"Dewey and Rorty: a debate on justification, experience and the cultural role of science"

Abstract

Dewey’s conception of knowledge, intelligent use of experience, truth as transformative action and his concept of reconstruction in philosophy permit to conceive science as investigation, as a permanent inquiry with social use. Rorty argues in favor of practices of justification instead of an epistemology based upon a correspondence between mind and reality. It is necessary to abandon notions like Truth, Goodness or Essence. Only in a culture of tolerance and solidarity we can criticize the impact of technology and the myth that science is the only field where objective truth, certainty and neutral control of nature are possible. If science and technology were to be seen under these criteria, they would be “free” of evaluation and out of political decisions. Rorty is inspired by Dewey, with one restriction, his “naturalistic metaphysics”. But there is also a restriction we can observe in the way Rorty conceives the practices of justification: they come up from culture, whose role is idealized. So we have two perspectives: one (Dewey) that is practical, easier to apply, because in his view, science, experience and intelligence can provide society with better chances for social changes; the other (Rorty) is difficult to apply, because tolerance and conversation hardly can be instruments really effective to evaluate science and technology, for our society is dominated by them. Perhaps the liberal ironist and the public practices of solidarity need education in the sense indicated by Dewey.