Truth, Objectivity, and the End of Inquiry

Abstract

The article assesses the extent in which acknowledging that truth is objective (i.e., independent of what anybody thinks) leads to hold, as Richard Rorty and Donald Davidson have stressed, that one can never know which of our beliefs is true. Against both authors, it is argued that there’s no inconsistency in accepting that truth is objective and recognizable at the same time, a position that underlies the thesis that truth can be seen as a norm of belief or assertion. To establish this view, some overlapping points are drawn between, on one hand, Charles S. Peirce’s conception of inquiry–his theory about the fixation of belief–and, on the other, Davidson’s theory of radical interpretation.