philosophers starting from Plato. Rorty, therefore, can be best considered as advancing the legacies of these two pioneers of pragmatism as his theory of neo-pragmatism is concerned about anti-dualism, antirepresentationalism and also for his anti-essentialism. Rorty believes that there is no such thing that can be permanently a Critique of riChard rorty’s Neo-pragmatism | 13 stable as everything is subject to change by the practices of mankind. The interaction between mankind and the environment in which they live is made possible by utilizing the mechanism which is presented by the environment itself. For Rorty, the most valuable tool that human beings exclusively possess is language. According to Rorty, the element which is unique in neo-pragmatism and which is distinct from classical pragmatism is the emphasis which it puts on language. Rorty credits this to be the result of the linguistic turn in philosophy. Rorty believes that the development from pragmatism to neo-pragmatism depends on the idea that instead of focusing on the individual experiences one should try with the help of language to communicate these experiences. The themes entertained by classical pragmatism revolve around the relationship which is instrumental between the ideas of belief, knowledge and action. But classical pragmatism did not pay any attention to the description of such relationships with the means of language. In Rorty’s understanding of neo-pragmatism we find a dual-tone of consciousness. The first tone is of a meta-critique and the second stands as the rhetorical defendant of the theory of pragmatism. The consideration of philosophy as a constructive discipline should be discarded as it is devoid of the foundations upon which it should be built. This anti-foundational attitude was very prominent in every aspect of Rorty’s writings. He criticized the foundationalist epistemology and wanted to free philosophy from the chains of foundationalism. Along with foundationalism, Rorty was highly critical about the notion of representationalism which was the core of traditional and analytic philosophy. This might have inspired him to develop a new theory which should be independent and beyond the realms of any sort of foundationalism and representationalism. The linguistic turn laid before philosophy a way out from the traditional mistake which philosophy committed in the form of foundationalism. He says that focusing absolutely on the application of language that is commonly available one can free oneself from the assertive notion that points to the search for some foundations of knowledge claims. However, Rorty was quite sure that this was not the actual aim of the linguistic turn. 14 | Nataraju adarasupally aNd debosmitha Chakraborty He states that the primary concern of the early period in the twentieth century was to shift the focus from consciousness to language and it was “rather a desperate attempt to keep philosophy an armchair discipline”.14 Rorty was hopeful that linguistic turn would be successful in saving philosophy from the clasp of foundationalism. According to him, The idea was to mark off a space for a priori knowledge into which neither sociology nor history nor art nor natural science could intrude. It was an attempt to find a substitute for Kant’s “transcendental standpoint”. The replacement of “mind” or “experience” by “meaning” was supposed to ensure the purity and autonomy of philosophy by providing it with a non-empirical subject matter.15 It was always assured by philosophy that it would provide for empirical inquiry a non-empirical foundation, but it never did what it promised. Such promises were made by Descartes, Locke and Kant that had resulted in providing philosophy its established position in the world of modernity. But when it started to appear that empirical inquiry can flourish without the help of any foundations, what the philosophers did was that they reissued the assurance which they made earlier in order to express the state of the potentiality of empirical knowledge by withdrawing these states of potentialities from experience and putting these potentialities in favour of language. Rorty states that the two important propositions that motivated him to put language in place of experience were, First, the two terms had an equally large scope … both delimited the entire domain of human inquiry, of topics available to human study. Second, the notions of “language” and “meaning” seemed at the beginning of the century, immune to the naturalizing process.16 Rorty viewed the linguistic turn as a step forward towards the path of pragmatism as it allows us to concentrate on the area of sociolinguisticism 14 Rorty, 1991, Essays on Heidegger and Others, p. 50. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., p. 53. a Critique of riChard rorty’s Neo-pragmatism | 15 where the advancement of knowledge takes place in a self-corrective manner and prevents us from giving any details regarding the empirical grounds of knowledge. In his theory of neo-pragmatism, the basic idea which Rorty wants to advance is that the acceptance of this approach would lead one to abandon the hunt to discover something beyond the reach of human practice and urges them to focus on one’s surrounding through which they could do something for the improvement of their society. Thus, we can say that the attempt made by Rorty to put language in the place of experience was mainly based on the idea of a non-foundationalist account of knowledge that could be settled not based on some individual’s mental conviction, instead, it needs to be based on some agreement of intersubjective dialogue. Such intersubjective dialogue was the necessity of the anti-foundationalist stance. II A Critique of Rorty’s Neo-pragmatism In spite of the assurance that Rorty gave us to advance the legacy of