Postpragmatism: Quine, Rorty, and a thoroughgoing Atheoreticism

What is it about?

This paper attempts to build upon Richard Rorty's own insouciance, syncretism, and eclecticism. It does so as a means of addressing critique of what I label his and Quine's "postpragmatism." Postpragmatism, a form of pragmatic atheoreticism, was a response by Quine and later Rorty to their shared exhaustion over the ever increasing volume of philosophical theory, including pragmatist theory, that seemed to go nowhere. But, unfortunately, their way of pressing pragmatism to move beyond theory was to use more theory. It is this that landed them in the position where they were charged with self-contradiction. But if the ground of debate is shifted from the use of theory to support atheoreticism, the issue of self-contradiction can be avoided. What is required is nothing more than what Rorty himself suggested, but then failed to pursue. Confront philosophy with the question of what is interesting more so than what can be "proven." By reliance upon insouciance, syncretism, and eclecticism, I argue both Quine's and Rorty's postpragmatism can be brought to an unproblematic culmination.

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