Rorty vs. Popper, or “Conversation” vs. “Argumentation”

Abstract

In this paper, Rorty’s and Popper’s philosophies are compared from the perspective of their social, cultural, and political implications. The author focuses on two nuclear concepts: conversation (Rorty) and argumentation (Popper). He argues that the historical and philosophical context of these philosophies is basically the same: the problematics of the consequences of holism, as concerns the theory of meaning, for the status of philosophy itself – a problematic as the one which Quine, Kuhn, and Popper, have established since the 1960s. However, when the two concepts (conversation, argumentation) are more closely compared, they seem to lead to contrasting conceptions of society, of culture, and of politics, which are carefully discussed.