philosophy by putting an end to the perennial issues, his efforts were somewhat questionable and are criticized by many thinkers. The neopragmatic theory of Rorty was very appealing because it assured to lighten philosophy from the burden of excessively loaded terms, opened for it the door of communication and also promised to put an end to the traditional issues. It asserts that as everything is supposed to be depicted with the means of language, the language should be suited or qualified for the experience. The first major argument against neo-pragmatism will be on supporting the position of experience and not language as an intrinsic aspect of pragmatism and by doing so, we would like to highlight the major drawbacks of neo-pragmatism. The second point of critique against Rorty’s neo-pragmatism is that it lacks practicality and adopts a theoretical approach. In spite of the 16 | Nataraju adarasupally aNd debosmitha Chakraborty claims made by Rorty regarding the failure of the techniques adopted by traditional philosophy, his perspective concerning language discloses his silent adoption of the traditional perspectives, i.e. the theoretical technique. Such acceptance on his part appears to be the major flaw of neo-pragmatism which indicates the adoption of a theoretical approach in place of a practical and even an experimental one. It can be noticed that the neo-pragmatism of Rorty has an existential backdrop as it is the result of Rorty’s dissatisfaction with the false hopes and promises made by philosophy. The fake promises made by philosophy generate the hope that it is capable of satisfying the aesthetic as well as the moral necessities while fulfilling the theoretical needs also. The neo-pragmatic theory of Rorty was framed in such a manner so that it can provide a new model of communication against the representational model of acquiring knowledge. Neo-pragmatism tends to discover a communicative model that appreciates and promotes intersubjective dialogue by replacing unrealistic objectivity of experience. But it appears that such an intersubjective aspect in which neo-pragmatism professes is restricted in providing an objective account of the action of communication and cooperation that can only be comprehended from the participant’s viewpoint. The jargon which Rorty uses does not allow any sort of differentiation between the participant and the observer’s viewpoint. Jürgen Habermas while criticizing Rorty writes: Interpersonal relationships, which are owed to the intersubjective possession of a shared language, are assimilated to the pattern of adaptive behaviour (or instrumental action). A correspondence dedifferentiation between the strategic and non-strategic use of language, between action-oriented towards success and action, oriented towards reaching understanding, robs Rorty of the conceptual means for doing justice to the intuitive distinctions between convincing and persuading, between motivation through reasons and causal exertion of influence, between learning and indoctrination.17 17 Habermas, 1999, On the Pragmatics of Communication, p. 377. a Critique of riChard rorty’s Neo-pragmatism | 17 He further states : The counter-intuitive mingling of the one with the other has the unpleasant consequence that we lose the critical standards operating in every life. Rorty’s naturalist strategy leads to a categorical leveling of distinctions of such a kind that our descriptions lose their sensitivity for differences in everyday practices.18 The neo-pragmatism of Rorty is considered to be unique because of its adherence to the linguistic turn and its implementation of the usefulness of language in pragmatism and finally applying it to the sociocultural sphere. The linguisticism of which Rorty talks about can be described briefly in the following words : There are no constraints on inquiry save the conversational ones … no wholesale constraints derived from the nature of the objects, or of the mind, or language, but only those retail constraints provided by the remarks of our fellow inquirers.19 The major criticism of Rorty’s pragmatism which approaches the notion of sociolinguisticism to achieve epistemic certainty is that it cannot avoid the path of relativism. Here the question that concerns us is: Whether the sociolinguistic consent and solidarity are capable of putting forward a yardstick of truth which is more stronger in comparison to the obvious non-criterion which relativism upholds? John McDowell answers this question in negation and he criticizes Rorty by claiming that one should formulate, “inquiry as normatively beholden not just to current practice but to its subject matter”.20 The critique of neo-pragmatism as put forward by McDowell is embedded on the idea that, if our freedom in empirical thinking is total … that can seem to threaten the very possibility that judgements of experience might be grounded in a way that relates them to a reality external to thought … surely there 18 Habermas, 1999, op. cit., p. 377. 19 Rorty, 1982, Consequences of Pragmatism, p. 165. 20 McDowell, 2000, “Towards Rehabilitating Objectivity”, p. 115. 