Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers (Philosophical Papers, Vol 1) [ペーパーバック]

Published in 1990, `Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth' (ORT) is the first installment in the 4-volume Richard Rorty: Philosophical Papers collection published by Cambridge University Press. ORT contains approximately a dozen essays originally published by Rorty in the 1980s. His pragmatic view of philosophy posits that knowledge results from conversation and convention, rather than from the uncovering of ahistoric truth, in other words, knowledge is created not than discovered. For those unfamiliar with Rorty, he is one of the best known and most controversial American thinkers of the late twentieth century; an accomplished philosopher, essayist and cultural critic. I offer a few comments for potential readers.

While sharing a common pragmatic theme the essays are roughly divided between those that deal with questions of language and epistemology and those that are concerned with socio-political issues. While the essays are non-technical in nature they presuppose (especially the non-political ones) a familiarity with the Western intellectual tradition, its key thinkers and ideas. Indeed, much of the fun or frustration depending on your perspective, in reading Rorty is interacting with his highly creative and oft criticized interpretations of other thinkers. In regard to this latter point the consistent casting of Dewey throughout ORT as a proto-Rortian has motivated me to re-read Dewey, while his engagement with Davidson has rekindled my interest in a philosopher that I have tended to overlook.

Often characterized as a post-modern relativist Rorty is careful to distance himself from highly individualistic versions of relativism, preferring to define himself as a pragmatist, a pragmatist who sees knowledge creation as a group rather than an individual undertaking. While shifting the frame of reference for knowledge from the individual to the group seems intuitively correct, I am unsure such a move it can be justified Rortian presuppositions. That is, when pressed the notion of a `group' or a `community' is itself seems a rather slippery and arbitrary concept. What constitutes a legitimate social unit, a country, a culture, a self-designated group? There seems to be no compelling reason that a social unit could not be as small as two individuals; in such a case, the community in effect dissolves into individual.

In `The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy' Rorty is at his provocative best; interacting with opposing thinkers and challenging the notion that democratic institutions require philosophical underpinnings. While I share many of his values, I am skeptical about the potential fruits of the post-modern project. Only in a world formed by Judeao-Christian values and enlightenment principles is it possible to naively assume that current cultural attitudes will prevail once their foundations have been cast aside - is a free and democratic society possible in Rorty's disenchanted and pragmatic world. Selfishness, power and totalitarianism seem as likely to fill the void created by post-modern doubt as is Rorty's utopian "democratic, progressive, pluralist community".

With regard to shortcomings I offer two thoughts. First, the text's font is diminishingly small and can be difficult to read. It strikes me as odd why the publishers did not use a more reader-friendly font - the book would still have been of a modest size. Second, with regard to style, Rorty is sometimes accused of smugness and elitism - dismissing those that disagree with him and fanatical and unworthy of serious considerations, while his writing style at times can feel more rhetoric than substance - albeit beautiful rhetoric.

Overall, I highly recommend the small text. It may be particularly enjoyable/beneficial for graduate students who have been schooled in the analytic tradition. To fully appreciate ORT, however, it is important have a good grounding in the modern intellectual tradition (philosophy, literature, science).

I was amazed by this book. Having read several of his works since I would recommend that you should start reading Rorty with this book.

You do not need to be a philosopher to read this book, or even be very interested in philosophy. All that is required is an interest in any of: History, science, politics and literature. I am pretty sure that Rorty's ideas about the common ground that these disciplines can be seen to occupy will be invigorating.

Rorty is a love/hate philosopher. I love him so there is your full disclosure.

Love him or Hate him ORT is important reading. If you read nothing but PMN and ORT you would be well equiped to begin your apology/critique.