Richard Rorty Against Unity Summary

The article “Against Unity” by Richard Rorty was published in 1998. The main point of the article is to refute Wilson’s idea of consilience. As we previously read Wilson’s Consilience, we understand that consilience is the “agreement between the approaches to a topic of different academic subjects, especially science and the humanities.” However, Rorty is in complete disa-greement with this idea. He begins his argument with Putnam’s analogy of how we attribute minds to machines and organisms, as in giving them a personality, a name, and other human traits. He then goes on to discuss that we all have different definitions for the same word. For example, two people of two different disciplines may describe a cell in diverse points of view. Rorty believes, “Each of the various academic disciplines does its respective job, just as each of these descriptions of the individual does its.” Rorty also believes that Wilson is not clear as to whether a seamless web should include a seamless explanatory web because people of different disciplines do not understand some of the parts of other disciplines. …show more content…
Additionally, the linkage will cause a separation be-tween the “unscientific” teachings and the humanities and natural sciences. Wilson is unclear of how his vision should pass and does not provide sufficient evidence for this claim, Rorty argued. Rorty continues stating, “The main trouble with the argument for consilience is that we get no account of what the more integrated culture that its author envisages would look like.” On the other hand, Rorty does agree with Wilson on one point: there is no need to continue the political division wars that others had tried to start. In conclusion, Rorty believes that we should not join and put our efforts in Wilson’s movement towards