Synthese 66 (2):273 - 289 (
1986)
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Abstract
Richard Rorty in his recent book, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 1
offers a wide ranging critique of that version of modern philosophy
which understands itself fundamentally as a theory of knowledge. He
attacks analytic philosophy as well as phenomenology for falling into a
sort of trap laid for us in the period of classical modern philosophy by
most everyone from Descartes and Locke to Kant. I want to focus on
just one element in Rorty's critique - namely, that there persists on
virtually all philosophic fronts an unacceptable view of knowledge as
mirror-like representation of the physical world. In particular, I want to
argue that Edmund Husserl's phenomenology - one of Rorty's many
targets - does not rely on such a representational theory of knowledge
(specifically, of perception) and consequently does not fall to Rorty's
criticism. Indeed, I want to suggest that Husserl's view (with certain
suitable modifications) offers one of the few plausible approaches
available to us in dealing with questions of human knowledge.