Rootless Position: On Rorty's View Of Truth And Its Consequences

With turnabout of contemporary Western Philosophy, Metaphysics has been criticized by more and more philosophers nowadays. Western Philosophy has been faced with an embarrass situation. Philosophers have to consider whether we are still engaged in such an impossible task that seeks eternal truths or the foundation of knowledge which could settle all problems, or face directly the practices and things, or deal with the problems in an attitude of intercommunion. Many people choose the latter. Philosophers continuously doubt and criticize modernism, and Rorty was the representative of it. So we need to see clearly the view of Truth in Rorty's philosophy which belongs to postmodernism, comprehend his comments to modernity, and grasp the main points of his post-philosophical culture and truth. According to Rorty, nothing has united criterion and authority, the idea of truth is out of absoluteness. Our knowledge just is rooted in consistency of our faith. All we need to do is to keep the fluency and continuity of dialogue and communion. Accordingly, many philosophers censure his relativism. Here I want to point out the differences between his view of truth and traditional view of truth and show the real features of his truth in order to analyze it objectively.