18 | Nataraju adarasupally aNd debosmitha Chakraborty must be such a grounding if experience is to be a source of knowledge.21 But McDowell also fails in establishing a unique mechanism that would be completely different from the functions of foundationalism and representationalism. Richard Shusterman is convinced that Rorty’s notion of linguisticism is not capable of coping with the terms related to nonlinguistic experiences. It must be pointed that Shusterman failed to notice the claims of Rorty regarding his acceptance of the experiences as existing beyond the arena of sociolinguistic consent only if the experiences are in no way related to the ideals of knowledge and justification. Barry Allen criticizes Rorty’s neo-pragmatic theory by stating that the sociolinguistic approach to epistemology as put forward by Rorty did not succeed in grasping only experience but also knowledge. Allen describes his claim by splitting it into two points. First, he states that there are distinctive factors like skills, acts and innovative methods which are responsible for making some crucial contribution to the idea of knowledge, it also escalates our possibility to utilize this idea more sensibly. And second, Allen argues that all these distinctive factors can never be limited totally to some linguistic entities. Knowledge can better be grasped while taking into account certain “complex artifactual achievements than in terms of either linguistic or mental states”.22 Allen also points out that Rorty was incapable of making, “the crucial difference between the accomplishment of knowledge and the conventional, social weigh of institutional authority”.23 A similar sort of problem arises when we attempt to bring context to politics by shifting it from knowledge. Like Allen’s argument that linguisticism which Rorty talks about is not able to entertain the artifactual and personified occurrence of knowledge, in the same way, it 21 McDowell, 2000, op. cit., p. 5. 22 Koopman, 2009, Pragmatism as Transition, p. 99. 23 Allen, Barry, 2000, “Is It Pragmatism?”, p. 142. a Critique of riChard rorty’s Neo-pragmatism | 19 fails to address the personified as well as the non-propositional political characteristics. The point which we observed in Allen’s critique of the linguisticism of Rorty is that he considers it to be inadequate concerning both accounts of an individual’s experience and knowledge. Thus, Allen here criticizes the linguistic turn itself. But he states that epistemological lacking which we find in linguisticism can be addressed without going back to foundationalism. The path of possibility as shown by Allen is the formulation of knowledge that should be considered neither totally linguistic nor limited as an ultimate call for an individual’s knowledge. Bernard Williams and Charles Taylor have reservations against Rorty’s account of the distinction between the scientific programme and the future philosophy programme which he tries to show in his neopragmatic theory. They consider it to be unsatisfactory and unacceptable. To quote Williams: In a very revealing passage Rorty says that “pragmatism denies the possibility of getting beyond the … notion of ‘seeing how things hang together’ … which, for the bookish intellectual of recent times, means seeing how all the various epochs and culture hang together”24 Conclusion The perspective which Rorty holds is that as it is not possible to describe the world through language, the world cannot be considered as equivalent to language. To quote Rorty: The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language … but it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do.25 As the world itself is not capable of providing any self-descriptions, hence the scientific notion of searching for something that has a closer estimation to the “true nature of reality” should be abandoned. Hence, we 24 Williams, 2015, Essays and Reviews: 1959-2002, p. 210. 25 Rorty, 1988, op. cit., pp. 96-97. 20 | Nataraju adarasupally aNd debosmitha Chakraborty find that Rorty’s views are quite similar to that of Goodman. Goodman believes that “there exists nothing which can be called ‘nature proper’, no way the world is, nothing already formulated or framed and waiting to be transcribed”.26 Rorty was an extremist in contesting the ideologies of analytic philosophy and several critics have pointed out that the shortcoming in Rorty’s perspective is based upon his failure to precisely show or propose the method of workability of things in the post-philosophical culture in which human beings would not deal with the things called truth, objectivity and reason. Another important criticism against Rorty by Daniel Dennett and Susan Haack is that he is a relativist. This is a common criticism against Rorty. Being highly inspired by the works of John Dewey, Rorty also accepts Dewey’s perspective that human beings are the instruments in the hands of space and time. To quote Rorty, “our conscience and our aesthetic taste are, equally, products of the cultural environment in which we grew up”.27 But in spite of these Rorty does not consider himself as a cultural relativist. Rorty very clearly expresses these views in his book Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, he states that in a total realistic sense it can be claimed that the vocabulary or the vocabularies which we use are the cause of what we are.28 Rorty considers that the best tool to cope with the world is the vocabulary. But every truth cannot be expressed by using the same vocabulary as vocabularies are subjected to alteration according to the interests and needs. Rorty’s rejection of realism is also criticized. Philosophers like Davidson, Fine and Brandom agree with the claim that one should neither be a realist nor an anti-realist, but they denied Rorty’s adoption of a negative approach towards the traditional talks concerning realism. These philosophers in their unique manner tried to show that it is possible to 26 Goodman, 1972, “Some Notes on Languages of Art”, p. 132. 27 Rorty, 1999, Philosophy and Social Hope, p. 10. 