Contemporary Pragmatism Editions Rodopi

Vol. 1, No. 2 (December 2004), 155–169 © 2004

Theology After Epistemology: Milbank

between Rorty and Taylor on Truth
Jacob Lynn Goodson

John Milbank’s philosophical theology synthesizes the differences

between Richard Rorty and Charles Taylor on realism and truth.
Rorty thinks that both realism and truth as correspondence are
philosophical positions that are still in the modern epistemological
tradition. Taylor thinks that escaping that same tradition involves
realism and an ontological use of truth as correspondence. Milbank
synthesizes these differences by defending both non-realism and truth
as correspondence. This synthesis is found in his Christology because
truth is made by Christ and truth is Christ so we know the truth by
participating in the body of Christ called the church.

1. Introduction

Both Richard Rorty and Charles Taylor claim that they are “after episte-
mology.”1, 2 Explaining exactly what this claim entails is one of the goals of
this essay. To achieve this goal, I will discuss truth in Rorty and Taylor
because their usage of truth is what separates them in their respective claims
that they are “after epistemology.”
The primary goal of this essay, however, is to show how John Milbank’s
use of truth synthesizes the differences between Rorty and Taylor on truth.
Milbank shifts out of the epistemological problem into a phenomenology that
has no “‘epistemological problem’.”3 Milbank is “after epistemology” like
Rorty and Taylor are, but Milbank’s use of truth synthesizes the differences
between Rorty and Taylor.
In order to show how Milbank synthesizes the differences between
Rorty and Taylor, I will use the following method. First, I will discuss Rorty’s
use of truth for the purpose of developing his antirealism. Second, I will
discuss Taylor’s use of truth for the purpose of developing his use of truth as
correspondence. Third, I will discuss Milbank’s use of truth — which is both
nonrealist and truth as correspondence. I will conclude by giving a summary of
my argument.
156 JACOB LYNN GOODSON

2. Truth in Rorty

Richard Rorty eschews the description of antirealist that he is given by his

interlocutors,4 but the closest he gets to realism — as far as I can tell — is
when he makes the following claim:

But if we could ever become reconciled to the idea that most of reality
is indifferent to our descriptions of it, and that the human self is created
by the use of vocabulary rather than being adequately or inadequately
expressed in a vocabulary, then we should at last have assimilated what
was true in the Romantic idea that truth is made rather than found. What
is true about this claim is just that languages are made rather than
found, and that truth is a property ... of sentences.5

The claim of the first sentence of this argument, “most of reality is indifferent
to our descriptions of it,” is as close to realism as I can find in Rorty. The rest
of the argument, though, is what we traditionally call antirealist because truth
is dependent upon what we make it to be, which is what Rorty suggests. Rorty
challenges this interpretation of his use of truth when he says,

To say that we should drop the idea of truth as out there waiting to be
discovered is not to say that we have discovered that, out there, there is
no truth. It is to say that our purposes would be served best by ceasing to
see truth as a deep matter, as a topic of philosophical interest, or “true”
as a term which requires “analysis.”6

So it is not that truth is made nor is it out there to be discovered, but it is that
truth is not a philosophical problem to be discussed at all. In Rortyean fashion,
then, we ought to walk away from the conversation altogether. But can we
walk away from the conversation so easily, as Rorty suggests that we do?
It is ironic that the same author who argues that “conversation” is the
only way forward in philosophy also thinks that philosophers ought to walk
away from such an important conversation as one on truth. In Philosophy and
the Mirror of Nature, Rorty encourages “conversations” of this sort; the
encouragement, though, comes with some guidelines. The most important
guideline is that the philosophical conversation should no longer assume
epistemological foundations. This antifoundationalism is Rorty’s attempt to
overcome epistemology. And now, if Rorty is successful, we are “after
epistemology.” Since we are “after epistemology,” Rorty finds it reasonable to
make assertions suggesting that philosophers should walk away from conversa-
tions about truth. I take it that philosophers should walk away from such a
conversation because to have a conversation on truth is to violate the most