Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2000. [Vol. 6.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)
Studies - Judit Ágnes Kádár: A Possible Application of Philosophy in the Study of Recent American Fiction
claim for a universal, rational concept about the world. The effort of the artist to find a sense in senselessness is well presented in Pierre Giorgio Di Cicco's prose-verse: Interconnectedness of all things does not make things less lonely for the post-reductionist mind. The mind tries to create its landscape even as it is travelling through it. The unknown is no longer in God's hands, but under the jurisdiction of mind. The mind cannot trust itself, because it has been taught to doubt. To doubt and trust at the same time is like trying to defeat Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. You cannot be at two places at once; only God can. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is tenable if you are faced with the uncertainty of the meaning of existence, what you experience is infinite regress, perpetual anguish, and physical death. (113) Zoom 2.: A Comparative Aspect of Postmodern Philosophy and Fiction —Two Overlapping Concepts of Life. In his essay entitled "Heidegger, Kundéra and Dickens" Rorty defined the core of postmodern novel and the whole genre of fiction as a "reaction to, and as an alternative to, the attempt to theorize about human affairs;" moreover, he indicated "the opposition between the aesthetic priest's taste for theory, simplicity, structure, abstraction and essence and the novelist's taste for narrative, detail, diversity and accident (Rorty 13)." He claims that both spheres of knowledge tend to oppose the preponderance of comformism in society —being the only chance for greatness but with different means. What he appreciates in fiction is the presentation of fragments of reality, details, and as such, it seems to have a better chance to grasp reality, a 'truer' one. Rorty joined Kundéra claiming, that the root of the novel is not theoretics but the spirit of humor —following the anti-theoretic traditions. Vajda expresses his doubts concerning the absolute truth of such statements, questioning also the omniscience of such expressions as 'agelaste' Kundéra had applied to philosophy and poetry as opposed to the sense of humor fiction has acquired. In my view there is an increasing sense of humor in contemporary philosophy since today's philosophers frequently call the attention to the fundamental paradoxes, hypocrisies and ironies in the practice and theory of our age. They tend to operate with the term 'interrogation' as a basic 46
