Rorty-Engel-2007 What's The Use of Truth

What's the Use of
TRUTH?
Richard Rorty & Pascal Engel
Edited by Patrick Savidan

Translated by W i l l i a m McCuaig
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK

g*£htlen Univp'tftv
Columbia University Press

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New York, Chichester, West Sussex
A quoi bon la verite? © 2005 Editions Grasset et Fasquelle
Copyright © 2007 Columbia University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Contents
Rorty, R i c h a r d
(A quoi bon la verite. English)
What's the use of truth? / R i c h a r d R o r t y and Pascal Engel / Introduction Patrick Savidan ix
edited by Patrick Savidan ; translated by William M c C u a i g .
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
Translator's N o t e xiii
I S B N - 1 0 : 0 - 2 3 1 - 1 4 0 1 4 - 2 (alk. paper)
ISBN-33: 978-0-231-14014-0 M a i n Statement by Pascal Engel 1
1.Truth. I. Engel, Pascal, 1 9 5 4 - II. Savidan, Patrick, 1 9 6 5 -
M a i n Statement by Richard R o r t y
III.Title.
Discussion 47
BD171.E5313 2007
121 dc22 2006029199 Appendix 61
Notes 67
Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are
printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Bibliography 77
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
INTRODUCTION Patrick Savidan
T h e public debate from which this book results

was held at the Sorbonne in N o v e m b e r 2002, or-
ganized by the College de philosophic It could
not have been more lively. What provided the
spark was the extent of the divergence between
the points of v i e w of our two guests, especially
with regard to their conceptions of truth as well as
their ideas of what we should expect from it.
O n e is indeed tempted to review the respec-
tive trajectories of Richard R o r t y and Pascal Engel
with the idea of fundamental divergence in mind,
for the reader will find the subject of truth illumi-
nated vividly from two very different angles in this
debate. T h e American philosopher Richard R o r t y
I N T R O D U C T I O N I N T R O D U C T I O N
was trained in the discipline of analytic philoso- possible to escape from the Cartesian problematic
phy and pragmatism; but he soon began to de- of the subject and the object and to break free
fend the work of authors like Heidegger, Foucault, of the ancient one of appearance and reality. As
and Derrida. In contrast, Pascal Engel received his R o r t y writes i n " A Pragmatist V i e w o f C o n t e m -
early philosophical formation within a system that porary Analytic Philosophy," "We shall no longer
was, to say the least, unreceptive to the virtues of be tempted to practice either epistemology or on-
analytic philosophy, and yet, as a philosopher, he 1
tology." This radical thesis does not affect philo-
has engaged exclusively in high-level work on the sophical specialisms alone; it also induces a pro-
themes and the works, and made use of the meth- found transformation of philosophical practice.
ods, of analytic philosophy. We must ponder carefully what is at stake in
T h e interest of this debate obviously exceeds this challenge to the philosophy of representation,
this topologico-intellectual background. It arises philosophy as the "mirror of nature," as R i c h a r d
mainly from the point at issue: what is truth? R o r t y puts it in the title of his celebrated b o o k . 2
What value should we see in it or attribute to it? For him, the attitude of those w h o remain in thrall
Starting from the pragmatist premises that he to the demands of a naive natural ontology—
has made his own, R i c h a r d R o r t y conducts a de- those w h o feel a sort of devotion to realism—is
termined campaign against realism, relying espe- analogous to that of the religious believer. As he
cially on the work of Arthur Fine, the philosopher has written in this connection, "Reality as it is in
of science, and on that of Donald Davidson and itself, apart from human needs and interests is, in
R o b e r t Brandom. His thesis is, roughly speaking, my view, just another of the obsequious Names of
the following: the realism-antirealism debate is G o d " ; this "heartfelt devotion to realism" is "the
passe because we are progressing toward a con- Enlightenment's version of the religious urge to
ception of thought and language that accepts that b o w down before a non-human power."- In this 1
these may be considered as not containing repre- sense, then, the pragmatism of Richard R o r t y lies
sentations of reality. As realism subsides, it will be in combating the residues of servility still left in
xi
I N T R O D U C T I O N
place by the Enlightenment. It is necessary, in his

view, to go beyond the critique of superstition
and subject the realist presuppositions and pre-
tensions of modern representationist philosophy
to critique as well. Hence he proposes to re-
nounce the notions of "philosophical method"
and "philosophical problems," w h i c h for him are
no more than the "unfortunate consequence of
the over-professionalization of philosophy which Translator's Note
has disfigured this area of culture since the time
4
of Kant."
T h e question is of course to determine to what T h e translation was made in collaboration with the
extent this charge is legitimate. Might it only be editor and both authors. Pascal Engel and R i c h a r d
"true"? Let us turn to our two philosophers. Pas- R o r t y have each checked and made revisions to
cal Engel speaks first. their portions of the text for this English version
of their debate.
W H A T ' S THE USE OF T R U T H ?
M A I N S T A T E M E N T BY Pascal Engel
As Bernard Williams remarks at the start of his re-

