Hilary Putnam Edited by Yemima Ben-Menahem Frontmatter More Information

Cambridge University Press 0521012546 - Hilary Putnam Edited by Yemima Ben-Menahem Frontmatter More information

Hilary Putnam

The richness of Hilary Putnam’s philosophical oeuvre consists not only in the broad spectrum of problems addressed but also in the transformations and re- structuring his positions have undergone over the years. The essays collected in this volume are sensitive to both these dimensions. They discuss Putnam’s major philosophical contributions to the theory of meaning, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science and mathematics, and moral theory. But, in addition, tracing threads of change and continuity, they analyze the dynamics underlying the unfolding of Putnam’s thought. The volume also constitutes a critical introduction to a number of central issues in contemporary philosophy, including quantum logic, realism, functionalism, the ‘mind as computer’ metaphor, and the fact/value dichotomy.

Yemima Ben-Menahem is a memberof the Departmentof Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Contemporary Philosophy in Focus

Contemporary Philosophy in Focus offers a series of introductory volumes to many of the dominant philosophical thinkers of the current age. Each volume consists of newly commissioned essays that covermajorcontributionsof a preeminent philosopher in a systematic and accessible manner. Comparable in scope and rationale to the highly successful series Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, the volumes do not presuppose that readers are already inti- mately familiar with the details of each philosopher’s work. They thus combine exposition and critical analysis in a manner that will appeal to students of philosophy and to professionals as well as to students across the humanities and social sciences.

forthcoming volumes: Paul Churchland edited by Brian Keeley Ronald Dworkin edited by Arthur Ripstein Jerry Fodor edited by Tim Crane Saul Kripke edited by Alan Berger David Lewis edited by Theodore Sider and Dean Zimmermann Bernard Williams edited by Alan Thomas

published volumes: Stanley Cavell edited by Richard Eldridge Donald Davidson edited by Kirk Ludwig Daniel Dennett edited by Andrew Brook and Don Ross Thomas Kuhn edited by Thomas Nickles Alasdair MacIntyre edited by Mark Murphy Richard Rorty edited by Charles Guignon and David Hiley John Searle edited by Barry Smith Charles Taylor edited by Ruth Abbey

Hilary Putnam

Edited by YEMIMA BEN-MENAHEM The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

cambridge university press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB22RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcon´ 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org

C Cambridge University Press 2005

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2005

Printed in the United States of America

Typefaces Janson Text 10/13 pt. and ITC Ofﬁcina Sans System LATEX2ε [TB]

Acatalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hilary Putnam / edited by Yemima Ben-Menahem. p. cm. – (Contemporary philosophy in focus) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-521-81311-5 – ISBN 0-521-01254-6 (pbk.) 1. Putnam, Hilary. I. Ben-Menahem, Yemima, 1946– II. Series. B945.P874H54 2004 191 – dc22 2004048193

ISBN 0 521 81311 5 hardback ISBN 0 521 01254 6 paperback

Contents

List of Contributors page ix Acknowledgments xi

1 Introduction 1 yemima ben-menahem

2 Putnam’s “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’”:Externalism in Historical Context 17 juliet floyd

3 The Face of Perception 53 charles travis

4 Realism, Beyond Miracles 83 axel mueller and arthur fine

5 Putnam on Skepticism 125 yemima ben-menahem

6 The Tale of Quantum Logic 156 tim maudlin

7 Another Philosopher Looks at Quantum Mechanics, or What Quantum Theory Is Not 188 nancy cartwright

8 Structural Realism and Contextual Individuality 203 john stachel

9 The Rise and Fall of Computational Functionalism 220 oron shagrir

10 The Pragmatic Turn:The Entanglement of Fact and Value 251 richard j. bernstein

Index 267

vii

Contributors

yemima ben-menahem is a memberof the Departmentof Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In her publications she has addressed a range of classic problems in the philosophy of science, including expla- nation, causality, and realism. Her Conventionalism is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. richard j. bernstein is Vera List Professor of Philosophy and dean of the graduate faculty at New School University in New York City. He has written widely on political theory, American pragmatism, and critical theory. His books include Praxis and Action (1971), Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics and Praxis (1983), Freud and the Vexed Legacy of Moses (1998), and Radical Evil: APhilosophical Interrogation (2002). nancy cartwright is a professor of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, London School of Economics and Political Science, and chair of the London School of Economics Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. She is also a professor of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. Among her books are How the Laws of Physics Lie (1983), Nature’s Capacities and Their Measurement (1989), The Dappled World: AStudy of the Boundaries of Science (1999), and Measuring Causes: Invariance, Modularity and the Causal Markov Condition (2000). arthur ﬁne is a professor of philosophy and adjunct professor of physics at the University of Washington. He has served as president of the Philos- ophy of Science Association and of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association. His works in the philosophy of science focus, in particular, on the foundations of twentieth-century physics and include, among others, The Shaky Game: Einstein, Realism and the Quantum Theory (1986; 2d ed. 1996). juliet ﬂoyd is an associate professor of philosophy at Boston Univer- sity. She has published on Kant, Wittgenstein, and the philosophy of

x Contributors

mathematics and coedited Future Pasts: Perspectives on the Analytic Tradi- tion in Twentieth-Century Philosophy (2001). tim maudlin is a professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. His two main research areas are metaphysics and the philosophy of physics. The authorof Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity (1994), he has two books forthcoming from Oxford University Press: Truth and Paradox: Solving the Riddles and Metaphysics Within Physics. axel mueller, of the Department of Philosophy at Northwestern Univer- sity, works in pragmatism, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of science. His Referenz und Fallibilismus (2001) is a study of Putnam’s thought. john stachel is a professor emeritus of physics and director of the Center for Einstein Studies at Boston University. Founder of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, he has published extensively in the history and philosophy of theoretical physics, especially on the general theory of relativity. His most recent book is Einstein from ‘B’ to ‘Z’ (2002). oron shagrir is a memberof the Departmentof Philosophy and chairof the program in Cognitive Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His areas of expertise include the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and the history and philosophy of computing. His recent papers have been published in Mind, Synthese, the Monist, Minds and Machines, and Theoretical Computer Science. charles travis is a professor of philosophy at Northwestern University. He works in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language, focusing in particular on the interpretation of Wittgenstein’s philosophy in these areas. His books include The Uses of Sense: Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Language (1989), Unshadowed Thought (2000), and Les Liaisons Ordinaires (2002).

Acknowledgments

The papers collected here have not been published before. I would like to thank the authors for their responsiveness and patience during the editorial process. I would also like to thank Hilary Putnam, teacher and friend, who over the years has been a source of inspiration and encouragement. Terence Moore of Cambridge University Press invited me to edit this volume and provided assistance throughout the process. His recent death is a great loss to the philosophical community. The many volumes he brought into the world, however, are a lasting tribute to his vision.