An Engagement with Rorty

I do not know how to argue the question of whether it is better to see human beings in [the] biologistic way [advocated above] or to see them in a way more like Plato’s or Kant’s. So I do not know how to give anything like a conclusive argument for the view which my critics call ‘relativism’ and which I prefer to call ‘antifoundationalism’ or ‘antidualism.’ It is certainly not enough for my side to appeal to Darwin and ask our opponents how they can avoid an appeal to the supernatural. That way of stating the issue begs many questions. It is certainly not enough for my opponents to say that a biologistic view strips human beings of their dignity and their self-respect. That too begs most of the questions at issue. I suspect that all that either side can do is to restate its case over and over again, in context after context. The controversy between those who see both our species and our society as a lucky accident, and those who find an immanent teleology in both, is too radical to permit of being judged from some neutral standpoint. (xxxii)