To begin, here is a list of some
apparently obvious and interconnected truisms: There is a world that is
independent of whatever we may think of it; it contains objects which have
various properties and which bear various relations to each other; those
objects, properties, and relations combine to constitute facts. Beliefs are
true if, and only if, they correspond to those facts; beliefs that do
correspond to the facts represent those facts accurately. Truth is the accurate
representation of facts that hold whatever we might think; that is why
any true belief is true: it corresponds to, it accurately represents, a fact.
We gain knowledge by discovering and accurately representing independent facts
that constitute reality. Knowledge grows by accumulating such knowledge of
facts. Our senses provide the raw data from which we come to know reality. If
we use the raw data of sense in accord with rational principles — scientific
method — we will reach consensus and our collective knowledge will grow. Words
express ideas that are composed out of the contents of sense experience; those
ideas, and the words that express them, mean what they do in virtue of
representing part of external reality. Knowledge must be a representation of
the world as it really is, quite independently of whatever we think and feel;
indeed, beliefs that contain anything dependent on our thought, rather than on
raw reality itself, are thereby defectively subjective; what we want is
objective knowledge of objective fact.

Richard Rorty rejects all of the
above! There is, he claims, nothing the world is like independent of our
conceptualization of it; in so far as we can be said to have ‘objective’
knowledge, such knowledge must be something like belief justified by appeal to
the criteria of one’s community, i.e., consensus. Since there is no independent
world having, in itself, one true description, there is no world waiting for us
to correctly represent it. Truth cannot be correspondence; basically, we call a
belief true merely to commend it for being useful; the key to successful
inquiry is not correspondence to a pre-existing reality, but the invention of useful
descriptions. We ‘discover’ only those facts and things that our vocabulary
makes possible. Thus there is no simple accumulation of knowledge heading ever
closer towards some grand consensus, for we can always invent new ways to
speak. Our senses do not give us raw data, for we can only accommodate
perceptual judgments in our vocabulary. Since there is no world ‘out
there’ waiting for us to discover its one true description, there is no method
for attaining that one true description of reality, of fitting our beliefs to
the independent, objective facts; rationality is merely whatever leads us to
useful beliefs. Note that useful — true — beliefs can occur in any field, in
poetry as well as in physics; since no description of reality can have the
privilege of being the one correct, objective account of how reality really is,
science has no such privilege. Finally, since there are no things out there
just waiting for us to name them, our words cannot acquire their meanings by
naming such objects.

At the same time, it must be added,
Rorty emphasizes that his dispute is with the philosophical tradition
adumbrated in the first paragraph, not with anything the common man
believes.  This makes him seem an
evasive moving target, for most of us would take the first paragraph to express
‘common sense’. (I was personally comforted when I read Hilary Putnam say that
"…Rorty is too hard to interpret…")

Naturally, such views, expressed by
an eminent analytic philosopher, have occasioned much critical discussion. A
good chunk of that discussion is contained in the four volumes of Malachowski’s
Richard Rorty. The primary function of these volumes, as I see it, is to
assemble a fair number of papers about Rorty’s work in one convenient place.
None of the papers is new and there are no replies by Rorty. There is no
particularly enlightening principle of organization, nor is there any running commentary
holding the work together and providing insight. But, as I said, it provides a
convenient place to look for papers on Rorty and stands a fair chance of
including what a researcher is looking for.

©
2003 Alan N. Sussman

Links:

·         
See the review
by Alan Sussman of Volume 1 of this set of books.

·         
See the review
by Richard Matthews of Volume 3 of this set of books.

Alan N. Sussman received
his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago. He has published a few
papers, including one in The Journal of Philosophy. He taught philosophy at
various colleges and universities in the US and Africa. At present he teaches
part time at Truman College, Chicago. His philosophical interests are primarily
in philosophy of mind.

Categories: Philosophical