Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth

Philosophical Papers: Volume 1

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by Richard Rorty

Cambridge University Press

Due/Published January 1990, 236 pages, paper

ISBN 0521358779

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 examined 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.