Contingencies of the Self: Rorty's Pragmatic Blessing and Günther Anders' Existential Curse

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This essay offers a comparative analysis of Richard Rorty's and Günther Anders' respective accounts of self-contingency, focusing on how each thinker links contingency with freedom and the consequences this has for the concept of the self. While Rorty, from a pragmatic standpoint, frames contingency as a source of strength and self-creation—as seen in his notions of the "strong poet" and "liberal ironist"—Anders, drawing from phenomenological and existential traditions, depicts it as a burden that contributes to powerlessness and existential disorientation. The analysis draws on Rorty's Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity and his lecture Hope in Place of Knowledge, contrasting them with Anders' early philosophical anthropology in The Unworldliness of Man. The focus also lies on certain aspects that – according to Rorty – stand for each of the two traditions. This is in order to identify possible reasons how the linking of the same concepts can lead to such differing outcomes. By re-evaluating Anders' work through a pragmatic lens, this essay suggests that there is a possibility of a more hopeful and action-oriented reading of his philosophy.