Putnam, Truth, and Informal Logic (original) (raw)
Related papers
Putnam's Conception of Truth 2016 dellutri
European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 2016
After stressing how the attempt to provide a plausible account of the connection between language and the world was one of Putnam's constant preoccupations, this article describes the four stages his thinking about the concepts of truth and reality went through. Particular attention is paid to the kinds of problems that made him abandon each stage to enter the next. The analysis highlights how all the stages but one express a general non-epistemic stance towards truth and reality-the right stance, according to Putnam, in order to develop full-blooded realism. Since the last stage combines a version of direct realism with a pluralist conception of truth, the article proceeds by focusing on Putnam's alethic pluralism, carefully distinguishing it from alethic deflationism. Finally a suggestion is made as to where Putnam's alethic pluralism may be placed within the constellation of current pluralist positions about truth.
Self-refutations and much more: the dialectical thinking of Hilary Putnam
2001
In the following discussion, I examine what constitutes the dialectical strain in Putnam’s thought. As part of this examination, I consider Putnam’s (1981) criticism of the fact/value dichotomy. I compare this criticism to Putnam’s analysis of the metaphysical realist’s position, a position which has occupied Putnam’s thinking more than any other philosophical stance. I describe how Putnam pursues a chargeof self-refutation against the metaphysical realist and against the proponent of a fact/value dichotomy, a charge which assumes dialectical significance. So it is that the self-refuting nature of these positions is linked to their unintelligibility. My conclusion relates Putnam’s dialectical project to his wider philosophical ambitions, ambitions which are influenced in large part by Wittgensteinian considerations.
INTERPRETING PUTNAM'S DIALECTICAL METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY
Metaphilosophy, 2005
Hilary Putnam's philosophical views have undergone extensive interpretation over many years. One such interpretive work is George Myerson's book Rhetoric, Reason and Society. Myerson's interest in dialogic rationalism leads him to examine the views of many theorists of rationality, philosophers and non-philosophers alike. As a prominent philosopher of rationality, Putnam is at the very center of this examination. Notwithstanding this fact, I contend that Myerson misinterprets the dialectical character of Putnam's philosophy in general and of Putnam's views on rationality in particular. This misinterpretation, I argue, is revealing of an illusion of thought to which Myerson is subject, an illusion that makes it seem that it is possible to theorize intelligibly about rationality from a metaphysical standpoint. This same illusion, I claim, also makes it seem that Myerson's positive views on rationality are intelligible. Employing a close textual analysis of Myerson's book, I argue that neither scenario is the case.
Metaphilosophy, 2008
Though in his two most recent books, Hilary Putnam uses the technical language of Analytic philosophy to make his points, he expresses, through it, a strong humanistic perspective. On a battleground occupied largely by realists and antirealists of varying stripes, Putnam tries to establish the integrity of a form of realism that is durable without being rigid and carries with it the best traits of good common sense. By doing so, he does indeed try to put forward his own balanced, reasonable and down-to-earth view of human intelligence. But, moreover, I think he wishes to encourage a particular kind of discourse in philosophy, one that bears the traits of balance, perspective and sanity while, at the same time, encouraging pluralistic diversity. He does not take such discourse for granted either in philosophy or in the world at large. As he declares in his Introductory Remarks to Pragmatism, it is an "open question whether an enlightened society can avoid a corrosive moral scepticism without tumbling back into moral authoritarianism." 1 The urge of these recent works is to develop a context for philosophical dialogue through which one can steer away from rigid ideological extremes. In philosophy, the template for such discourse is the discussion of Realism. But the range and implication of Putnam's work is far greater, as it was for John Dewey, and the interest in the melioristic implications of Pragmatism hold for Putnam as strongly as they do for Dewey. Endowing metaphysical discussion with reasonableness and balance, Putnam hopes to encourage it in other forms of human communication. 2 © Metaphilosophy LLC and Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001 1 Pragmatism, 2. 2 "For there is, God knows, irresponsibility enough in the world, including irresponsibility masquerading as responsibility, and it belongs to the vocation of the thinker, now as always, to try to teach the difference between the two" (Threefold Cord, 4).
Hilary Putnam's dialectical thinking: an application to fallacy theory
2002
In recent and not so recent years, fallacy theory has sustained numerous challenges, challenges which have seen the theory charged with lack of systematicity as well as failure to deliver significant insights into its subject matter. In the following discussion, I argue that these criticisms are subordinate to a more fundamental criticism of fallacy theory, a criticism pertaining to the lack of intelligibility of this theory. The charge of unintelligibility against fallacy theory derives from a similar charge against philosophical theories of truth and rationality developed by Hilary Putnam. I examine how Putnam develops this charge in the case of the conception of rationality pursued by logical positivism. Following that examination, I demonstrate the significance of this charge for how we proceed routinely to analyse one informal fallacy, the fallacy of petitio principii. Specifically, I argue that the significance of this charge lies in its issuance of a rejection of the urge to theorise in fallacy inquiry in general and petitio inquiry in particular. My conclusion takes the form of guidelines for the post-theoretical pursuit of fallacy inquiry.
The Many Faces of Objectivity: A Progressive View of Putnam's Philosophy
Análisis, vol. 5 no. 1, 2018
In this paper I present a positive progressive picture of Putnam's philosophy. According to this way of seeing things, Putnam is a normative cartographer of our linguistic practices who has over time refined his understanding of the concepts of truth and verification and their complex relationship from discourse to discourse. Looked at in this way Putnam is primarily a philosopher of objective normativity, who explores the various conceptions of objectivity with which we operate as well as resisting the excesses of both metaphysics and skepticism which do violence to our ordinary and scientific practices. However, Putnam also sees himself as a philosopher of 'reality' focused on " the realism issue " , a metaphysically inflationary way of thinking that, I argue, stands in the way of his deepest insights.