cent book, Truth and Truthfulness, two currents that
appear to clash with one another coexist in con-
1
temporary society. On one hand, there has never
been so much distrust of the values of rationality,
scientific progress, truth, and objectivity, either in
advanced intellectual circles or in the media and
society generally. On the other, never has the im-
pression that we are being deceived by the au-
thorities (political and scientific) that are supposed
to guarantee precisely these values, and the need
2
for trust, been so great. Why, if we no longer be-
lieve in truth, is there such a longing for it? Is it
one of those familiar paradoxes, by which, having
M A I N S T A T E M E N T B Y P A S C A L E N G E L M A I N S T A T E M E N T B Y P A S C A L E N G E L
abandoned religion, we continue to search for a speak in the name of Truth, but we pay attention
substitute or by which, w h e n we no longer accept to everyday truths, like the ones in the periodic
authority, we still shrink from getting rid of it en- statement of our bank balance. B u t , then, what is
tirely? It always used to astonish me, w h e n I was the concept of truth we are meant to reject, and
attending Michel Foucault's courses at the C o l - what is the one we are meant to cling to? Should
lege de France in the 1970s, to hear him explain- we reject both? Or should we hold on to both?
ing to us that the notion of truth was no more Is it really coherent to say that one doesn't want
than an instrument of power, and that, since all Truth but is ready to accept that there are theo-
power was bad, truth could only be the expression ries, statements, or beliefs, that are true?
of some malign intent, and then see him march- There is a wrong way to put these questions,
ing in demonstrations under banners bearing the which is simply to set the postmodernists, the rela-
slogan Truth and Justice. W h y do journalists, w h o tivists, and all w h o believe that truth is an empty
3
claim that their professional code of ethics and w o r d — w e could call them veriphobes —on one
their duty not to spread untruths are important to side and the defenders of the ideals at which the
them, so often show indulgence toward thinkers veriphobes scoff on the other. T h e result is predict-
w h o tell them that truth and rationality are empty able: not only does each side dig in its heels, they
words? A n d yet—are these necessarily examples w i n d up resembling each other. Those w h o attack
of incoherence and cynicism? Perhaps people truth and reason as oppressive values (as male val-
mistrust truth as an abstract ideal, in the name ues, for example, in some feminist polemics) end
of which many authorities claim to exert their up being just as puritan as those w h o m they op-
sway, but aspire to it in their daily lives. Maybe pose. In fact, it is not the rationalists w h o provoke
they don't believe in truth as an intrinsic value, a reign of terror and censorship. It is those w h o
an ultimate goal, while still believing in truth as cultivate a systematic suspicion about words like
an instrumental value serving other purposes, like truth, reason, or objectivity ("cachez ces guillemets
happiness or freedom. We dislike preachers w h o que je ne saurais voir"). T h e same opponents of
i
MAIN STATEMENT BY PASCAL ENGEL MAIN STATEMENT BY PASCAL ENGEL
rationalism pose as victims unjustly attacked by a see R o r t y simply as a staunchly relativistic post-
dogmatic and reactionary establishment.The Sokal modernist would be to misunderstand totally his
hoax furnished us with examples of a conflict of work and the interest of his analyses. His position
4
this type, always on the verge of degenerating in these debates is entirely individual and o r i g i -
into rhetoric on both sides. Contemporary anti- nal. For one thing, even though it is a long time
rationalism and its political correctness have had since he claimed to be an analytic philosopher,
such success in dramatizing these oppositions that he was one at the outset of his career and still
whoever ventures to recall the existence of certain debates on an equal footing with philosophers
cognitive values w h e n faced with palpable viola- in this tradition, argument for argument. Unlike
tions of them is immediately accused of being a authors such as Derrida, w h o give the impression
3
puritanical censor or a moralizer. that analytic philosophy is perfectly alien to them,
R i c h a r d R o r t y has often been seen, by post- R o r t y knows exactly what he is talking about
modernism's crustier adversaries, as the villain w h e n he discusses the theses of analytic philoso-
of the piece, all the more so in that he has e x - 6
phers. For another thing, R o r t y sees himself as
pressed—with the clarity and simplicity that char- the scion of American pragmatism, and his analy-
acterize his prose—ideas that authors like F o u - ses of the notion of truth belong in the lineage
cault, Deleuze, Derrida, and Latour (to cite only of James and D e w e y in particular. M a n y of his
French examples) have expressed in a more florid arguments are derived from Quine, Davidson,
or abstruse style and has explicitly defended their and Sellars (even though he interprets them in his
works and their thematic ideas in the face of the 7
o w n w a y ) . Unlike the relativistic postmodernists,
hostility of analytical philosophers. At a certain he has put forward arguments aiming to show
point he started to look like the official philoso- that truth does not have the importance usually
pher of veriphobia, becoming the philosophical attributed to it. These arguments are very much
illustration of Alfred Hitchcock's maxim "the worthy of study. B u t let me try to state w h y they
better the villain, the better the movie." B u t to do not convince me.
R i c h a r d R o r t y claims a place in the American 5. T h e concept of truth being empty, truth can-
pragmatist tradition. But his pragmatism is very not be a norm of scientific or philosophical in-
different from that of the founder of this current, quiry or an ultimate goal of our search. A fortiori,
8
C . S . Peirce. I hope that the following is not an neither can it be a value.
unfair sketch of Rorty's positions on truth. 9
6. From the fact of having rejected these myth-
1. T h e notion of truth has no explanatory use ical notions of truth, it does not follow that there
and does not cover any essence or substance or is nothing to say about the world: there are causal,
designate any profound substantial or metaphysi- natural relations between the world and ourselves
cal property or any object (theTrue). which we can study. But, all the same, it would be
2. In particular, the traditional realist notion vain to hope to obtain a naturalistic, reductionist
of truth as the correspondence between our state- theory of representation and intentionality.
ments, judgments, or propositions and reality, or 7. T h e fact that objectivity and truth do not
"the facts," and, in general, any theory of matter does not signify that there are not certain
thought as representation of reality are devoid of values to defend; the values in question are those
meaning. habitually promoted by the pragmatist tradition—
3. In consequence, the debates between realism those of solidarity, tolerance, liberty, and the sense
and antirealism, which still unsettle much of con- of community. These values make it a great deal
temporary analytic philosophy, are hollow. more feasible to promote democracy than the
4. T h e problem is not to make our statements Kantian and utilitarian reconstructions of justice
true but to justify them, and there is no distinc- that have dominated the moral and political phi-
tion to be made between truth and justification. losophy of the last thirty years. R o r t y is too well
Justification itself is nothing other than agreement aware of the difficulties of James's pragmatism in
among the members of a group or a community, this area to claim to assimilate truth to utility: that
and there is no ultimate, final agreement or ideal which is useful may be false and that which is
10
convergence of statements. false may be useful. B u t this does not shake his
6 7
conviction that the values of social utility should true, our caution simply expresses the fact that P
predominate over the values of truth. cannot be adopted as a rule of action, and that
In arguing for these positions, R o r t y relies to we might encounter an audience w h o would re-
a large extent on what is called a deflationist or fuse P. (Thus the cautionary use does not in the
minimalist theory of truth. There are many ver- least acknowledge that reality might disprove the
sions of this view, and it is not possible to discuss justification for our belief.) As the fourth of the
11
all of them here. R o r t y s version consists in the positions outlined above states, there is no differ-
claim that there is nothing more to truth (nothing ence for R o r t y between truth and justification,
more fundamental, explanatory, or "metaphysical") and no difference between objective justification
than the following ways of using the word true: and justification for a given community (this is
what might be called, following Williams, the the-
1. an endorsing or performative use: true serves to sis of the indistinguishability of truth and justifica-
12
express endorsement of a statement; tion). Truth is neither rational acceptability at
2. a cautionary use, as when one says,"your belief the limit of inquiry, as C . S . Peirce, Hilary Putnam,
that P is justified, but it is not true"; and Crispin Wright all maintain to varying de-
3. a disquotational use, resting on the equivalence grees, nor the ideal convergence within a c o m -
that warrants the move from asserting " P " to municational community, as in Habermas. Finally,
asserting " 'P' is true'" as well as the reverse. the disquotational use signals that true is simply
a device we use to speak about statements and
According to R o r t y , there are no other uses, approve them, not a term designating an objec-
and no other hidden meanings, of the word true. tive world that transcends the approval we express
W h e n we say that P is true, all we are doing, he to our audience and our o w n community. Given
tells us, is concurring with P, "giving it a little that the concept of truth is so slender and in-
rhetorical pat on the back" or a "compliment." substantial, it follows that the epistemic role nor-
W h e n we say that P is perhaps justified, but not mally assigned to truth—to be the norm or goal
8
MAIN STATEMENT BY PASCAL ENGEL MAIN STATEMENT BY PASCAL E N G E L
of our inquiries, especially scientific inquiry—is altogether and banish it from our vocabulary.What
quite simply impossible to fulfill. Truth is neither he does do is to try to scrub away the illusions and
13
a norm nor an ultimate g o a l . It cannot be a myths that cling to it. This is w h y he generally
norm in the sense of that which regulates inquiry prefers to be called an ironist or a quietist.
because it is unknowable. A n d it cannot be an ul- My reaction to Rorty's theses is much like that
timate goal in the sense of being an intrinsic value of some of his critics, w h o are attracted to the
(although it can have an instrumental value).Thus themes he develops, but w h o find that he carries
there is no point in invoking it, either in science, them to extremes. Let me begin by stating the
in philosophy, in ethics, or in politics. points on which I agree with him.
These positions have a certain skeptical and ni- I agree with R o r t y that the word true has a
hilistic ring; often they are characterized as rela- minimal meaning, which is roughly given by the
tivist. B u t R o r t y denies being a relativist with re- disquotational schema illustrated in Tarski's cel-
spect to truth, for w h e n the relativist says "There ebrated equivalence—"Snow is w h i t e " is true if
is no truth other than what is true for me," he and only if snow is white. T h e whole question
is using the word true in a descriptive sense. N o w turns on whether the meaning of true boils down
R o r t y maintains that this word has no descriptive to this disquotational use. I likewise agree on the
meaning, only an expressive one: it communicates fact that the classical theory of truth as correspon-
a state of the speaker and her approval to her au- dence runs up against considerable difficulties
14
dience. Still, I do not believe that R o r t y is an and that none of the contemporary conceptions
eliminativist with respect to truth, like certain de- that attempt to revive it (like those of the Austra-
flationists w h o defend a "redundancy" theory of lian metaphysicians) is satisfactory. 16
I also have
truth: since there is nothing more to P than "it is a good deal of sympathy for certain pragmatist
true that P" there is no need to retain the predi- themes put forward by R o r t y and by the tradition
15
cate true, which becomes superfluous. Rorty to which he belongs, and I have even defended
in contrast does not propose to jettison this word certain pragmatist positions myself, notably those
10 11
M A I N S T A T E M E N T B Y P A S C A L E N G E L
of authors like Peirce and R a m s e y . 17

