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111 Hilary Putnam 011 111 A beautiful statement of almost all the ideas that I take to be of lasting value and vital importance Hilary Putnam Hilary Putnam is one of the most famous and influential living philosophers. In Hilary Putnam: Pragmatism and Realism, Putnam responds to ten new papers exam- ining his central ideas, written by highly respected Putnam scholars especially 0111 for this volume. Putnam’s work touches on almost every area of interest in contemporary Anglo- American philosophy. His ideas have had repercussions in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind, as well as countless areas of metaphysics. Many of Putnam’s most influential ideas can be traced back to his two key commit- ments: to pragmatism and to realism. In this book, well-known top scholars examine these two fundamental positions and their place in Putnam’s work. In addition to responding to each paper, there is a new essay by Putnam himself on pragmatism and nonscientific knowledge. The insight into Putnam’s work provided by the contributions to his work, 0111 combined with Putnam’s extensive and detailed responses, make this essential reading for anyone with an interest in the ideas and influence of Hilary Putnam. Contributors: Ruth Anna Putnam, Hilary Putnam, Richard Warner, Robert Brandom, Nicholas Rescher, John Haldane, Tadeusz Szubka, John Heil, Wolfgang Künne, Gary Ebbs and Charles Travis. James Conant is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. He is the editor of Putnam’s collected papers. Urszula M. Z˙eglen´ is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Turon´, Poland. She is the editor of Donald Davidson: 0111 Truth, Meaning and Knowledge (Routledge, 1999). 5111 1 Routledge studies in twentieth-century philosophy 1 1 1 The Story of Analytic Philosophy Plot and heroes Edited by Anat Biletzki and Anat Matar 2 Donald Davidson Truth, meaning and knowledge Edited by Urszula M. Z·eglen´ 11 3 Philosophy and Ordinary Language The bent and genius of our tongue Oswald Hanfling 4 The Subject in Question Sartre’s critique of Husserl in The Transcendence of the Ego Stephen Priest 5 Aesthetic Order A philosophy of order, beauty and art 11 Ruth Lorland 6 Naturalism A critical analysis Edited by William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland 7 Grammar in Early Twentieth-Century Philosophy Edited by Richard Gaskin 8 Peter Winch’s Philosophy of the Social Sciences 11 Rules, magic and instrumental reason Berel Dov Lerner 9 Hilary Putnam Pragmatism and realism 11 Edited by James Conant and Urszula M. Z˙eglen´ 111 Hilary Putnam Pragmatism and realism 011 111 Edited by James Conant and · Urszula M. Zeglen´ 0111 0111 TL E D U G O 0111 E R • • T a p y u lo ro r G & Francis 5111 London and New York 1 First published 2002 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2002 Selection and editorial matter, James Conant and Urszula M. Z˙eglen´. Individual essays, the contributors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Hilary Putnam: pragmatism and realism / edited by James Conant and Urszula M. Z˙eglen´ p. cm. – (Routledge studies in twentieth-century philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Putnam, Hilary. 2. Pragmatism. 3. Realism. I. Z˙eglen´, Urszula M. II. Conant, James. III. Series. B945.P874 H55 2001 191–dc212001048163 ISBN 0-203-99637-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0–415–25605–4 (Print Edition) 111 Contents 011 111 List of contributors vii Preface xi Acknowledgements xii PART I Hilary Putnam and pragmatism 1 0111 Introduction 3 URSZ ULA M. Z˙ EGLEN´ 1 Taking pragmatism seriously 7 RUTH ANNA PUTNAM Comment on Ruth Anna Putnam’s paper 12 HILARY PUTNAM 2 Pragmatism and nonscientific knowledge 14 HILARY PUTNAM 0111 3 Pragmatism and legal reasoning 25 RICHARD WARNER Comment on Richard Warner’s paper 38 HILARY PUTNAM 4 Pragmatics and pragmatisms 40 ROBERT BRAND OM Comment on Robert Brandom’s paper 59 HILARY PUTNAM 5 Knowledge of the truth in pragmatic perspective 66 0111 NICHOLAS RESCHER Comment on Nicholas Rescher’s paper 80 HILARY PUTNAM 5111 vi Contents 1 PART II Putnam on realism 87 Introduction 89 U RSZULA M. Z˙ E GLE N´ 6Realism with a metaphysical skull 97 J OHN HALD ANE Comment on John Haldane’s paper 105 1 HILARY P U TNAM 7 The causal theory of perception and direct realism 109 TADEUS Z S ZUBKA 1 Comment on Tadeusz Szubka’s paper 125 HILARY P U TNAM 8 Functionalism, realism and levels