Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth Philosophical Papers [Paperback]

In this volume Richard Rorty offers a Deweyan account of objectivity as intersubjectivity.A continuation of the philosopher's attack on traditional attempts to establish objective fundamental truths concludes with reflections on the relation of social democratic politics to philosophy.A continuation of the philosopher's attack on traditional attempts to establish objective fundamental truths concludes with reflections on the relation of social democratic politics to philosophy.In this volume Rorty offers a Deweyan account of objectivity as intersubjectivity, one that drops claims about universal validity and instead focuses on utility for the purposes of a community. The sense in which the natural sciences are exemplary for inquiry is explicated in terms of the moral virtues of scientific communities rather than in terms of a special scientific method. The volume concludes with reflections on the relation of social democratic politics to philosophy.Acknowledgments; Introduction: antirepresentationalism, ethnocentrism, and liberalism; Part I. Solidarity or Objectivity?: 1. Science as solidarity; 2. Is natural science a natural kind?; 3. Pragmatism without method; 4. Texts and lumps; 5. Inquiry as recontextualization: an anti-dualist account of interpretation; Part II. Non-Reductive Physicalism: 5. Pragmatism, Davidson and truth; 6. Representation, social practice, and truth; 7. Unfamiliar noises: Hesse and Davidson on metaphor; PART III. The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy: 8. Postmodernist bourgeois liberalism; 9. On ethnocentrism: a reply to Clifford Geertz; 10. Cosmopolitanism without emancipation: a response to Jean-Francois Lyotard; Index of names. This book is stimulating and challenging. The topics covered are diverse enough to capture the attention of almost any academic audience. Rorty introduces a variety of fresh and exciting ideas. Arnold Lorenzo Farr, disClosure