Dennis Fodor writes:

>Richard Rorty, possibly America's foremost living philosopher, claims he
>has little use for the concept of "objective truth." Another great American
>philosopher C.S Peirce, the man who invented pragmatism, said that truth
>reposed in the judgement that "something is SO...whether you, or I, or
>anybody, thinks it is so or not."

I don't think that such a cavalier attitude toward objective truth is
wholesome or justified.  Clearly there are huge areas in our lives where
taste and convention reign, but,at least in science, there are procedures
and results which really warrant the label, "objective truth" - the mass of
the electron, the speed of light, the radius of the sun, the feeding habits
of fruit bats, etc.  The methods used to determine these things have a
validity not easily overthrown, although clearly amenable to improvement.
Paradigm shifts don't shift these things.  There are other od course
"truths" which are way more speculative and tentative- the nature of the
early universe, the facts of global warming, etc.  And objectivity is
hardly limited to science.  If I put a Mahler symphony in the player, and
press the start button, I almost never hear a Yanni performance.  And my
understanding is that farmers who plant corn seldom harvest okra from the
cornfield.  Take that, Rorty.

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University