This essay focuses on characteristic of pragmatism and its philosophical function in pragmatism milieu that has been improved by Richard Rorty. It dicussess Rorty’s famous book: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. In Rorty’s view, pragmatism is a new philosophy orientation that goes beyond modern Western epistemology tradition. Epistemology in Western tradition since the 16-17 Century have been deeply influenced by Descartes, Locke and Kant, who spent great effort in stipulating all formal a priori categories as foundational constitutive factors of human knowledge. Such fondational knowledge is believed to represent reality and creates abstract-apriori and contemplation world. Instead of contemplation, Rorty pragmatism suggests a reverse way of knowing by introducing to the virtue of human’s concrete dimension which is united with dimension of action. In other words, understanding Rorty’s characteristic of pragmatism the same way to understand his critics against modern Western epistemology which has only created an abstract world and contemplation. The paper offers three parts of discussions; firstly, Rorty’s view on modern Western epistemology; followed by general characteristic of Rorty’s pragmatism, and last, its consequence toward philosophy function. Through pragmatism, Rorty affirms his support to plurality of human values and interest as concrete subject.

The Sanan tempeh industrial center community, located in Malang, East Java, has a special strategy to maintain environmental resilience in the area. 500 SMEs inhabit and produce tempeh in an area of 20 hectares. Each SME processes around 100 kg of soybeans on average into tempeh. In fact, the production of tempeh, of course, produces a lot of waste. The waste generated is boiled water and peeled soybean seeds. Therefore, it can be imagined the environmental burden of supporting the Sanan community from any tempeh production waste that is produced. If they don’t have an adequate waste management strategy, it can pollute the environment in the Sanan area. To anticipate environmental pollution, especially air pollution from boiled soybeans, the residents of Sanan carry out a waste recycling cycle to minimize waste disposal. The research method was carried out through qualitative approaches, such as interviewing the management of community associations as representatives of the Sanan community and observing & documenting several Sanan residents’ homes in managing the waste of Sanan tempeh production. The results of the research show that the waste recycling strategy is manifested in several activities: boiled wastewater and remaining soybean husks have been used as cattle feed, while since 2018 cow dung from the Sanan farm has been used as biogas as energy for burning stoves for tempeh production. The benefit of this strategy is that there is no strong odor generated from the tempeh production process and it strengthens the Sanan’s environmental sustainability.

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