28 Rorty, 1988, op. cit., pp. 6-9. a Critique of riChard rorty’s Neo-pragmatism | 21 formulate our normative engagements with the world of existing objects without following the Cartesian method of expressing the relationship between the individual and the world. Rorty claims that in place of realism the topic of discussion in philosophy should be about political liberation. But very few contemporary neo-pragmatic thinkers who were the colleagues of Rorty were ready to abandon the task of criticizing the old topics. Barry Allen makes it clear why it is so. Allen shows us that hope cannot be regarded as either the substitute or the opposite of knowledge, as it always requires the assistance of knowledgeable. Allen states that the intention of Rorty to reject the latter and embracing the former relies on his highly insistent deflationism regarding the traditional epistemological topics. However, Ludwig Nagl noted that Allen may be referring way too much towards an exaggeration of the rhetorical. Nagl describes the shift of both James and Rorty from reason to hope. He states that the importance which pragmatism puts on the precedence of the practice helps to shift the future-directed aspect of an individual’s experience into the spotlight of philosophical discussions. Allen points out that the idea is not to abandon reason and embrace hope. He says that pragmatism rather tries to exhibit that both knowledge and reason situate in a practical demeanour and they are essentially and irrevocably directed towards the future. Allen states that if properly taken into consideration they will be regarded as the closest companion to hope. Therefore, it is not possible to proceed in the path of acquiring knowledge without keeping into the backdrop some idea of utopia. Wellmer, following the works of transcendental pragmatists of Germany like Apel and Habermas, claims that truth occupies a central position in any philosophical analysis. What pragmatism does is that it tries to replace the questions of truth claims into the questions of justification claims or according to Brandom and Sellers, into the questions without the social "space of reasons". While doing so they follow the lines of the deflationary theory of truth. A significant part of the reintroduction of pragmatism centres around 22 | Nataraju adarasupally aNd debosmitha Chakraborty the discussions about the dismissal of realism. In building up his thoughts on internal realism, Putnam strongly censures Rorty for demanding that we relinquish the general concept that science is getting the world right. This Putnam claim drives unavoidably towards relativism. He opposes this with his idea of “limit – the concept of truth” which manages every investigation. Rorty, however, states that while claiming as such Putnam steps into the path of scientific positivism which his pragmatic perspective intends to overlook. Joseph Margolis contends that such impasse is the after effect of a long-standing clinging to Cartesianism. Rorty and Putnam cannot go beyond these two extreme notions of relativism and positivism as they keep on stressing the Cartesian concepts of subject and object. Margolis states that both Rorty and Putnam are attached to a faulty dichotomy that either the intermediaries (or “Tertia”) between consciousness and reality are relational, or there are no such things at all. This ignores the third option derived from Hegel’s critical estimation of Kant’s empirical realism. We find certain “conceptual intermediaries”, yet they do not identify with the real world. Rather they develop it by administering one’s consciousness which is historically placed. Margolis does not expand on the subtleties of this proposition here. But his arguments point to the status of the phrase accepted by the neo-pragmatists that: if we are determined to get away from the presuppositions of representationalism, then we should also repudiate its language. To conclude, it can be said that what Rorty actually wants is to put us in a philosophical situation from where it can be clearly seen that the moment we have described the potentiality of utilizing language as an award of evolution, from that moment we actually have dissolved all the puzzles of metaphysics concerning the relationship between thought and reality. Denying the label of a relativist, Rorty considers himself as a liberal ironist. Rorty expresses that “the goal of ironist theory is to understand the metaphysical urge so well that one becomes entirely free of it”.29 29 Rorty, 1988, op. cit., pp. 96-97. a Critique of riChard rorty’s Neo-pragmatism | 23 Then the remaining job is to continue culture conversations and to be creative in the areas of art and self-creation and also the development of the societal structure that would impose less cruelty and endorse more happiness, understanding, and togetherness. The aim of Rorty’s neo-pragmatic theory is to discard the philosophical as well as the religious descriptions which are considered to be over and above history and replace them with the historical account regarding the advancement of the customs and institutions which are liberal; the customs and the institutions that were framed to reduce cruelty and that would help to form government in accordance with the will of the people and allow communication that would be free from any sort of domination. The aim of Rorty was to witness a shift in the philosophical position from epistemology to politics. In spite of all the criticisms, the neo-pragmatic theory of Rorty can be considered as a potential attempt to deal with the philosophical problems. It provided a new path for the future generation to break free from the traditional burdens and pursue philosophy more efficiently. For Rorty, “Freedom is the recognition of contingency”.30 By shifting his focus from epistemology to politics, Rorty strengthened the prospect of liberalism for social reforms. Rorty in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature was very optimistic about setting a philosophical alley to the significant cultural changes. He visualized a society where the culturetranscendent objectivity should be replaced by aesthetic enhancement and the freedom of the individuals are nurtured to encourage the unforced flourishment of truth. 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