What is truth? What value should we see in or attribute to
it?
The war over the meaning and utility of truth is at the center
of contemporary philosophical debate, and its arguments have rocked
the foundations of philosophical practice. In this book, the
American pragmatist Richard Rorty and the French analytic
philosopher Pascal Engel present their radically different
perspectives on truth and its correspondence to reality.
Rorty doubts that the notion of truth can be of any practical
use and points to the preconceptions that lie behind truth in both
the intellectual and social spheres. Engel prefers a realist
conception, defending the relevance and value of truth as a norm of
belief and inquiry in both science and the public domain. Rorty
finds more danger in using the notion of truth than in getting rid
of it. Engel thinks it is important to hold on to the idea that
truth is an accurate representation of reality.
In Rorty's view, epistemology is an artificial construct meant
to restore a function to philosophy usurped by the success of
empirical science. Epistemology and ontology are false problems,
and with their demise goes the Cartesian dualism of subject and
object and the ancient problematic of appearance and reality.
Conventional "philosophical problems," Rorty asserts, are just
symptoms of the professionalism that has disfigured the discipline
since the time of Kant. Engel, however, is by no means as
complacent as Rorty in heralding the "end of truth," and he wages a
fierce campaign against the "veriphobes" who deny its value.
"What's the Use of Truth?" is a rare opportunity to experience
each side of this impassioned debate clearly and concisely. It is a
subject that has profound implications not only for philosophical
inquiry but for the future study of all aspects of our culture as
well.
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