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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 also for the future study of all aspects of our culture.
- Sales Rank: #2248085 in Books
- Published on: 2007-01-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.30" h x .53" w x 4.80" l, .44 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 96 pages
From Booklist
In one corner is Rorty, a philosopher and public intellectual who, as part of a broad and provocative critique of analytic philosophy, has provocatively attacked the notion of objective truth itself. In the other corner is Engel, whose Truth (2002) emphasized the practical necessity of a notion of objective truth in inquiry and conversation. This brief and pithy book pits the two philosophical heavyweights against each other in a debate over a simple, profound question: Are notions of objective truth worth the philosophical trouble they seem to create? Addressing a particularly intractable issue in contemporary continental and analytic philosophy, the debate between Rorty and Engel is particularly complex because both men are themselves the hybrid products of both schools of thought. Their debate is predictably intense--at times threatening to spill over into political matters--but also surprisingly productive, both in isolating the true sticking points of the debate and in efficiently educating readers. Necessary for serious philosophy collections, this selection may also interest readers engaged by Harry Frankfurt's recent On Truth (2006) but hungry for a more in-depth scholarly discussion of some of the same issues. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Necessary for serious philosophy collections.
(Booklist)
Poses and admirably responds to questions which have a direct bearing on my view of existence.
(The Voice Magazine)
Review
Richard Rorty and Pascal Engel's exchange about truth starts off in university tweed and ends up in a street fight.
(Bruce Krajewski, author of Gadamer's Repercussions: Reconsidering Philosophical Hermeneutics)
Most helpful customer reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
What is the use of brief discussions about truth?
By Shaun King.com
I give this 3 stars because it is not a very good addition to the literature already on Rorty, but it is a decent discussion (considering its brevity) on some important philosophical themes.
At less than 80 pages, this discussion of truth is much more precise, fruitful, and inspiring than a similar short book on truth - Harry G. Frankfurt's On Truth.
This book is actually the text of a public debate held at the Sorbonne in November 2002. The topic is the role that truth plays both linguistically and socially. Rorty has written for over 20 years on his view that the notion of truth as Truth is an unnecessary addition (and epistemological quandary) to the notion of justification within a given community.
The book consists of a main statement by Pascal Engels who, though finding commonalities with Rorty, differs with Rorty importantly. Next, Rorty responds with his main statement. Then a discussion ensues with shorter critical responses. The appendix is actually a reprint of Rorty's book review of Pascal Engel's book Truth(this actually adds to the discussion, though not much). Part of my disappointment in this book is that Rorty has addressed every one of Engel's objects (except for the one I relay in the next 2 paragraphs) somewhere else in his writings - especially his Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers (Philosophical Papers, Vol 1).
Where to begin when discussing Truth? The point of departure here is Rorty's previous writings on Truth. Engel spends time presenting Rorty's view then offering a fairly nuanced approach to truth which he proposes against Rorty. Engel is sympathetic to Rorty's critic of truth as correspondence or the "Mirror of Nature" which goes back to Rorty's 1979 book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature but Engel will not follow Rorty all the way. Engel says, "I do not believe that, because the correspondence theory of truth encounters difficulties that are perhaps insurmountable, it follows that we must surrender any realist conception of truth, nor...that we can totally rid philosophy of oppositions between realism and antirealism in every field. I also think that truth is a norm of inquiry" (pg. 12). Engel proposes a belief-assertion-truth triangle which turns truth from its epistemological foundations (and its ethical consequences) to a normative concept. So Engel writes, "It is therefore necessary to make a sharp distinction between the conceptual thesis, according to which truth is a constitutive norm within the belief-assertion-truth triangle, and the ethical thesis, according to which it is an intrinsic value and must be respected and sought under all circumstances; and between these two and the epistemological thesis according to which it is the goal of inquiry, the supreme value" (pg. 26).
Rorty responds, "I am not sure I understand Engel's use of normative concept. If he simply means that we should try to have only true beliefs, then we do not disagree. If, on the other hand, he means that truth is an intrinsic good, that it possesses an intrinsic value, then the question seems to be undiscussable. I do not have the faintest idea how to go about determining which goods are the intrinsic ones and which are the instrumental ones. Nor do I see the point in raising the question. Intrinsic is a word that pragmatists find it easy to do without. If one thinks that sincerity and exactness are good things, I do not see why we should worry about whether they are means to something else or good in themselves. Which reply one gives to such questions will have no bearing on practice. Trying never to have anything but true beliefs will not lead us to do anything differently than if we simply try our best to justify our beliefs to ourselves and to others" (pg. 44).
Although the discussion section is riveting for its staccato style, it does not bring out anything in Rorty that has not already been published a dozen times.
This book is small in size, large in print, and less than 80 pages. It can be read in one sitting without a break. Both Engel and Rorty write accessibly and it is a decent introduction to some contemporary themes in philosophy. There are more arguments presented here than I have summarized which makes it a decent introduction to Rorty's thought. However, Rorty's best writing on Truth is his essays in Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers (Philosophical Papers, Vol 1).
