SOLIDARITY, OBJECTIVITY, AND THE HUMAN FORM OF LIFE - WITTGENSTEIN VS. RORTY

Reason, objectivity, and human nature are note suspect ideas. Among po stmodern thinkers, Richard Rorty has advanced an especially for forcef ul critique of these notions. Drawing partly on Wittgenstein's philoso phy of language, Rorty contends that objectivity is no more than a met aphysical name for intersubjective agreement, and that ''human nature' ' is; an empty category, there being nothing beneath history and cultu re. Wittgenstein himself; however, recognized within the world's many civilizations ''the common behavior of mankind,'' without which Rorty' s ethnocentric ''solidarity'' would be inconceivable. This common form of life-the life of those who speak-encompasses countless human activ ities that presuppose and are interwoven with the concepts of reason a nd objectivity.