로티의 재서술 전략과 문학 이론으로서의 가능성 = Rorty's Redescription and Adequacy of His View of Literature to be Formed as a Literary Theory

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The aim of this paper is to examine the significance and features of Richard Rorty's redescription in his philosophical system and to scrutiny whether his view of literature can be organized as a literary theory or not. He reestimated all the issues of the past thoughts and philosophies widely, so that he undermined the basis of the traditional philosophy. So he is always at the centre of many controversies in cultural sciences. At any rate, he is one of the most important thinkers in postmodem thoughts, and also has much influence on the postmodern literary theory.
I'd like to simplify his philosophy like followings in order to understand it easily and develop my argumentation. He can be called a theorist of redescription when his philosophy is seen from the methodological standpoint, and a thinker of contingency from his attitude to the essence of the being, and a philosopher of solidarity from the final aim of his thought. The name which all of these are interlinked is a pragmatist.
Rorty uses redescription as a device in his philosophy. The redescription means the process of the work which creates a new vocabulary or a new story or a novel metaphor by dint of the rearrangement of the old narratives from a new viewpoint. In this respect, we can easily find that an idea of repetition of the past at a new context is included in the sense of Rortyian redescription. The device like his redescription appears to be universal in postmodern thoughts and criticism.
There are similarity and difference between Rortyian redescription and Barthes's act of (re)reading. Both are the act of illuminating the past text at a new context. But, in Barthes's case, the basic five codes are used as the principle of the reading act. However, there is no any criteria in Rortyian redescription but contingency. There is also similarity between the redescription and some postmodern literary devices, such as metafictional device, parody, intertextuality, and so on.
In conclusion, Rorty's redescriptional device is likely to be formed as a literary device in spite of the absence of manifest criteria. But, in his view of literature or his practical analysis of literary texts in his own books he seldom uses this redescriptive device. In other words, he deals with literary works as a philosopher of solidarity rather than a theorist of redescription. He has always regarded literature as an instrument of philosophizing, regardless of its literary quality. Though the definition of literature has constantly changed, the direction of literary study has always been twofold; form and content. He completely neglects the aspect of form in his analysis of literary works. In this point, it seems to be inadequate for his view of literature to be formed as a literary theory.