I also think bring it about that philosophers and all those w h o
that his attempts to demythologize the notion of speak as they do should gradually cease to express
truth are salutary and useful. W h e n we reflect that themselves in a certain way. Thus—for h i m — w e
truth is the favorite word of religious sects and ought to stop speaking of truth as the representa-
fundamentalists of every kind, we can only concur tion of the real, as an ultimate goal, and so on, and
with R o r t y on the need to be wary of it. try to redescribe what we usually describe using this
B u t , for all that, the area of my agreement with vocabulary by means of a different one stripped
R o r t y is still rather small. I do not believe that, clean of these mythologies. My principal question
because the correspondence theory of truth en- is this: can we actually accomplish this w h e n it
counters difficulties that are perhaps insurmount- comes to truth? In other words, can our ordinary
able, it follows that we must surrender any realist way of employing the vocabulary of truth really
conception of truth, nor, contrary to thesis 2 above, be redescribed in such a way as to rid this notion
that we can totally rid philosophy of oppositions of its "objectivist" implications?
between realism and antirealism in every field. I Question 1. Let us begin with the uses of the
also think that truth is a norm of inquiry. 18
The word true. According to the deflationist position,
sense in w h i c h it is a n o r m has to be spelled out true is no more than a device of assertion that
carefully, but this is not the place to argue these makes it possible to quote an utterance or disquote
points.The fact is that, although he is anything but it and that, according to the performative concep-
a philosopher w h o refuses debate, R i c h a r d R o r t y tion, also makes it possible to show approval. B u t
has often defended a highly therapeutic vision of there is more to our use of the word true. There are
philosophy, quite close to the one often attribut- certain highly specific conceptual relations between
ed to Wittgenstein. He maintains that interesting assertion, belief, and truth, which characterize what
philosophy is rarely the analysis of the pros and I would call the belief-assertion-truth triangle:
cons of a thesis, but rather that it consists in an at- a. To affirm something or to make an assertion
tempt to replace one vocabulary with another and by means of a statement, is to express one's belief
12 1i
close connection, roughly described by the con- ceive of our beliefs as rational? A n d , if he thinks
ditions a—c, by which truth, belief, and assertion that a deflationist theory of truth can account for
are mutually bound. the normative role of the word true, how does he
Certain philosophers—with w h o m I agree— account for it?
go farther still in spotlighting this normative ele- Question 2. I wish to maintain further that the
ment proper to the belief-assertion-truth triangle, implicit norm of the belief-assertion-truth trian-
by maintaining that the norm of belief and as- gle is equally a n o r m of objectivity for our state-
sertion is not simply correct belief but knowledge. ments and beliefs. No doubt it is because R o r t y
Someone w h o says that P doesn't just represent admits that the approving and disquotational uses
herself as believing that P; she is also representing of true are not sufficient to account for what true
herself as knowing that P, such that her hearers can signifies in our current vocabulary that he accepts
ask her " H o w do you k n o w that?" N o w the n o - the idea that there is a "cautionary" use of the
tion of knowledge, just like that of correct belief, word. B u t for him, this use signifies no more than
is a normative notion. 21
the fact that our assertions might be rejected by
Therefore my first question to R i c h a r d R o r t y our hearers. N o w , for Rorty, justification is always
goes like this: does he think that one can describe "relative to an audience." B u t to that one may
the current practice of assertion, and account for object: when someone affirms, in relation to any
its link with the ordinary concept of belief, w i t h - statement whatsoever, "it is justified, but it isn't
out recourse to the concept of truth and without true," is she really saying "it is justified for this au-
recourse to a concept of truth that implies that dience, but not for that audience"? It seems to me,
there is a n o r m of our assertions and our beliefs? on the contrary, that the contrast is between the
In other words, does he intend to deny that the reasons we have to believe or justify a statement
notion of truth plays a central role in the over- and the way things are "in reality." Even if one
all system that allows us to express our beliefs does not believe in an absolute, "external" reality
through linguistic communication and to c o n - that transcends all our assertions—and it is not
16 17
necessary to hold this belief in order to use true inquiry": w h e n we (we, our community) are in
in this sense—it seems to me that we are indeed agreement on the fact that snow is white, we may
establishing a contrast between the reasons for our very well say to ourselves "That's true," but say-
belief and the facts or reality. R o r t y will reply, I ing so does not, in all rigor, add anything more to
imagine, that he does not have this intuition and the content of that on which we are agreed; our
that he can express it simply as the contrast b e - agreement suffices, and it is perfectly idle to add
tween justification before one audience and j u s - that when we acknowledge that snow is white
tification before a different audience. B u t I am we are aiming at something external to this state-
unable to grasp h o w that can be an acceptable ment, the true.
description of the sense that we give to "true" and An initial response to the argument from indis-
not a redescription that leads to a revision, pure tinguishability might be that it is false to say that
and simple, of the sense of this w o r d . 22
If the lat- the words true and justified (or warrantedly assertible)
ter is the case, so be it. B u t what is there to justify mean the same thing. If that were the case, the n e -
this revision? gation of a statement would be the same thing as
Here I suspect that R o r t y will reply that my the affirmation that it is not warrantedly assertible.
reasoning amounts to a circular argument against B u t to say that the L o c h Ness monster does not
the "pragmatist" assimilation of justification to exist is not the same thing as saying that it is not
truth: once we have said that a community agrees warrantedly assertible that the L o c h Ness monster
23
on a statement, or considers it justified in the sense does not e x i s t . N e x t , I concede that there is a
that it gives its assent to this statement, the ques- close link between justification and truth, but this
tion of knowing whether this statement is true no longer link is not that of identity. W h e n one has reasons,
applies since "warranted assertibility" and "truth" guarantees, or justifications for believing that P,
mean the same thing. It is precisely this argument these are justifications for believing that P is true.
from indistinguishability that leads R o r t y to re- B u t this does not entail that saying "I am justified
ject the (Peircean) thesis that "truth is the goal of in believing that P" and saying "P is true" signify
18 19
the same thing. On the contrary, this shows that, very risk to which R o r t y continually points: g i v -
when one has reasons to assert or believe a propo- ing the impression that there is a sort of obligation
sition, one has reasons to believe that it is true. or duty to look for the truth, that it is an intrinsic
O n e cannot therefore maintain that true and justi- value or goal of inquiry. B u t saying that there is a
fied convey the same thing, since 'justified" pre- norm of truth for everyday speech does not sig-
supposes the very notion of truth. In other words, nify that we must always state the truth or that it
it seems to me that, despite what R o r t y maintains, is the supreme goal of our inquiries. There is, in
the disquotational use, the endorsing use, and the other words, no obligation to say or to believe that
cautionary use are not equivalent. Third, and last, which is true. I am perfectly ready to agree with
let us suppose that we are the victims of a collec- R o r t y that the ordinary concept of truth has nothing
tive brainwashing. Would we want to say in that "normative" about it in the proto-ethical sense of
case that our beliefs were justified in relation to normative that he decries. What I want to say is
one audience but not in relation to another? N o . simply that truth is a norm of assertion (and of
It seems to me that we would say that our beliefs belief) in the sense in which, for any belief what-
24
are justified but false. soever, it is an objection against this belief to say
Question 3. For the reasons I have indicated that it is false and that it is normal (in the sense that
above, I am prepared to maintain that the role it is the rule) to try to revise it. It is, if you like, a
played by the concept of truth in the belief-asser- conceptual norm and not an ethical or epistemic
tion-truth triangle, as well as the fact that this con- norm. This does not mean that it is a psychologi-
cept habitually expresses the possibility of a con- cal necessity: self-deception and wishful thinking
trast between our notions and (what I see nothing are possible, but we must recognize that these are
improper in calling) objective reality, make the abnormal behaviors. I am unable to account for
concept of truth into a normative concept. I am these features within a R o r t y a n framework, that
prepared to speak of a norm of truth in this sense is, within a framework in which the assertion that
and am fully aware that this vocabulary runs the P is approval that P and in which to believe that
20
21
P might aim not at truth but at utility, at what is are not seeking to attain a certain objective. T h e
practical, interesting, or conversationally relevant. notion of a norm does not presuppose the exis-
So my question is: if one strips the word norm of tence of the property in question or its reality. Of
its "moral" sense while retaining the sense of "rule course, the discovery that this objective is unat-
constitutive of a practice," is R o r t y prepared to tainable or hollow may make us lose all desire to
admit the idea that the true might be the norm strive for it. B u t in the relatively innocent sense in
of our discursive practices, as much in daily life as which we say that our beliefs aim at truth because
in the sciences? it forms part of the concept of belief that if we
In fact, I often have the impression w h e n read- discover that one of our beliefs is false we try to
ing R o r t y that he is developing an argument of change it, it seems to me that there is nothing in
the following kind in modus tollens (this corre- the least problematic in saying that truth is a n o r m
25
sponds to point 5 in my list above): of belief (and of k n o w l e d g e ) .
A if there is a truth as norm or goal of inquiry, Question 4. My reason for putting the previ-
then there must be a real property in it such as ous question is that I often have the impression
"the truth of our assertions." that what R o r t y is attacking is a species of tran-
B there is no real property of this kind. scendental argument which supposedly concludes
C thus there is no truth as norm or goal of that, because truth has this normative or concep-
inquiry. tual role in our ordinary system of concepts, truth
B u t it seems to me that premise A is false, not, 15 a norm in the more "profound" sense of the
as R o r t y all too frequently suggests, because one goal of inquiry or Supreme Value. B u t I readily
believes in truth as correspondence or representa- concur with him that there is no argument of this
tion in the realist sense but because the fact that kind. From the fact that truth normatively regu-
there does not exist a property such as the corre- lates assertion it does not at all follow that there
spondence between our utterance and reality does exist values such as trust, truthfulness, sincerity,
not entail,/rom the point of view of inquiry, that we or the sense of exactness which are supposed to
22 23
characterize those w h o respect the truth. In sum the notion of truth. Foucault and his followers
there is no necessary link between the concept of confuse truth with the concept of truth, or with
truth and the concepts of truthfulness or sincerity. what is believed about truth, and they also confuse
It is one thing to say what truth is, to specify the truth with the manner in which it is valorized. As
manner in which it functions in our system of soon as one escapes from the grip of this confu-
belief and assertion, and it is another to say what sion, one perceives the full extent of the differ-
attitude we ought to adopt in relation to it, or to ence between the normative conditions for using
say what value it ought to have, g o o d or bad. W i l - the concept of truth—which in my v i e w are u n -
28
liams puts the matter well: " T h e internal role of changing —and its use by human individuals or
truth in the belief-assertion-communication sys- groups, which vary socially and historically. T h e n
tem gets us no further at all in delivering the values the analysis may begin of what Williams calls the
of truthfulness. 26
It is just this type of confusion "virtues of truth," like sincerity and exactness, and
that veriphobes introduce w h e n they attack the the practices that sustain them (or that flout them,
ordinary idea of truth; in the thesis that truth is like secrecy and lying). We may also envisage de-
a n o r m of assertion they see a form of moralism. fending these virtues for themselves. There is, of
This, once again, is the confusion generated by course, a close link between the belief-assertion-
Foucault w h e n he spoke of "the will to truth," truth triangle and the possibility, for example, of
and studied social mechanisms like avowal and lying, since lying could not occur if the triangle
confession by which truth was valorized. These did not exist. B u t that does not mean that the
mechanisms, Foucault proclaims, belong to "the practice of lying, or the practice of sincerity, are
history of truth" and reveal something about the entailed by the conceptual triangle in question.
notion of truth, i.e., how it is the product of a It is therefore necessary to make a sharp dis-
certain history, that of the subjectivation and then tinction between the conceptual thesis, according
the objectivation of the concept of truth. 27
But in to which truth is a constitutive norm within the
fact these mechanisms reveal nothing at all about belief-assertion-truth triangle, and the ethical thesis,
24 25
A | N S T A T E M E N T B Y P A S C A L E N G E L
according to which it is an intrinsic value and must fact that one recognises it as being false or because
be respected and sought under all circumstances- o n e wishes i t were true. Someone might claim,
and between these two and the epistemological the- aS R o r t y generally does, that utility is often more
sis according to w h i c h it is the goal of inquiry important than truth as a criterion of the value of
the supreme epistemic value. O n e may perfectly a concept. But h o w can one say that a conception
well accept the first thesis without accepting the is useful if one doesn't k n o w whether it is true?
other two. Nevertheless, it ought to be equally The ostrich may find it useful to plunge its head
clear that there is indeed a link between the norm into the sand. B u t will that be useful to it "in the
of truth, the ordinary concept of truth, and the long r u n " ? 29
In sum, there is no transcendental
question of our attitudes, ethical or otherwise, deduction of the intrinsic value of the true on the
concerning truth. W h e n one understands the be- basis of the n o r m of truth, but the latter is incom-
lief-assertion-truth conceptual linkage, and when prehensible if one fails to grasp what is at stake in
one reflects critically on what the fact of having the former. On that basis my fourth question for
rational beliefs and of revising them in light of Richard R o r t y is this:
available data signifies, it seems very difficult not Let us assume, like him and contrary to what
to admit that truth is also a value and that there I have just maintained, that there is only a c o n -
are certain virtues of truth. By this I do not mean tingent connection—or even no connection at
that the conceptual role of truth necessarily entails all—between the conceptual role of truth and
or justifies ethical principles like "one should not the virtues of truth (veracity, sincerity, exactness,
lie" or epistemic principles like "one should only trust). Assuming that, h o w do we analyze these
believe a proposition if it is true." Truth can be virtues? Are they, as R o r t y seems to think, purely
one thing and the desire for truth can be another. instrumental (they are useful) and fully exposed to
B u t whoever understands the conceptual role of competition from other virtues such as creativity,
truth cannot fail to understand how bizarre it is, interest, and relevance? What conception will a
for example, to believe a proposition despite the pragmatist in R o r t y s sense have of these virtues?
26 27
MAIN STATEMENT BY PASCAL ENGEL MAIN STATEMENT BY PACAL E N G E L
Will he consider, like Nietzsche in The Geneal- ent language and other commitments more in line
ogy of Morals, that they are the values of priests or with what pragmatism intends; and in conceding
clerics, of men afflicted with ressentimenP?® That that the notions of truth, sincerity, and so on have
they are not virtues at all? That they have little merely instrumental value, that they are means to
importance and ought to be replaced by other other ends (such as democracy, conversation, soli-
virtues, like Emerson's self-reliance? In particu- darity, the improvement of our social intercourse
lar, does he consider that these virtues are not and our life as a community)—what is there to
ones that democracy ought to e n c o u r a g e 31
(this say that the values and virtues of truth would still
question pertains to point 7 in the list of the- survive in our midst? In other words, if everyone
ses above)? Would we even have the nonalethic came to the conclusion that truth is not an intrin-
virtues of solidarity and social utility that R o r t y sic value to be sought for its o w n sake and that
recommends in place of the alethic virtues if the its value is only instrumental, would truth survive
alethic virtues did not exist? even as a mere means to other ends? In my opin-
Question 5. This leads me finally to another ion, it would vanish altogther. I have already said
question, which sums up my reservations about that I do not believe R o r t y is an eliminativist pure
the strategy of replacing vocabularies and about and simple with respect to truth and the values of
the liberation to which R o r t y a n pragmatism is truth and that I think he wishes above all to rela-
supposed to lead us by detaching us from obses- tivize them, to shake off the myths that cling to
sive w o r r y about the truth. them. But would the notion of truth still exist if we
Should we succeed, both as philosophers and succeeded in abandoning the distinction between
as ordinary individuals and citizens (a distinction truth and justification? A n d if we did succeed in
R o r t y would dislike!), in overcoming our fascina- abandoning these ideals and embracing solidarity,
tion with a language of truth, sincerity, and exact- how would that be possible in the absence of in-
ness, along with our practical commitment to the dividual and collective engagements like trust and
values and virtues of truth; in adopting a differ- sincerity, which certainly seem to presuppose the
28 29
notion of truth? This leads me back to the point

