Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature<\/a><\/em>. A quick blog post cannot do it justice. It is quite complex and subtle. <\/p>\n\n\n\nAs we’ve pointed out already: One side says that they’ve built a fantastic pillar called science on the solid foundations of peer review, objectivity, etc. The other side says that all our institutions can be knocked down because there are no solid foundations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everyone is Wrong<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Rorty has a shocking response that both sides are wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are no foundations (i.e. external objective standards), but this doesn’t mean the pillars are unstable. It just means that the rules of the game depend on which game we’re playing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When playing tennis, we must follow the rules of tennis. When doing science, we must play by the rules of science. There is no universal, correct rule set for all games. It is just dependent on the game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That’s okay. None are more “right” than another, because this concept doesn’t even make sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is Truth? <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Rorty says that we can think about justification, but not about truth. How we justify beliefs is dependent on the system we are in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We know how to use the word true<\/em><\/strong> in each system, so we don’t have to define it. This is a very classic pragmatic response. <\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen speaking of scientific truth, we have a collection of things we mean. When speaking of literary truth we have another. These truths are dependent on time and place (e.g. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So how is this different from the extreme relativism of postmodernism? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, Rorty would say that usefulness has to be taken into account. There is no way to get at objective truth, but some systems are more useful for certain purposes than others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scientific Pragmatism<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
For example, at this point in time, science seems to be the most useful system to answer scientific questions. Your computer is working, polio was eradicated, we put people on the moon, etc, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the internet meme goes, “Science. It works, bitches!” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so, even though we don’t know if science is getting at truth, (which reasonable scientists fully admit, by the way), it does consistently get at something useful. There may be other contexts in which scientific rigor is not the most useful system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Takeaway<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Rorty develops a theory that fully admits that the postmodernists are right when they say that we have no basis for foundations anymore. But he doesn’t descend into extreme relativism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He leaves room for some systems of thought to be more useful than others. They don’t have a monopoly on truth, because we don’t even know what that means. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Relativism doesn’t even really make sense from Rorty’s viewpoint, because you can never leave your current context from which to make a relative judgment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that’s why I think he’s so important. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nHe points out that our shouting matches aren’t about content or truth. They are about coming to the same question from different systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today I’d like to talk about Richard Rorty. He was an American philosopher that became famous in the late 70’s and 80’s for advocating a new form of pragmatism. I thought this might be a good topic because, as writers, we tend to ignore important philosophical ideas we can incorporate into our stories. I tend … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/amindformadness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/rorty-pragmatism.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10835"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11501,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10835\/revisions\/11501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}