Abnormal discourse

 

This bit from the introduction to Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is very exciting to me:

Chapter seven interprets the traditional distinction between the search for “objective knowledge” and other, less privileged, areas of human activity as merely the distinction between “normal discourse” and “abnormal discourse.” Normal discourse (a generalization of Kuhn’s notion of “normal science”) is any discourse (scientific, political, theological, or whatever) which embodies agreed-upon criteria for reaching agreement; abnormal discourse is any which lacks such criteria. I argue that the attempt (which has defined traditional philosophy) to explicate “rationality” and “objectivity” in terms of conditions of accurate representation is a self-deceptive effort to eternalize the normal discourse of the day, and that, since the Greeks, philosophy’s self-image has been dominated by this attempt.

“Abnormal discourse.” I like that term. Consider: anoma + logos.

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