with which I began. W h y is it that citizens desire
trust and sincerity while at the same time they mis-
trust appeals to sublime and ideal forms of Truth?
My answer, which I think is the same as the an-
swer R o r t y would give, is that they object to seeing
Truth (with a capital T) utilized as a handy way to
ignore the need for truth (with a lowercase f).To
put it another way, they are still prepared to think M A I N S T A T E M E N T BY Richard Rorty
that truth has its uses, just as a lot of other things
(especially falsehood) have their uses too. But is
that all it comes down to? And, if so, does it follow As Patrick Savidan has remarked, Pascal Engel's
that people would just as soon that truth (with a philosophical trajectory has been the inverse of
lowercase f) disappear and that the surrender of this my o w n . E n g e l was taught the philosophy of
humble truth is desirable? But if truth has no more Heidegger and Deleuze in school and has ended
than instrumental value, as R o r t y maintains, how up w o r k i n g on Tarski and R a m s e y . I began with
32
could the virtues of truth even exist? Ayer and Carnap and I ended up w r i t i n g on
In conclusion, and without reverting one more Heidegger and praising Derrida. T h e r e was in-
time (enough is enough) to the division between deed a time w h e n I thought that analytic p h i -
the style of philosophy k n o w n as continental vis- losophy was the wave of the future. B u t n o w I
a-vis the one called analytic, what is the point of think that it has run out of gas. E x c e p t for the
the often creditable and praiseworthy efforts made w o r k of a handful of iconoclastic geniuses—I
by R o r t y in his dialogue with his contemporaries am thinking of K r i p k e , Davidson, and B r a n -
in the analytic camp if even truth (with a lower- dom—the analytic philosophy of recent decades
case t) is devoid of meaning? appears to me rather rebarbative and pointless.
to 31
M A I N S T A T E M E N T B Y R I C H A R D R O R T Y M A I N S T A T E M E N T B Y R I C H A R D R O R T Y
So it is understandable that Engel and I do not In his book Truth Engel cites a description of
see eye to eye. pragmatism given by Simon Blackburn, w h i c h
E n g e l says that my attitude toward the real- appears to me entirely correct. Blackburn writes
ism-antirealism debate derives from my c o n v i c - that pragmatism is characterized by the "denial of
tion that the "notion of truth does not designate differences, the celebration of the seamless web
any substantial property." B u t I w o u l d not use of language, the soothing away of distinctions,
the expression "designate a substantial property." whether of primary versus secondary qualities,
In my view, all descriptive expressions designate fact versus value, description versus expression, of
properties. T h e expression square circle, the term any other significant kind.What is left is a smooth,
infinite number, the term democratic, the expres- undifferentiated v i e w of language." Blackburn goes
sion being the moon or George Bush—all of them on to say that this v i e w may easily lead to "mini-
designate properties. In order to indicate the malism, deflationism, quietism." 33
property that a term designates, all y o u have to This is exactly what I take language to be like.
do is add the suffix -ite in French, -heit in G e r - It is indeed a seamless web, w h i c h can best be
man, or -ness in English. O n e can say Wahrheit understood if we abandon the traditional distinc-
or goodness or being-the-moon-or-George-Bush-ness. tions. A conception of language as smooth and
This procedure will w o r k for any descriptive e x - homogeneous is just the right one to have, and
pression whatever. adopting it does indeed lead to quietism.
In my opinion it is useless to ask w h i c h adjec- Engel says that, if this is the pragmatist concep-
tives have a purely expressive function and which tion of language, then a pragmatist is the last thing
designate a property. It is also useless to ask which we should be. I will come back to his arguments
properties are substantial. All properties, one might for this claim. For the moment, I simply wish to
say, have the same ontological status. B u t I should emphasize that, for a quietist like me, there is no
also prefer to abandon expressions like ontological discourse, debate, theory, or vocabulary that is
status. Pragmatists do not employ this term. devoid of meaning. I try to avoid the expression
}2 13
M A I N S T A T E M E N T B Y R I C H A R D R O R T Y
devoid of meaning. A n y linguistic expression, even the twentieth century was devoted to questions
an expression like ontological status, has a meaning of this type.
if you give it one. To give meaning to an expres- At the beginning of his b o o k Truth, Engel
sion, all you have to do is use it in a more or less rightly says that "most of the history of twentieth-
predictable manner—situate it within a network century analytic philosophy is a sort of battlefield
of predictable inferences. opposing various 'realist' and 'anti-realist' concep-
34
T h e question that matters to us pragmatists is tions of truth." B u t w h e n one contemplates not

