Shapiro PERHAPS he clea res t and most certai n thing that can be sai d abo ut po stmodernism i s that it is a very unclear an d very muc h contested co ncept. Celebrated by some as a new wav e of eman cipation fro m the st ifl ing constra ints of mod ern ideol ogies tha t have grown stagnantly conservative and elitist, postmodernism is conversely con- dem ned for confining us in its own prison-hou se o f cons erv at ism- for enco uraging an attitude of slackening by its scepticism regarding the notions of progress and originalit y, by its advocacy of ap pro pria tion an d recycling, and by its ideol ogy of the en d of ideol ogy. But t he controversy over pos tmo der nism goes wel l beyond the question of its va lue. Its ve ry meaning, scope, and character ar e so vague, an~ big uo us, an d deeply contested tha t it has been challenged as a pernicious, illegi timat e no n- conc ept. Advocates repl y th at th e concept s very vagueness useful ly challenges the vie w that con cepts mus t be clear to be meaningful, fruitful, an d imp orta nt. In theorizing the postmodern, one inevitably encounters the postmodern assault on theory, such as Lyotard's and Foucault's attack on modern theory for its alleged totalizing and essentializing character. How exactly we de term ine the legiti macy of a co ncept i s a fascinating questio n in itsel f. Is con cep tual legitimacy a ma tte r of logic al coheren ce, reference to the real, entrenc hed usa ge, pract ical utilit y? Mudda mandaram serial song download naa songs. In any case, the con cept of po stmod ernism seems, for the moment, to be adequately vindicated by the profusion of scholarly work that is dedicated to its clarification and elaboration in the various arts and other forms of cultural production since the latter part of the twentieth century. Presumably, Richard Rorty's brand of neo-pragmatism, which he considered to be a kind of critical 'footnote' (2003, p. 6) to Dewey's perceived excesses of a metaphysical naturalism that posits historicized and socially constituted essences, would have little in common with a Confucian tradition, which makes a big deal out of realizing the 'nature' ( xing 性) of things in hopes of achieving a more harmonious and stable social order. Understandably, many people, whether sympathetic or not to the Confucian or Rortian style of doing philosophy, are inclined to consider a dialogue between the self-described postmodern bourgeois liberal and the conservative transmitter of the idealized way of Zhou dynasty ritual conduct as unlikely to yield much in way of substantial convergence. Rorty, who considers religion a 'conversation stopper,' 1 finds it hard to imagine how his thought could benefit by engaging with an a-theistic, though culturally conservative religious tradition. The editor of this book believes, however, that 'a Rortian Confucian is a better Confucian [and] a Confucian Rortian is a better Rortian' (p. In this [End Page 201] spirit of mutual understanding, most of the contributions to this volume succeed in opening up a productive hermeneutic horizon wherein resonances between and possible transformations of neo-pragmatism and contemporary Confucian thought are manifest. While some of the more critical essays are overhasty in pigeonholing a philosopher who himself was highly suspicious of final vocabularies and systematic philosophizing, for the most part these essays succeed in bringing neopragmatism and Confucianism into productive cultural dialogue. I will focus on three central and related issues to cast light on how Rorty's thought fuses and/or conflicts with Confucianism generally: (1) the role of human nature in relation to morality; (2) liberal democratic values such as freedom and equality versus deference to hierarchy based on virtuous character and conduct authorized by a living tradition; and (3) the issue of religiousness (or natural piety) in Confucianism and Rorty's apparent neo-Hegelian affirmation of exclusive humanism.
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