accept human consensus as authority in cognitive assessment and the need to replace the quest for objectivity with the quest for solidarity. This led him to argue that truth is as defined by social practices of a people.
skeptically inclined (traveling intellectuals) ―were struck by the variations in law, mores, practices and beliefs found in different communities. Consequently, they drew the conclusion that much of what is commonly regarded as natural is in fact a matter of convention‖.104 Again, she averred that the relativity of truth itself seems to be implicated in Protagoras' famous assertion that "man is the measure of all things of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not."105 In addition, she added that although Kant is not generally considered a relativist,
The door to modern relativism was unlocked by Kant's claim in the Critique of Pure Reason that the only world we can know or talk about meaningfully is one that has been shaped by the human mind…. This obviously has implications for the traditional notion of objective truth.
The judgments we call true are true for us and of our world; but to claim they are true in the sense of describing an independently existing reality is to go beyond what we can meaningfully or justifiably assert.106
In agreeing with Rorty‘s position, Gerson noted that, ―Rorty is correct in holding that truth is not
‗out there‘ and also in holding that there are indeed many different but extensionally equivalent sentences representing the same proposition‖.107 in his view, some of Rorty‘s conclusions are ―a good deal more plausible than his reasons for thinking that he has reasons for them‖. 108 For his part, Scialabba argues that Rorty‘s view on truth has helped to liberate us from illusions about the old metaphors. According to him,
Rorty‘s accomplishment has been to help liberate us from the illusion that things are otherwise, that we can turn away from terrestrial pain toward political truths inscribed in the heavens or in our inmost nature. The tradition of all the dead generations of philosophers weighs a little less on those who have read Rorty‘s books, which free us to become who we actually are and to turn toward those who need a more than philosophical liberation.109
While one is not in doubt about the fact that Rorty‘s view helped philosophy to re-examine itself, one wonders whether Rorty‘s inability to offer an alternative to the old metaphor he wanted to free us from will not throw us back from where he was librating us from?
In another development, Bagni identified another important contribution of Rorty‘s social practice as truth to knowledge. In his view, ―the connection between knowledge and social practice is really a crucial issue from the educational point of view, and several issues ought to be considered‖.110 In this regard, he wondered whether we can still consider ―our pupils' mind as a ‗mirror of nature‘, and make reference to their ‗ inner representations‘ uncritically‖?111
In his view, another important contribution of Rorty‘s suggestion that we embrace rhetoric of social solidarity is that he ―strongly underlined the crucial importance of the community as source of epistemic authority‖.112 No doubt, Bagni was right in pointing out that Rorty made a positive contribution by stating the that the community is a source of epistemic authority and showing the link between knowledge and social practice in the process of education. However, the implication of this position to the concept of universal and morality remains unattended to.
In another development, Ghenea notes that in spite of some potential tensions, Rorty‘s pragmatism and ethnocentrism are coherent and complete themselves. In his opinion, Rorty‘s social solidarity Rorty is founded on the belief that ―truth is related to justification, and that is a normative concept, related to the feeling of solidarity, to the moral need to justify our views and desires to ourselves and to the other members of the community and not to arrive at a single truth or at the thing in itself‖ 113 Thus, Ghenea points out that for Rorty;
There are no universal or metaphysically derived standards or criteria to justify the superiority of one culture over another. Since we acquire moral identity, obligations and beliefs from the culture in which we are born,
rationality and morality should be thought of in terms of solidarity toward the community to which we belong, so from the perspective of ethnocentrism.114
In supporting Rorty‘s truth as social practice, Buscemi insists that Rorty‘s vision is coherent. In his view, ―it is the lust for certainty which leads to the Procrustean imposition of uniform norms on all persons and situations, thus creating the chief obstacle to scientific development, personal freedom, social solidarity and political progress‖. 115 Concluding, Buscemi maintains that apparent contradictions in Rorty‘s strategies can be resolved. Again, Paul Carls identified Durkheim as one of thinkers that suggested ideas that seem to lend credence to Richard Rorty‘s view that each society produces its own truth. In his view,
Durkheim reveals himself to be a cultural relativist, arguing that each culture has a network of self-referential logic and concepts that create truths that are legitimate and, while not necessarily grounded in the reality of the physical world, are grounded within the reality of their respective social framework. Truths of this nature Durkheim calls mythological truths.116