not whether a vocabulary possesses meaning or just the history of analytic philosophy alone but
not, whether it raises real or unreal problems, but that of philosophy in general, one can discern
whether the resolution of that debate will have an another sort of battle. This one is between those
effect in practice, whether it will be useful. We ask w h o think it important to discuss realism versus
whether the vocabulary shared by the debaters is antirealism and those w h o do their best to show
likely to have practical value. For the fundamental that it is time to leave such questions behind. I am
thesis of pragmatism is William James's assertion thinking here of Dewey, Davidson, and Brandom,
that if a debate has no practical significance, then it but also of most of the philosophers in the tradi-
has no philosophical significance. tion running from Nietzsche to Heidegger, Sartre,
So my objection to the "realism versus anti- and Derrida. My o w n preference for this tradition
realism" debate is not that the debaters are de- rather than for analytic philosophy arises from my
ploying sentences that are devoid of meaning, conviction that it is less exposed to the risk of
nor that they are using terms that do not desig- scholasticism.
nate substantial properties. Rather, it is that the Engel explains in his b o o k that is it possible
resolution of these debates will have no bearing to feel "that some of the most sophisticated lin-
on practice. I v i e w debates of this sort as e x - guistic and logical analyses produced by present-
amples of sterile scholasticism. I regret that such day analytic philosophers come very close to the
a large part of English-language philosophy in post-modernist idea that truth is just a word of
)4 35
approval, or a device of assertion of the claims that Thus the dispute between Engel and m y -
35
we like most, and in no way a genuine property." self does not bear on the question of knowing
I imagine that he was thinking especially of D a - whether there is something that we call objec-
vidson and Brandom. It is important, however, to tive knowledge. That we use this term is obvi-
note that neither Davidson nor Brandom employs ous. What divides us is the question whether we
the notion of substantial property or relies on the should say that certain areas of inquiry attain such
distinction between description and expression. knowledge, whereas others unfortunately cannot.
These two philosophers share the "smooth," "un- I do not like the metaphor of "representing the
differentiated,""homogeneous" conception of lan- w o r l d " or the one that consists of saying that cer-
guage described by Blackburn. T h e y both attempt tain propositions can be "validated" by the world.
to dissolve traditional distinctions. In my opinion, Yet such metaphors are harmless if we employ
what links the so-called postmodern philosophers them in a nondiscriminatory manner. O u r dispute
to Davidson and Brandom, as well as to the later thus has to do with the fact that we give different
Wittgenstein, is a rejection of the idea that some answers to the question whether or not we should
discourses, some parts of the culture, are in closer divide the language up into different parts and
contact with the world, or fit the world better, than assert that some have a representational function
other discourses. If one gives up this idea, then that others lack.
one will v i e w every discourse—literary criticism, In addition, our dispute revolves around a re-
history, physics, chemistry, plumbers' talk—as on a lated question: what profit can we derive from a
par, as far as its relation to reality goes. T h e same description of a part of the culture that, instead of
relations between thought, language, and reality simply explaining its social utility, or determin-
obtain in every cultural domain. If one discourse ing the degree of consensus that obtains within it,
has the capacity to represent the world, then all goes on to consider its relation to reality? For the
discourses have that capacity. If one of them "fits" "postmodern" philosophers and the pragmatists
the world, then they all do so equally. (among w h o m I number myself) the traditional
36 37
questions of metaphysics and epistemology can be not think that using the one term rather than the
neglected because they have no social utility. It other makes any great difference.
is not that they are devoid of meaning, nor that Consider an analogy. W h e n Kant and other E n -
they rest on false premises; it is simply that the lightenment thinkers detached moral obligations
vocabulary of metaphysics and epistemology is of from divine commands, they did not think that
no practical use. they were revising our moral concepts but that
So far I have simply been trying to rectify the they were describing them more clearly.They were
description E n g e l gave of my position. Let me helping us to clarify our conception of morality.
n o w attempt to reply to the questions he put T h e enemies of the Englightenment attacked this
to me. claim, accusing these thinkers of revising morality.
I agree with him that one of the main questions Well, which is it? D i d Kant clarify our moral v o -
that divide us is this: can our ordinary use of the cabulary, or did he revise it? My feeling is that it is
term true really be redescribed in such a way as to not worth the trouble to try to answer that ques-
rid this notion of its objectivist presuppositions? tion. If we adopt the standpoint suggested by the
If asserting that there are such presuppositions en- later Wittgenstein and by Quine, we do not need
tails that discriminations between discourses can to determine whether a suggested alteration in
be made by reference to their ability to produce our linguistic practice counts as a clarification or a
correspondence to reality, then I think that we revision. T h e change Kant suggested has contrib-
should make no such assertion. uted to the evolution of our moral discourse. T h e
Engel says that he is "unable to grasp h o w that only question that we need to ask ourselves is this:
can be an acceptable description of the sense that was this change socially useful, or was it not?
we give to 'true,' and not a redescription that leads T h e argument in favor of the modifications
to a revision, pure and simple, of the sense of this that the pragmatists wish to introduce into p h i -
word." I have no hesitation in saying that I prefer losophers' ways of speaking about truth is that
revision to redescription. On the other hand, I do we might thereby put an end to some purely
39
38
scholastic, and by n o w quite boring, debates be- our responsibilities are exclusively toward other
tween philosophers. T h e social utility of such a human beings, not toward "reality."
change is obvious. But Engel then poses this question:
T h e most important point, as Savidan has sug-
gested, concerns the question of our responsibili- when someone affirms, in relation to any state-
ties. If we do things the pragmatist way, we will ment whatsoever, "it is justified, but it isn't true,"
no longer think of ourselves as having responsi- is she really saying "it is justified for this audience,
bilities toward nonhuman entities such as truth but not for that audience"? It seems to me, on the
or reality. I have often suggested that we regard contrary, that the contrast is between the reasons
pragmatism as an attempt to complete the project we have to believe or justify a statement and the
c o m m o n to the Renaissance humanists and the way things are "in reality."
Enlightenment. T h e pragmatists think that it is
time to stop believing that we have obligations I would maintain that a person w h o says "that
either to G o d or to some some G o d surrogate. belief is justified, but is perhaps not true" should be
T h e pragmatism of James, like the existentialism taken to be distinguishing not between something
of Sartre, is an attempt to convince us to stop human and something nonhuman but rather b e -
inventing such surrogates. tween two situations in which human beings may
Engel is quite right that I interpret the contrast find themselves: the present situation, in which the
between the truth and those beliefs that appear belief appears to be justified, and a hypothetical
justified to us in terms of the contrast between situation in the future, where it will no longer ap-
future audiences and present-day audiences. T h e pear justified. I do not claim that this distinction is
latter will presumably have at their disposal more an accurate analysis of the concepts of justification
data, or alternative explanations, or simply greater and truth as they are currently employed. I just
intellectual sophistication. This way of looking want to suggest a way to think about these notions
at the matter chimes with my conviction that that may have certain advantages. B u t I have no
4(1 41
M A I N S T A T E M E N T B Y R I C H A R D R O R T Y , S T A T E M E N T BY R I C H A R D R O R T Y
demonstrable thesis to offer. I am offering either -ing a climate of trust, it matters little which n o -
a clarification or a revision and (as I said earlier) I tion one deploys.
do not care which it is called. Engel, by contrast I do not believe that people will become less
is suggesting that we revert to the classical philo- sincere or less concerned to be precise because
sophical tradition, which contrasts human consen- they have become pragmatists. M o r e generally, I
sus with the way nonhuman reality is in itself. do not think that the fact of speaking as I do,
Where does that leave the question of the rela- rather than according to the guidelines recom-
tion between the concept of truth and the moral mended by Engel, would make any difference in
virtues mentioned by Engel: truthfulness, sincer- the ways people behave w h e n they are not engag-
ity, exactness, and trust? I believe that it is just ing in philosophical discussions. W h e n the think-
as easy to inculcate these virtues by reference to ers of the Enlightenment dissociated moral delib-
our practices of justification as by insisting on the eration from divine commands, their writings did
importance of truth. A person is sincere when she not provoke any notable increase in the amount
says what she thinks she is justified in believing. of immorality. So I do not see w h y the separation
This will, automatically, be what she believes to of the notion of "truth" from that of "reality in
be true. So I think that we could promote the itself" should produce either increased insincerity
relevant virtues without ever needing to contrast or a willingness to be deluded.
truth with mere justification. On the other hand, A n d so to the last question: is truth a norma-
I do not believe, contrary to what Engel suggests, tive concept? I am not sure I understand Engel's
that warranted assertibility and truth are the same use of normative concept. If he simply means that
thing. In certain contexts the two are interchange- we should try to have only true beliefs, then we
able, but in others they are not. O n e cannot, for do not disagree. If, on the other hand, he means
example, use warranted assertibility to describe the that truth is an intrinsic good, that it possesses an
property preserved in valid inference. B u t when it intrinsic value, then the question seems to be u n -
comes to inculcating habits of exactness, or creat- discussable. I do not have the faintest idea how to
42 43
go about determining which goods are the intrin- not to have practical consequences. That is w h y
sic ones and w h i c h are the instrumental ones. N o r pragmatists think it is not worth pondering.
do I see the point of raising the question. Intrinsic In conclusion, I would remark that since Plato
is a word that pragmatists find it easy to do w i t h - the meanings of normative terms like good, just
out. If one thinks that sincerity and exactness are and true have been problems only for philosophers.
g o o d things, I do not see w h y we should w o r r y Everybody else knows h o w to use them and does
about whether they are means to something else not need an explanation of what they mean. I am
or good in themselves. Which reply one gives to perfectly ready to admit that one cannot identify
such questions will have no bearing on practice. the concept of truth with the concept of justifica-
Trying never to have anything but true beliefs will tion or with any other. B u t that is not a sufficient
not lead us to do anything differently than if we reason to conclude that the nature of truth is an
simply try our best to justify our beliefs to our- important or interesting question.
selves and to others.
Consider, in this connection, the analogy b e -
tween beliefs and actions. James notoriously said
that "the true" is what is " g o o d in the way of b e -
36
lief." Trying to do the right thing will lead us to
do just the same things we would do w h e n we try
to justify our actions to ourselves and others.We do
not have any way to establish the truth of a belief
or the Tightness of an action except by reference
to the justifications we offer for thinking what
we think or doing what we do. T h e philosophical
distinction between justification and truth seems
44 45
Discussion
Pascal Engel
No doubt I may have portrayed R i c h a r d Rorty's

