Rorty is right about objectivism
his response is to fill the hole left by objectivism with solidarity
Rorty says if you reject the objectivist program of trying to get in touch with mind-independent and language independent reality – you can ask questions like – what are the limits of our community ?– are our encounters sufficiently free and open ?– has what has recently been gained in solidarity cost us our ability to listen to outsiders who are suffering? – do outsiders have new ideas?
Rorty I think as failed to see that any objectivist view of a mind independent and language independent reality – comes as an answer to objective questions
yes you can drop the transcendental objectivist answers – but this does not mean that the objectivist question – what is the nature of this or that? – is thereby rendered meaningless or useless
the above so called solidarity questions of Rorty are quite simply objective questions
you cannot decide the limits of a community without an objective understanding of what a community is
you will not determine if your encounters are sufficiently free and open unless you deal objectively with the question of the nature of freedom and openness
and now to the elephant in the room in Rorty’s article ‘solidarity or objectivity?’ –
to adopt this conception of solidarity in place of objectivity you must at some point ask the question – what is ‘solidarity’ in this context? – what does it mean?
this unfortunately for Rorty is an objective question
perhaps that’s why he doesn’t address or answer this question in his article
perhaps you just have to be ‘in the know’ – one of the gang – in the group – an insider – solid with Richard Rorty’?
who’s to say? – I am a sceptic that is true – but I would like to know something at this point – like what his key concept amounts to
the problem is you are left suspecting that Rorty has just done the big metaphysical world tour to simply come home to his prejudice –
with the idea that if he mounts an argument against ‘objectivism’ and refers to all the usual suspects we’ll all just automatically see the wisdom of his prejudice
it looks like a bit of a con job
in logical terms his premises do not support his conclusion
if we have anything here - it is an epistemology of prejudice
also he portrays his ‘argument’ as being a contribution to the theory of pragmatism
yes you could say – the objective reality isn’t there so I’ll just stay inside and celebrate myself with those who agree with me – we’ll have a lovely time
there’s pragmatists and there’s pragmatists
pragmatism as a philosophical theory was not designed to cater for insularity and self-indulgence
you can take lipstick off a pig - but that doesn’t make it a pragmatist
© greg. t. charlton. 2008
