ACTING IN AN ANTIFOUNDATIONAL WORLD

This book examines a central question that human beings face in an antifoundational world: If discourse communities create not only vocabularies but competing ways of seeing, how might we act in a reasonable way? It suggests answers to this question by discussing Rorty's theory of language and truth. Rorty sets aside the foundationalist notion of metaphysical certainty with consensus beliefs achieved through conversation, which determines the utility of those beliefs to the community. Thus, Rorty changes the focus from what is right to what is helpful and changes the focus from what can be proven to what works. The validity of the new vocabularies lies not in their correspondence to reality, but in their utility to point us towards reducing human suffering and immiseration, thereby building human solidarity. Hence, the use of Rorty provides a useful way of responding to the choices we confront in our lives and jobs because his emphasis on utility when considering differing perceptions and his emphasis on conversation, poetic redescription, and solidarity provides means of understanding and operating in the world.

Autorentext

Hem Paudel is a doctoral student in Rhetoric and Composition, University of Louisville. He taught English in Nepal to both graduate and undergraduate levels for over six years. He has published articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Atlantic Literary Review (2007) and Literary Studies (2008).