The Priority of literature to Philosophy in Richard Rorty مقالة

In this article, I try to defend the thesis that imagination against reason, moral progress through imagination not the reason, solidarity vs. objectivity, the emergence of literary culture after philosophical culture from Hegel onwards, contingency of language, the usefulness of literature (poetry, novels and stories, etc.) in enhancinmg empathy with one another and ultimately reducing philosophy to poetry in Richard Rorty's writings point to one thing: the priority of literature to philosophy. The literary or post-physical culture that Rorty defends is opposed to the Enlightenment and the philosophical and religious culture. Rorty prefers literary culture between the religious culture and philosophical culture. The literary culture Rorty envisages is a radically historicist and nominalist one. Rorty’s romanticised version of pragmatism aims precisely at dealing with this literary or post-physical culture or, in generally, the literature.

Keywords: philosophy, literary culture, literature, pragmatism, and Rorty Recived Date: 08/22/2019 Accepted Date: 09/18/2019 Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by becoming more imaginative. In this writing, we will try to show that in order to understand the priority of literature to philosophy in Richard Rorty,s neo-pragmatism, one must consider some the key words of his thought such as, “literary culture versus philosophical culture”, “philosophy as a literary genre”, philosophy as poetry, imagination, moral progress through imagination, and etc. (Saussy 2006: 63) Since the publication of his famous book, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Rorty has been influenced by this continental tradition, in particular the ideas of French post-structuralist thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Lyotard and others (such as Heidegger). Literary culture and philosophy Rorty wants to show that philosophy since Hegel has sought to use literary and poetic language to describe the human condition and its contingency. Here we find that Rorty finds it useful in the Western philosophical tradition to transition from religion to philosophy, from philosophy to literature. objectivity, the emergence of literary culture after philosophical culture from Hegel onwards, contingency of language, the usefulness of literature (poetry, novels and stories, etc. objectivity, the emergence of literary culture after philosophical culture from Hegel onwards, contingency of language, the usefulness of literature (poetry, novels and stories, etc. Rorty, Richard (2007) Philosophy as cultural politics: philosophical papers, volume 4, Cambridge University Press.