Postpragmatism: Quine, Rorty, and a thoroughgoing Atheoreticism

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.