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Antifoundationalism and the Commitment to Reducing Suffering in Rorty and Madhyamaka Buddhism

2010; Brill; Volume: 7; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1163/18758185-90000168

1875-8185

Stephen Harris,

Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism

In his Contingency, Irony, Solidarity, Richard Rorty argues that one can be both a liberal and also an antifoundationalist ironist committed to private self creation.The liberal commitments of Rorty's ironists are likely to be in conflict with his commitment to self creation, since many identities will undercut commitments to reducing suffering.I turn to the antifoundationalist Buddhist Madhyamaka tradition to offer an example of a version of antifoundationalism that escapes this dilemma.The Madhyamaka Buddhist, I argue, because of his careful analysis into the unsatisfactory nature of existence, is motivated to adopt only identities that are committed to eliminating the suffering of self and others.Therefore, his compassion for others is not in tension with a commitment to private self-creation.In his Contingency, Irony, Solidarity (CIS), Richard Rorty argues that one can be both a liberal, and an antifoundationalist ironist committed to private self creation.In the first section of this essay, I highlight a tension implicit in Rorty's development of the liberal ironist.On the one hand, as a liberal, she is committed to reducing the suffering of others.On the other, as an ironist, she desires to recreate herself, a process requiring redescription of what Rorty calls our final vocabulary, the value terms we use to understand ourselves and our projects.Such redescription, I will argue, endangers the ironist's liberal commitment to removing suffering, since as Rorty himself acknowledges, redescribing another's final vocabulary can inflict the suffering of humiliation on others.Further, her commitment to refashioning her identity may often conflict with her commitment to liberalism, since some of the identities we might adopt may actually be committed to increasing the suffering of others.In the second section of this essay, I examine how an antifoundationalist tradition committed to removing the suffering of others, that of Madhyamaka Buddhism, avoids this dilemma.Like Rorty, the Madhyamaka does not believe we can appeal to language independent reality as a way of deciding what values we ought to accept.Like Rorty, the Madhyamaka places great emphasis on