of being 128 J OHN HEIL Comment on John Heil’s paper 143 HILARY P U TNAM 11 9 From alethic anti-realism to alethic realism 144 W O L F GANG K Ü NNE Comment on Wolfgang Künne’s paper 166 HILARY P U TNAM 10 Truth and trans-theoretical terms 167 GARY EBBS Comment on Gary Ebbs’s paper 186 HILARY P U TNAM 11 What laws of logic say 188 11 C H ARLE S TRAVIS Comment on Charles Travis’s paper 209 HILARY P U TNAM Notes 211 Writings of Hilary Putnam 229 Bibliography 231 Index 239 11 11 111 Contributors 011 111 Robert Brandom is Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Making It Explicit (1994) and Articulating Reasons (2000), and the editor of the Harvard edition of Sellars’ Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (1997), and Rorty and His Critics (2000). Tales of the Mighty Dead, a collection of his historical essays on Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Frege and Heidegger, is forthcoming from Harvard. He is currently at work on a book about Hegel. 0111 James Conant is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. His interests include the philosophy of language, questions on ethics and political philosophy, literary forms of philosophical work and the history of philosophy. He has published widely in each of these areas, with a recent focus on Frege and Wittgenstein. He is the editor of Hilary Putnam’s collected papers. Gary Ebbs is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He previously taught at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Rule-Following and 0111 Realism (1997), and articles on philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, philosophy of mind and the history of the analytic philosophy. A unifying goal of his current research is to describe the methodology of rational inquiry from an engaged, practical point of view. John Haldane is Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews. Currently he is also Stanton Lecturer in Divinity at Cambridge, and Royden-Davis Professor of Humanities at Georgetown University. He is the co-author (with J. J. C. Smart) of Atheism and Theism and editor of several collections including Philosophy and Public Affairs. A volume of his 0111 essays entitled Faithful Reason is due to be published by Routledge in 2002. John Heil is Professor of Philosophy at Monash University and Paul B. Freeland Professor of Philosophy at Davidson College. His interests lie in metaphysics, philosophy of mind and epistemology. His most recent 5111 book is Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge 2000). viii Contributors 1 Wolfgang Künne is Chair of Philosophy at the University of Hamburg. He is Vice-President of the German Society for Analytic Philosophy and President of the International Bolzano Society. He is the editor of Direct Reference, Indexicality, and Propositional Attitudes and of Bolzano and Analytical Philosophy. His book Conceptions of Truth is forthcoming. Hilary Putnam is Cogan University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. His books include Reason, Truth and History; Realism with a Human Face; Renewing Philosophy; Words and Life; Pragmatism and The 1 Threefold Cord: Mind, Body and World. Ruth Anna Putnam is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Wellesley 1 College, where she taught for 35 years. She is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to William James. She has written and continues to write on William James, John Dewey, ethics and political philosophy. Nicholas Rescher is University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, where he served for many years as Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science. A former president of the American Philosoph- 11 ical Association, he is an honorary member of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Author of more than eighty works ranging over many areas of philosophy, he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for Humanistic Scholarship in 1984. Tadeusz Szubka is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. He held various visiting fellowships at British, American and Australian universities. He is the author of Metafizyka anal- ityczna P. F. Strawsona (1995) and co-editor of The Mind–Body Problem (1994). He is currently completing a book on the semantic antirealism 11 of Michael Dummett. Charles Travis is Professor of Philosophy at the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
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