positions inadequately in some respects, and I re-
gard the clarifications he has proposed as highly
constructive. Nonetheless, I do wish to return
to certain difficulties, but with a slight shift of
perspective, so as not to simply reiterate the points
of disagreement.
I am a little surprised that R o r t y endorses the
characterization of pragmatism that I had quoted
from Simon Blackburn, w h o depicts this school
as having a "seamless" conception of reality and
language. As far as I know, we normally regard
47
D I S C U S S I O N D I S C U S S I O N
the task of philosophy as that of detecting, even of discourse. Let us leave science aside and take
producing, differences. O n e thinks of the famous the case of moral discourse. There is a concep-
words in King Lear, "I'll teach you differences," to tion called expressivism, which defends the v i e w
37
which Wittgenstein refers in criticizing H e g e l . that, w h e n I say "torture is evil," all I am doing
I have the feeling that, for R o r t y s part, he is say- is expressing my mental (or other) state. T h e o p -
ing, "I'll teach you sameness." What he claims is "I posing conception consists in the affirmation that
am going to show you the similitude, the identity, this is a properly formed statement expressing a
between things." belief that may be true or false. R o r t y regards this
T h e debates to which R o r t y alludes, the one problem as pointless, if I follow him correctly. He
on realism-antirealism for example, are admitted- takes the v i e w that, whatever answer we give, it
ly technical matters, to which philosophers have w o u l d make no difference to our practice. I o b -
dedicated a great deal of effort, and in certain cases viously feel, on the contrary, that it is extremely
the law of diminishing returns does indeed apply: important in this domain and in others to be able
some of these debates have turned into sterile e x - to grasp differences.
ercises in scholasticism. Still, I find that the remedy What R o r t y is proposing is really revolutionary.
R o r t y proposes is worse than the disease. His pro- In fact, a good part of what literary criticism and
posal to ignore distinctions like the ones between the philosophy of science do is to ask whether there
instrumental and intrinsic or between expression and are different degrees of objectivity to discourses. If
description also has significant drawbacks. we say that all discourses are equally valid, then a
No doubt R o r t y will not agree with me on certain number of philosophers will indeed be out
this point, but it does seem to me that some of the of a job. But that is not really the heart of the prob-
debates about whether certain types of statement lem. To state that there is no difference between
or affirmation really have truth value are impor- discourses entails consequences that we may regard
tant ones, if we wish to grasp the distinctions that as detrimental. For instance, R o r t y often says that
have to be made between the different modes science is "a kind of writing," and he does not see
48
49
much difference between philosophical writing tinction is necessary, but the fact that we make use
and literature. I may be old-fashioned, but I do see of it does not mean that we are relapsing into the
differences. A n d I do see the dangers of teaching errors of Platonism. So I perceive a certain form
Spinoza and Russell in literature departments or of hypostasis in R o r t y s way of proceeding.
Proust in philosophy departments. In this connec- Let me now turn to the second difficulty to
tion I have a question I would like to put to Rorty, w h i c h Rorty's concept of redescription seems
which seems to me really very important for his to me to give rise. There are certainly many re-
thought: I am talking about the question of rede- descriptions that turn out to be inoffensive and
scription. R o r t y has offered us a rather deflationist insignificant. For example, the students w h o o c -
version of this notion of redescription, indicating cupied the Sorbonne in 1968 tended to call what
that the important thing about it is the nature of they were doing a revolution. Quite soon after, this
the change it would introduce into practices. revolution came to be called an event. Here we are
This raises two problems from my perspec- dealing with a relatively correct redescription.
tive. First, is R o r t y himself not committing the B u t a redescription can have quite serious conse-
mistake of which he accuses his adversaries? In quences from the point of v i e w of values. W h e n
other words, doesn't he make too much of the J e a n - M a r i e Le Pen calls the Shoah a detail, that
opposition between a representationist, realist too is a redescription. But it seems to me a rede-
conception of truth, on one hand, and a pragma- scription of a quite different kind from the pro-
tist conception of it, like his o w n , on the other? ceeding one. So my question is this: does R o r t y
Do persons w h o use the word true, w h o speak think the fact that there is a change of vocabulary
of objectivity, w h o distinguish between justification will have no effect on the values in question? I
and truth, subscribe to a correspondentist theory see no objection to getting rid of the word true.
of truth by doing so? Do they need to subscribe We could perfectly well decide to replace it with
38
to the truth-making idea? I do not think so. I am the word frue. Thus I would refer to a statement
ready to defend the v i e w that some sort of dis- of what I took to be the case as frue rather than
50 51
as true. B u t that is not the problem, as R o r t y will on questions of bioethics, applied ethics, and so
agree. T h e problem is not the description as such on. W h e n I read works of this kind, I confess that
but the kinds of impact certain redescriptions may I quite often find them boring and scholastic; they
have on values. introduce all kinds of quite useless distinctions or
For that matter, as regards the kind of debate they ignore absolutely fundamental distinctions
that R o r t y invites us to set aside as being scho- that have been marked out in the domain of m e -
lastic and without practical consequences, I am taethics. I often find them tiresome and theoreti-
inclined to think that his argument depends a cally stunted. A n d yet, paradoxically, as soon as you
great deal on what one understands by "practical start doing applied ethics, it is understood that
consequences." With respect to almost any kind others may possibly draw practical consequences
of pure theorising, there are no practical conse- from what you have to say. So should we do away
quences. B u t certain debates do have consequenc- with departments of logic and metaphysics, of the
es on certain styles of theorizing. T h e opposition kind that exist in Scotland, and replace them with
between realism and antirealism does play a role departments of applied ethics? If that is R o r t y s
in certain areas, even within the development of prescription, I find it a little dangerous.
knowledge. In mathematics, for example, the o p -
position between intuitionism and Platonism is an
extremely lively debate. Does R o r t y really think Richard Rorty
that this debate is entirely hollow?
With regard to the scholastic character, or not, I think that Engel is right: on one hand, I defend
of these debates, it becomes extremely difficult to a deflationist conception of redescription, but, on
assess that as soon as we start to look at practical the other, I suggest that redescribing things in
consequences. This objection was already being my way is not very important. I think that rede-
raised in the time of William James. In the field scription is an important task, carried out not by
of ethics, for example, there are numerous debates philosophers but by all sorts of intellectuals. T h e y
52 53
change the way we use words, and by doing so is grounded, in general, in the notion that there
they build new intellectual worlds. This has been is something important that can be called "the
going on ever since Plato and Socrates. Descartes, search for truth" and that the paradigm of this
for example, transformed and partially replaced search is empirical science, the area of culture that
the vocabulary of scholasticism. He thereby supposedly is in closest contact with reality. T h e
helped bring a new way of doing philosophy into positivists proposed various redescriptions that
being. Another example is the way in w h i c h the w o u l d make the paradigmatic status of empirical
thinkers of the Enlightenment transformed moral inquiry more evident.
discourse. It is not my intention to say that a rede- T h e tendency to promote certain areas of cul-
scription is without importance. B u t I do want to ture to a position of dominance is entirely natural.
insist that what analytic philosophers call concep- I simply want to emphasize that, w h e n consid-
tual clarification or conceptual analysis is never ering the hierarchies proposed by those making
anything more than disguised redescription. A n a - such attempts, we should not think of them as
lytic philosophers often compliment themselves anything more than parts of a particular cultural-
on being "more scientific" than other philoso- political initiative. We ought not to imagine that
phers, but they are doing no more than what in- philosophers possess a particular technique allow-
tellectuals have always done: suggesting new ways ing them, for example, to discover whether the
of speaking, proposing linguistic practices that are sentence "torture is an evil" can be either true or
different from those that currently prevail. false. Philosophers have pretended that the ques-
T h e positivists w h o , having adopted a non- tion whether it can be—whether moral j u d g -
cognitivist theory of ethics, claimed that the as- ments are candidates for the status of objective
sertion "torture is an evil" was neither true nor knowledge—is a profound and important one.
false, were suggesting that we needed to change My own feeling is that the question was raised
our linguistic habits. B u t this redescription was only in order to suggest that certain areas of cul-
not an invitation to engage in torture. Positivism ture should be privileged over others.
54 55
Engel has adduced the distinction between tinction he makes between questions that have
intuitionism and Platonism in mathematics, ask- practical incidence and purely empty and scho-
ing me whether I think that this distinction is lastic questions reminds me of the contrast the
"hollow." S o m e mathematicians take this topic positivist R u d o l f Carnap used to posit between
seriously, while others regard it as a problem for "internal" questions and "external" questions. For
philosophers of mathematics and not for "real" Rorty, obviously, questions about the ontology
mathematicians—the latter being the people w h o of mathematics are typically "external" questions.
do not give the question a second thought. I do He said at the start that he makes no distinction
not k n o w w h i c h mathematicians are right. B u t I between that w h i c h is devoid of meaning and
suspect that if we were to consign the question of that w h i c h is not. I wonder whether the fact of
the ontological status of mathematical entities to distinguishing between that which has practical
oblivion, the progress of mathematics w o u l d not consequences and that which does not have them
be affected. doesn't amount in a way to reintroducing a crite-
rion of the meaningfulness of concepts. Perhaps,
in the end, R o r t y is just as much a positivist as
Pascal Engel K i n g Carnap.
Does R o r t y not agree, first of all, that the philoso-

