Commentary on Richard Rorty’s “Representation, Social Practice, and Truth”

Wilfredo C. Juntilla Jr.

Postmodernism attacks the unity of truth, arguing that there is no such one big truth in
the world. In Nietzsche, man made the truth. For James, Truth is that which is relevant. However,
for Richard Rorty, the same sense of notion to the idea of truth from former philosophers, truth
is not something that lies in the world, or exist independently from human beings, but is goal
directed. This can be further elaborated on his idea of Representation, social Practice, and truth.

Representation, as it denotes, present something other than itself. And truth whether
subjective or objective, are all product of representation. Directly saying, Rorty is an anti-
representationalist. Mean to say, one cannot arrive at a general conclusion of what is made and
what is found, what is subjective and what is objective, what is appearance or what is real. He
did not argued that there are no application of these things, but such application of those things
is actually goal oriented, limited contextually, or bound in interest in social context. This is
famously elaborated in his critic against correspondence theory. Correspondence theory of truth
is defined as, a sentence is true if and only if it describes what is really the case in the world. i.e.
The cup is on the table, then it is really true that the cup is on the table. The world works in that
way. In his argument, the world is not structured, there is no structure in the world. It just happen
that there are objects in the world, like table, cup, and certain relations like below, under, on,
beside. What one said is not actually a real representation of the world, but a mere way of
abstraction.

There are a lot, if we say so, contradicting representation of the world. In words, there are
a lot of truths that go against the other. Example on the idea of Thomas Khun’s paradigm, things
in particular social community believed seemed true from within their own paradigm. For if there
is one world, bounded by single path of truth, how could it be possible that there are lot of
paradigm? In Rorty’s sense, the truth what one experienced or described is a truth in the structure
of the human language, not of the structure of the world itself. The world is structured less, the
same claim from the former philosophers, that what we only have is abstraction of the world.
What makes Rorty’s idea different from the other is that, he defined language as not a way to
describe what really is in the world, but a tool to develop our goal in a social context. We do not
have the world, we make the world for us through our means of language.

One of his famous quotes, “truth is a property of a sentence, since sentences are dependent
from their existence upon vocabularies, and since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are
truths.” Politics is directed to a stabilize society, as to why there are terms such as peace, justice,
laws. Physic is directed to understand the nature of the natural world, as to why there are terms
such as atom, electron, etc. Nietzsche is concerned on how to free human being from the rigidity
of life, as to why he come up with the term, “superman”. Every social practice is already a
experience of evident truth to them. In the same manner that there are different abstraction of the
world due to different goal, so also the use of language and vocabularies is in accordance to one’s
context interest.
 Reflection on Rorty’s Idea of truth

“There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves,” an insight of a
pragmatic philosopher Richard Rorty who argued that language and vocabularies are invented
structured to help us lead to things where we wish to be.

There was this one scene in the Bible where a powerful Roman governor assigned to lead
in Philistine, whose task is to avoid the rise of rebellion and maintain the superiority from Jews,
and at the same time harmony. There comes a point when this Roman governor is in a dilemma
of what kind of judgment he would bring to this one man, believed as Christ, messiah, of the
Jews. For he believed that this man is holy and innocent, but not agreeing to condemn him would
devalue to truth that he is living, the truth of maintaining peace from Pharisee and Sadducee
rebellions. My point here is that, Pilate’s decision to crucify Christ is based on the truth he wanted
to achieve. He is living in his own world. Everything how the world abstracted is accordingly
toward his goal.

The same case with this African American regimen sent in Philippines that help broke
away from the tyranny of Spain and gained independence, yet it was a freedom taken away by
his American ally. He became in the front line and took refuge in the Filipino. Branded as bandit
for the American and sought to be killed in any way possible, yet this man’s honour in the
Philippine gained him the position as captain, and eventually as general. He is known as General
David Fagen. An American hero of Philippines treated as traitor on his own people. The thing is
that, the world does not work in a particular way, in fact, there is no way at all. What we perceive
as structure in this world is a mere participation or contribution of someone’s goal. And what we
say as truth actually lives in us all along. For it is in ‘us’, ‘me’, ‘persons’ that made the possibility
of truth. There may be a lot of truths, different truths, and what we only have is actually is to
choose one with those or to make one for ourselves. But the thing is that, one need to realize that
after all these ideas, the world itself has itself, and what one has is never been a conformation to
the world, but simply he understand the world in his way concerning where he is leading to. To
be a Roman Pilate who condemned what was believed as absolute or be a General Fagen who
chose true sense of freedom rather than patriotism, whatever truth you may walk or made, it
would always be someone’s contradictory path. Everyone makes sense, and everyone seems true.
And, it’s a fact, in Rorty’s idea that both can be true though they me be against.

Situation we are in, it forces us to have goal. Goal, it shapes our world. World, it is
understood in language. Language, it composed of many vocabularies. Vocabularies, man-made
words to help us formulate structures from this structured less world. We do move forward not
by finding the path, but it suddenly comes present to us when we make up on ourselves of what
is really our goal. It is the truth we have. A truth that no one can deny. For keep moving forward
in a traditional perspective is nowhere destined to, we only fallows the path validated by our
common practice.