Richard Rorty’s critique of the concept of “The Truth” as a useless historic relic continues to enflame philosophers and cultural commentators alike. They see Rorty as the architect of the post-truth era and as morally culpable for the human suffering they think it causes. But that view grossly misunderstands Rorty’s philosophy whose aim was to liberate us from defunct authorities and remind us that all we have as our guide to knowledge is the evidence and reasons we can give each other, not some “Reality” out there, writes Neil Gascoigne. 

On the 1^st December 2020 the High Court published its judicial review of the Tavistock’s practice of prescribing puberty-supressing drugs to persons under the age of 18. Later that day the feminist and philosopher Kathleen Stock “tweeted” the following:

Their sources were not medical, but Richard Rorty, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler… they provided an intellectual rationale that wholly obfuscated the harms they were permitting in the name of progress. And wider philosophy and academia let them… One day soon, the full story will emerge… how therapists with backgrounds in post-structuralist philosophy… came to believe they were forging new “meanings” with kids bodies.