phers w h o have counted for him, like Quine and Richard Rorty
Davidson, have discussed these problems of on-
tological status at length? A n d that consequently As regards Carnap, I would simply say that his
the debt he owes to their work, and thus to work distinction between what is internal and what
of this type, is not negligible? O n e might also is external to a system presupposes a distinction
wonder whether they have definitively resolved between analytic and synthetic truths. B u t after
these questions. I have my doubts. N e x t , the dis- Quine there was not much left of the latter dis-
56 57
D I S C U S S I O N
D I S C U S S I O N
tinction. So the distinction proposed by Carnap

Finally I am tempted to say that we have given
was no longer of much use. We do not have any
many of these traditional distinctions their chance.
clear way to locate the boundary between the in-
We have debated them ad infinitum, without that
ternal and the external.
having had any practical upshot. So I propose that
We can employ the contrast between ques-
from now on we focus on other distinctions.
tions that are worth tackling and those that make
no difference without ever utilizing notions like
meaning or sense. There is no need to insult people
w h o are engaged in discussing traditional philo-
sophical distinctions by declaring that their reflec-
tions are empty of meaning or that the expressions
they use are devoid of sense. We can dispense with
such positivist insults and ask simply: " W h y go to
so much trouble?" Engel is right to point out that
Quine devoted much thought to the opposition
between Platonism and intuitionism. B u t many
other philosophers, such as Davidson and B r a n -
dom, see no reason to do so. On this point, I think
they are wiser than Quine. Brandom adheres to
the conception of language we saw characterized
by Blackburn. His great merit lies in the fact that
he doesn't bother trying to recapture the tradi-
tional distinctions. Y o u will find plenty of distinc-
tions in his work, but they are not the ones that
philosophers have traditionally discussed.
58
59
APPENDIX Pascal Engel: Truth
Richard Rorty
Pascal Engel, w h o teaches at the Sorbonne, is

one of the leading figures in the ongoing attempt
to make the disciplinary matrix of French phi-
losophy more like that of A n g l o - A m e r i c a n phi-
losophy and to get French philosophers to take
seriously the problems discussed by their A n g l o -
phone colleagues. In this book he offers a clear,
succinct, and very useful review of discussions of
Review by Richard Rorty of Pascal Engel, Truth (Montreal:

McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002; published in Britain by Acumen
Press). Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2003: http://ndpr.nd.edu/.
61
A P P E N D I X A P P E N D I X
the concept of truth by such figures as Moore, (89). So we have to "reconcile our epistemology
Ramsey, Strawson, Davidson, Wright, Rorty, H o r - of the concepts involved in each domain with the
wich, and Putnam. account of the truth of propositions involving
Engel thinks it important to acknowledge the them" ( 1 2 3 ) .
advantages of deflationist v i e w s — v i e w s that take Engel says, "deflationism about truth pays a lot
truth as a primitive and unanalyzable notion—but of dividends, but it has to pay the price" (56). O n e
equally important to block the road from defla- such price is being unable to account for "the
tionism to positions (such as Foucault's, Latour's, fact that truth is the point of assertion." He cites
and Rorty's) that smack of "nihilism," "skepti- Dummett as saying that omitting the fact that as-
cism," and "relativism." So he formulates and de- sertion and belief aim at truth is "like omitting
fends a compromise position that he calls "mini- the fact that the purpose of playing a game is to
mal realism." w i n it" (58). Another price is leaving us unable to
Engel agrees with Wright, " i f we described the compare the status of truths in one domain (say
practice of a community w h o had a device of as- science) to that of truth in another domain (say
sertion without mentioning that assertions aim at ethics or fiction). Still another is an inability to
truth, or if we described people as having beliefs handle the distinction between metaphorical and
without these aiming at truth, our description literal truth. " I f some sentences fail to be literally
would be incomplete and inadequate" (92). true or to be apt for truth, the deflationist should
B u t he differs from Wright in insisting, "the give us an account of this" (59).
norm of truth is the n o r m of realist, recognition- Engel grants that some deflationists, such as
transcendent truth" (93). For "a minimalism about Rorty, are willing to "bite the bullet," claiming
truth does not imply a minimalism about truth- that it is a virtue of their v i e w that it sweeps aside
aptness." In each domain of inquiry, "truth-aptness these and other traditional distinctions, thereby
is to be j u d g e d after the realist criterion of the dissolving many traditional philosophical prob-
independence of a domain from our responses" lems. B u t he rightly points out, "the sophisticated
62 63
A P P E N D I X A P P E N D I X
attempts of analytic philosophers at constructing a hardened bullet biter will always try to make a
minimalist theories of truth" do not "automati- virtue of necessity. He will urge that letting go of
cally lead to the kind of nihilism and skepticism certain intuitions, or letting certain debates lapse,
illustrated by Rorty." " T h e r e is," he rightly says, "a is the price of intellectual progress. Arguments
theoretical ambition in the former that is absent about what does and does not constitute such
from the latter" (63). progress are about as inconclusive as philosophi-
Engel has two sorts of arguments against defla- cal arguments can get.
tionism.The first consists in pointing out that de- This inconclusiveness is best illustrated by re-
flationists cannot accept certain familiar platitudes, flection on the upshot of the metaphilosophical
such as that inquiry converges to truth or that true portions of Engel's book, particularly chapter 4,
sentences have a relation called "correspondence" " T h e Realist/Anti-realist Controversies." Here
to their subjects that false sentences do not. T h e Engel points out h o w many of the controversies
other sort is metaphilosophical: " T h e reason w h y between analytic philosophers presuppose that
you need to have a robust conception of truth some parts of culture are more truth-apt than
condition is . . . that minimalism about truth-apt- others. T h e blithe indifferentism of Arthur Fine's
ness robs all sorts of debates o f any sense" (119). " N O A " (the Natural Ontological Attitude, which
If those debates are held to be pointless, any many deflationists adopt) "threatens to undercut
"theoretical ambition" one might have had in this all epistemological questions about scientific the-
area of inquiry will quickly drain away. ories" (105). Again, " i f there is no way of distin-
T h e first set of arguments relies on the reader guishing description of matters of fact from e x -
agreeing that it would be absurd to abandon a pression of attitudes, any sort of meta-ethical view,
certain intuition. T h e second relies on her agree- be it realist or anti-realist, is absurd" (109).
ing that it would be absurd to claim that a certain Engel's French colleagues w h o doubt that c o n -
long-lasting philosophical debate should never temporary Anglophone philosophy is a model
have been begun. Neither can be conclusive, since worthy of imitation can accept everything Engel
64 65
A P P E N D I X
says about the need for a notion of truth-aptness

if we are to keep epistemology and metaethics
going. B u t they will then reverse the argument.
Since those subdisciplines have degenerated into
terminal dreariness, they will say, it w o u l d be a
good idea to get rid of truth-aptness, thereby
hastening their demise. Skeptics of this sort can
happily agree with Engel that "most of the his-
tory of twentieth-century analytic philosophy is Notes
a sort of battlefield opposing various 'realist' and
'anti-realist' conceptions of truth" (4). B u t they
think that the battlefield has been trampled into INTRODUCTION
a quagmire.
1. Unpublished manuscript: http://www.stan-
ford.edu/~rrorty/pragmatistview.htm.
2. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of
Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).
3. Unpublished manuscript: http://www.stan-
ford.edu/~rrorty/pragmatistview.htm.
4. Ibid.
WHAT'S THE USE OF TRUTH?
1. Williams makes this observation, with which

