期刊名称：European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy
电子版ISSN：2036-4091
出版年度：2015
卷号：7
期号：2
出版社：Associazone Pragma
摘要：The relationship between regularity and chance, or necessity andcontingency, is a common concern of classical pragmatists. The metaphysicalquality of this issue flows into the construction of postmodern discourse, althoughin a very different framework and, paradoxically, under the auspices of the antimetaphysicsthat such a discourse claims. This paper proposes at first a briefreconstruction of the chance and regularity issue in postmodernism; then Peirce’scosmological-metaphysical theory of chance, namely his ‘tychism,’ is recalled asa fruitful suggestion to avoid the conceptual split between chance and regularity.Subsequently, considering the family resemblances between postmodernism andRorty’s neo-pragmatism, the insistence upon history and contingency that standsout in his work will be tackled as a ‘postmodern tychism’ that, in fact, does notfit too-easy readings according to which he would have turned pragmatism intoan extreme form of irrationalism and radical moral relativism. In particular, thispaper aims to enlighten Rorty’s effort to re-propose, with new and more refinedphilosophical tools, the great challenge posed by the classical pragmatists: namely,the challenge to translate the pathos of contingency into an anti-dogmatic ethos, thatis a cultural stance that might be able to combine the rejection of absolutes with thecommitment to construct meanings and values hosting argumentative interpersonaland intercultural practices as the ‘rule’ of our moral history.
