Discourse and Culture

Abstract

At the end of the last chapter, I raised the reflexive issue of the status of theoretical discourse in relation to alternative versions, real or potential. The question there related to my own account of discourse, of course: I rejected the realist position of representationalism and then suggested a different, reality-constitutive one. Is my own version not realist in nature? If not, what is its specific status, or that of any such anti-representationalist position, in relation to other, different versions? However, when I raised that question, I also had a further, larger question in mind. Namely, what is the relation between such a theoretical discourse to culture? Is a universal theory of discourse possible, or even desirable?