I agree, in Truth and Truthfulness, p. 1. R o r t y s review
66 67
N O T E S N O T E S
of Williams's book appeared in the London Review 6. In saying this, I am bound to give the impres-
of Books for October 3 1 , 2002. sion of believing that it is G O O D to be an ana-
2. T h e English words true and trust have the lytic philosopher and B A D not to be one and so
same etymology, which makes the contrast more of committing the type of petitio principii of which
piquant in this language. R o r t y has often accused me; cf. his text in response
3. See Goldman, Knowledge in a Social World, pp. to Jacques Bouveresse in Cometti, Lire Rorty, pp.
5 - 7 and p. 370, where he draws a contrast between 1 5 4 - 1 5 5 , in which he takes to task my article " T h e
veriphobia and veritism. Analytic-Continental Divide." Readers may rest
4. Cf. Alan D. Sokal and Jean Bricmont, Fashion- assured: I think that being an analytic philosopher
able Nonsense. Postmodern Philosophers' Abuse of Sci- provides no immunity against bad philosophy. B u t
ence ( N e w York: Picador, 1998); and Alan D. Sokal, that is not what matters here. What does matter
The Sokal Hoax. The Sham that Shook the Academy is that R o r t y is someone w h o is capable of u n -
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000). For derstanding a number of different philosophical
my part I preferred to deal with the affair ironi- vocabularies and finding the c o m m o n ground b e -
cally; cf. Pascal Engel, "L'affaire Sokal concerne-t- tween them. In this he is highly unusual, as Jacques
elle les philosophes francais?" in J . - F . Mattei, Phi- Bouveresse remarks in Lire Rorty, p. 25.
losopher en francais (Paris: PUF, 2000). 7. He is open to the imputation of systemati-
5. "Solatium miseris socios habuisse malorum," cally reading these authors in ways that suit his
Jacques Bouveresse, Alan Sokal, and Jean Bricmont. o w n purposes. I have stated my reservations about
Two examples of accusations of this kind addressed R o r t y s manner of reading Davidson in Davidson
to the present author specifically are C. Chauvire, et la philosophic du langage, pp. 262—264.
"Faut-il moraliser les normes cognitives?" and San- 8. For an analysis of the differences, cf. C. T i e r -
dra Laugier, "Pourquoi des theories morales?" in celin, " U n pragmatisme consequent?"
Cites 5 (2001), and my reply, cowritten with Kevin 9. On these positions, see especially Rorty's
Mulligan, "Normes ethiques et normes cognitives." "Pragmatism, Davidson, and Truth."
68 69
N O T E S
N O T E S
1 0 . Bertrand Russell's analyses of the pragmatist of truth to warranted assertibility, compel us to

theory of truth in his Philosophical Essays (1910) modify our logic?
remain unsurpassed. 1 5 . T h i s v i e w is often attributed to Ramsey- cf
1 1 . T h e y are set out in my books La verite and Ramsey,"Facts and Propositions." For reservations
Traf/z.These are distinct works, despite the similar- about this reading of Ramsey, see Dokic and E n -
ity of the titles. gel, Ramsey, Truth, and Success.
12.Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, pp. 1 2 8 - 1 2 9 . 1 6 . Especially on the basis of the "slingshot"
13 . R o r t y has defended this idea forcefully against argument; cf. Engel, The Norm of Truth, pp. 2 6 -
Crispin Wright in "Is Truth a Goal of Inquiry?" 27; and, in the original French, La norme du vrai,
1 4 . O n e may compare the debate about the p. 1 8 . In his book Facing Facts, Neale maintains that
distinction between expressivism and emotivism although this argument does not succeed in refut-
in ethics. Cf. Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings; ing theories about facts, it does constrain them in
and Blackburn, Ruling Passions. If R o r t y means an important way. Cf. as well D o d d , An Identity
to defend an expressivist conception of truth and Theory of Truth.
say that true does not denote a real property but 1 7 . Cf. Dokic and Engel, Ramsey, Truth, and Success.
is simply an ejaculation, then he runs up against 1 8 . Cf. Engel, "Is Truth a N o r m ? " and Truth,
the objections classically raised by Peter Geach (in chapter 5.
"Assertion") with regard to the expressivist posi- 1 9 . I have analyzed the sense in which to b e -
tion: if the premises of an argument are neither lieve is to aim at truth in "Truth and the A i m of
true nor false, h o w can the argument be valid in Belief," in Gillies, Laws and Models in Science.
the classic sense in which the truth of the premises 20. This idea was very clearly advanced by
is supposed to be preserved in the conclusion? This Dummett in "Truth."
raises another, more technical, question, which I 2 1 . This is the thesis ofWilliamson, in particular, in
would like to put to R o r t y : to what extent does Knowledge and Its Limits, although he rejects the classi-
he consider that pragmatism, and the assimilation cal assimilation of knowledge to justified true belief.
70 71
N O T E S N O T E S
22. See the dialogue between McDowell and R o r t y property, and maintains that the arguments of R o r t y
in Brandom, Rorty and His Critics, pp. 1 0 8 - 1 2 8 . (and on this point, of Davidson) do not in the least
2 3 . T h e line of reasoning is of the kind given by undermine the description of the first of these view-
Wright in Truth and Objectivity, chapter 1. points as aiming at truth.
24. In his review ofWilliams's Truth andTruthful- 26. Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, p. 85.
ness in the London Review of Books, R o r t y replies 27. Foucault, L'Hermenetique du sujet, pp. 1 9 - 3 1 -
that this argument commits a petitio principii against in English in Foucault, The Hermeneutics of the Sub-
him by taking for granted that there exists a way ject, pp. 1 4 - 3 0 .
of comparing our representations to an external 2 8 . 1 agree with G E . M o o r e w h e n h e says that
reality. To me it seems that the point being made there is no history of truth, although doubtless
here is simply that the two terms cannot have the there is a history of our beliefs regarding truth; see
same meaning. In his extremely interesting reading "Truth and Falsity," p. 2 2 . T h e historicist concep-
of George Orwell's 1984 in Contingency, Irony, and tion of truth owes a great deal to Detienne's The
Solidarity, R o r t y maintains that O'Brien's famous Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, which, although
statement "freedom is the freedom to say that 2 + it is often utilized to justify the confusion between
2 = 4" does not show that Orwell defends an o b - truth and our conceptions of the truth, contains
jectivist ideal.There is just one party w h o engages no trace of such confusion.
in brainwashing and another w h o is the victim of 29.This is an argument of classic pragmatism, that
it, but nothing to separate them objectively. This is of R a m s e y for example: useful beliefs are true in the
a fascinating reading, but once again I find that long run, and they are useful because they are true.
R o r t y carries things a little too far. Cf. Dokic and Engel, Ramsey, Truth, and Success.
25. Cf. the exchange, in Brandom, Rorty and His 30. Williams, Truth and Truthfulness, chapter 2,
Critics, between Akeel Bilgrami and Rorty. Bilgrami makes a laudable, but not totally convincing, effort
contrasts the first-person viewpoint of the inquir- to propound the v i e w that Nietzsche was really a
er to the third-person viewpoint of truth as a real defender of these virtues.
72 73
N O T E S N O T E S
3 1 . As I have already noted, this is an essential nite, assignable reasons!' William James, Pragmatism,
component of R o r t y s pragmatism. In his book lecture 2, "What Pragmatism Means" (1907), in
Achieving Our Country. Leftist Thought in Twentieth- Pragmatism and Other Writings, p. 38 (emphasis in
Century America (Cambridge: Harvard University the original).
Press, 1998), he takes the American left to task 37. This remark by Wittgenstein is reported in
for having adopted a purely intellectual and "on- R h e e s , Recollections of Wittgenstein, p. 157.
looker" attitude and ceding the values of action 38.This was the word proposed byTarski in his
to the right. He correctly charges this left with classic piece " T h e Semantic Concept of Truth"
having become sardonic and "Foucauldian." But, (1940), in Readings in Philosophical Analysis, p. 66.
even allowing for the fact that objectivist ideals
and the virtues of truth are currently preached in
the United States by the right, and the administra-
tion of George W. Bush, is that a reason for the left
to shun them? T h e events of 2003, among others,
show to what extent a defense of the virtues of
truth can go hand in hand with the utmost hypoc-
risy. Does that mean we have to renounce them?
3 2 . This is the question posed by Williams in
Truth and Truthfulness, p. 59.
33. Engel, Truth, p. 1 4 1 , quoting Blackburn, Rul-
ing Passions, p. 157.
34. Ibid., p. 4.
35. Ibid., p. 6.
36. "The true is the name of whatever proves itself
to be good in the way of belief and good too for defi-
74 75
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Rorty-Engel-2007 What's The Use of Truth

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What's the Use of

Richard Rorty & Pascal Engel

Edited by Patrick Savidan

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW YORK

Columbia University Press

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

T h e public debate from which this book results

place by the Enlightenment. It is necessary, in his

As Bernard Williams remarks at the start of his re-

meaning. habitually promoted by the pragmatist tradition—

of authors like Peirce and R a m s e y . 17

inquiry. tual role in our ordinary system of concepts, truth

notion of truth? This leads me back to the point

T h e question that matters to us pragmatists is tions of truth." B u t w h e n one contemplates not

description E n g e l gave of my position. Let me helping us to clarify our conception of morality.

to me. claim, accusing these thinkers of revising morality.

No doubt I may have portrayed R i c h a r d Rorty's

Does R o r t y not agree, first of all, that the philoso-

tinction. So the distinction proposed by Carnap

Pascal Engel, w h o teaches at the Sorbonne, is

Review by Richard Rorty of Pascal Engel, Truth (Montreal:

says about the need for a notion of truth-aptness

WHAT'S THE USE OF TRUTH?

1. Williams makes this observation, with which

1 0 . Bertrand Russell's analyses of the pragmatist of truth to warranted assertibility, compel us to

Blackburn, Simon. Ruling Passions. Oxford: O x -

"Is Truth a Goal of Inquiry? Davidson

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