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
A Debate on Truth
By Robin Friedman
This recent short book, "What's the Use of Truth?" (2007) consists of the text of a debate held between two distinguished contemporary philosophers, Richard Rorty and Pascal Engel, at the Sorbonne in 2002. Rorty began his career as an analytic philosopher who edited a collection of texts in a book called "The Linguistic Turn." (1967) But, in his book "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" (1979) and many later writings, Rorty became disillusioned with analytic philosophy and, indeed, highly skeptical of the philosophical project as traditionally conceived. Rorty became a self-styled "pragmatist" in the tradition of John Dewey. Pascal Engel, in contrast to Rorty, began as a European philosopher steeped in Heidegger. He has since tried to bring European thought closer to the techniques and questions of analytic philosophy.
The subject of the Engel-Rorty debate is the nature of truth and whether the concept of truth is philosophically important. Rorty argues for a "deflationist" account of truth, and maintains that there is little benefit to be gained from studying the conundrums that philosophers have erected around the concept. Rorty claims to adopt the pragmatist maxim of William James that "if a debate has no practical significance, then it has no philosophical significance." To simplify greatly, Rorty rejects an approach in which true statements are thought to bear a relationship of correspondence to an independent reality. True statements are those accepted by a community under standards used by that community whether the statements be scientific, artistic, technical, political, religious, ethical what have you. There is no metaphysical entity called Truth for Rorty, and to say, for example, that ""The cat is on the mat" is true" is, in most circumstances, only to say "The cat is on the mat."
In the debate, Pascal Engel agrees with Rorty on some important points. Notably, he rejects any metaphysical notion of "the Truth" and he also rejects representationalism for the most part. But while Rorty claims to be a follower of James and Dewey, Engel is closer to the earlier American pragmatist, Charles Peirce. Engel argues that the concept of the truth as an important regulatory role to play in human thought by setting a goal and limiting condition of human inquiry. Engel discusses what he describes as the assertion-belief-truth triangle by which he endeavors to show that the question of the acceptability of a particular statement by a group cannot be reduced to the question of the truth of that statement.
Following the statement of their basic positions, Rorty and Engel engage in a brief discussion which grows increasingly heated.
As is often the case, Rorty states his position eloquently and rhetorically, with references to himself and those who think with him as "we pragmatists", "we quietists" and the like. It is difficult to take a good hard look at Rorty's views. Rorty does not seem to me entirely consistent in his pragmatism and anti-metaphysical orientation, as he slips, in places in his discussion, into a philosophical naturalism with no place for any form of theology. In other places, his approach seems to be of the breadth to allow theological discourse, just as any other discourse, as long as it serves a human need. Engel works hard in the debate to establish the importance of a limited concept of truth, but I was struck by how much the contours of philosophical debate have shifted towards a position much influenced by Rorty.
This book is short, lively, and provocative. I think it too brief and too concentrated to make a good introduction to the issues it addresses. This book will be of interest to serious students of philosophy and to those interested in the claimed death of or at least reformulation of this venerable discipline.
Robin Friedman
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Short, expensive, and inessential
By Olly Buxton
There are far better books available for those wanting a good insight into Richard Rorty's writing on truth: Philosophy and Social Hope is an outstandingly readable, engaging collection of essays which sets out his views in much more clarity than this volume, which takes the form of a rather pedantic argument between Pascal Engel, a former "continental philosopher" (believing in relativism and all those wacky gallic notions) who has seen the light of analytic truth and Rorty, a former analytical philosopher who famously became persuaded that there isn't actually a light and who adopted a pragmatist view (which is a polite way of saying he ended up believing in "cultural relativism" and all those wacky gallic notions).
Like Rorty, I have trouble seeing any way round objections to the correspondence theory of truth, so I'm firmly in his camp (wacky though it may seem): There's no correspondence between sentences and reality, the marginal utility of a statement being "true" (and not just "useful") is minimal and we should instead satisfy ourselves for descriptions of the world we find to be useful without caring how, whether or why they map onto some intangible external thing called reality.
Engel's arguments strike me as technical and implausible, since his first move is to surrender a large part of the ground by conceding there are real problems with correspondence - I doubt I do him justice, but he's reduced to saying things like 'correspondence or no, we *do* talk in terms which assume there is such a truth, and that mode of discourse in itself has some essential value and meaning which would be lost were we to relegate ourselves to merely finding sentences useful'.
I'm not persuaded, and Rorty's brilliant writing elsewhere (especially Philosophy and Social Hope and Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity) heaps grist to his wacky gallic mill.
Lastly, this book is short - it's about an hour's read, partly comprises a book review by Rorty of Engel's book on truth which is available online, and the copy I purchased was absurdly expensive.
One day the world may be turned on to (the recently deceased) Richard Rorty, but this isn't the book to do it.
Olly Buxton
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