Body of Text

TWENTIETH CENTURY – 15 – – 16 – A. PHILOSOPHY 1. Neo-pragmatism Yubraj Aryal: What is happening in the recent development of American philosophy? My emphasis is on pragmatic renovation of the analytical tradition, neo-pragmatism, really? Hilary W. Putnam: First, we need to distinguish two versions of "pragmatism" now on offer to the philosophically interested public. I shall call them "pragmatism light" and "good old fashioned pragmatism". Pragmatism light is largely the creation of my good friend and favorite debating Hilary W. Putnam partner for many years, Richard Rorty. Rorty was certainly a brilliant philosopher, but his views were, in my view, deeply Hilary W. Putnam is Cogan University Professor Emeritus in misguided. According to pragmatism light, truth is just a the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University. Before compliment that we pay to beliefs we like, and words and joining the faculty of Harvard, he was Professor of the sentences do not represent parts or aspects of reality. The Philosophy of Science at M.I.T. He has also taught at problem with all that, if you will permit me to be blunt, is Northwestern University and Princeton University. He is a that we do live in a real world, most of which is not of our past President of the American Philosophical Association making, and we do use words to talk about parts and aspects (Eastern Division), the Philosophy of Science Association, and of it. Rorty's best arguments were that (as Quine, Davidson, the Association for Symbolic Logic. He is a Fellow of the and myself had pointed out) there are deep philosophical American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American problems about the semantic notions of truth and Philosophical Society, a Corresponding Fellow of the British representation. But, unlike Rorty, the three of us never Academy and the French Academie des Sciences Politiques et proposed to just give up on these fundamental notions. I Morales, and holds a number of honorary degrees. suspect that the popularity of pragmatism light came from its nice fit with "postmodernism"–for me that is no reason at Putnam has written extensively on issues in metaphysics all to accept it. and epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. In recent years Putnam "Good old fashioned pragmatism" is, of course, the has also written extensively on the relations between pragmatism of Pierce, James and Dewey. I do not consider scientific and non-scientific knowledge and on American myself a "card-carrying" pragmatist" of either variety, but I pragmatism. His most recent book, titled Ethics Without believe there were a host of insights in the writings of all Ontology, which appeared in Spring 2004, deals with many three of these thinkers. I particularly value Dewey's of these topics. conception of ethics as continuous with the theory of democratic life, and of both as based on pluralism, fallibilism – 17 – – 18 – and experimentalism. Of course, pragmatism light values in Philosophy), and from Wittgenstein. But most of the self- these two; the difference is that "good old fashioned styled "postmodernists" don't understand either Quine or pragmatism" believed in the possible of rational discourse Wittgenstein, in my opinion. about politics and ethics, while pragmatism light scoffs at Y. A.: Let me focus on neo-pragmatism and your the very notion of "rational discourse." philosophical position on it. Is there any doctrine that we can As for "the recent development of American philosophy", call neo-pragmatism? In other words, is neo-pragmatism a what I like is that it has become much more open. No doctrine? thinker is excluded from discussion (McDowell and Brandom H. W. P.: I don't see so-called "neo-pragmatists" (of both the have even rehabilitated Hegel!), and the old positivist "light" and the "good old fashioned" varieties) as having a contempt for the history of philosophy is a thing of the past. single "doctrine". But there are some points that we perhaps The interest in pragmatism is a symptom–not the cause–of all agree on. Among them are fallibilism, pluralism (not only this greater openness. in the sense of favoring political pluralism and a plurality of Y. A.: Twentieth century witnesses mainly two philosophical notions of human flourishing, but also ontological pluralism– currents both of which smash the foundationalist program (to the denial of the possibility of a fixed inventory of all possible establish certain humanist ideals like Truth, God, Centre "modes of being"), and anti-reductionism. "Neo-pragmatists" etc.): one is Continental philosophy led by Heidegger, respect science but oppose "scientism". Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault etc., and the other is Anglo- Y. A.: At the heart of neo-pragmatism, there is a strong American Analytical philosophy led by James, Dewey, Pierce, dislike for continental philosophical traditions like Rorty and yourself. Whose phenomenon is postmodernism Cartesianism, Marxism (Rorty once told me "Marxism is not then-either Continental or Anglo-American? Or should we philosophy, only some vague ideas." in an interview), qualify postmodernism calling French postmodernism, Deconstruction (Derrida is not only heavily criticized but also American postmodernism? ignored by American academia) etc., despite some uses of H. W. P.: I have no interest in being called "Postmodern". Freud, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Foucault etc. What are the But I agree with you that philosophy has become anti- major discontents of analytic philosophy with Continental foundationalist, and that in America the pragmatists had a traditions? significant role to play in that. But the fact that almost all H. W. P.: When I was in China in 1994, a young student philosophers are now anti-foundationalist (and, in fact have expressed her dissatisfaction with Marx to me by saying "No been anti-foundationalist for decades) is not wholly due to 19th century point of view is final". She was right. But any wonderful arguments that "smashed" it. Part of it is just speaking for myself, I certainly admire both Descartes and a change of philosophical fashion, always something to be Marx. That neither Descartes nor Marx achieved the kind of suspicious of. The best arguments against foundationalism– final answer to the great problems that they hoped for and there are some good arguments– came from Quine, in doesn't give us any right to despise them. All the great his great paper "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" (and his friend philosophers have this in common: as we get smarter, their Morton White, in his sadly neglected book Towards Reunion writings get smarter. – 19 – – 20 – The analytic tradition has two major discontents with Readings of classical pragmatism: Rorty's gave us what I Derrida (but not with Descartes), one of which I share, and regard as a caricature of classical pragmatism: truth is what one of which I disapprove of. The one I share is that he gives makes us happy to believe. On my reading–and that of every appallingly bad arguments at times (as Rorty also noted, other expert I know of–the classical pragmatist had complex although he admired Derrida). The one I disapprove of comes and serious theories of truth. And they took both truth and from the belief, almost universal among "analytic" representation quite seriously. philosophers, that the sole function of philosophy is to give Y. A.: Why did you give up your middle path philosophy of good arguments. That philosophy can also have the function internal realism (between metaphysical realism and anti of helping us to question our own lives is something analytic realism)? philosophy doesn't even consider, because it has the idea that philosophy must always and only be "scientific". That H. W. P.: I was strongly influenced by Michael Dummett's philosophy itself can be pluralistic, can have a plurality of "antirealist" views in the late 1970s and the 1980s. S if and functions, and that "argument" need not always consist of only if (S would be justified if epistemic conditions were good deriving conclusions from premises, is what it doesn't see. enough)" is true, according to my "internal realist" Stanly Cavell has been an important force in criticizing this modification of Dummett's view. overly narrow view of philosophy. But how is this counterfactual to be understood? On Y. A.: What is your concept of internal realism (also called my picture (which was different, in this respect, from naïve realism)? How does your philosophy of internal realism Dummett's), the world was allowed to determine whether I reject Rortyan anti-realist philosophical position? I want to actually am in a sufficiently good epistemic situation or add one thing here: How does your reading of classical whether I only seem to myself to be in one–thus retaining an pragmatism differ from Rorty? important idea from commonsense realism–but the conception of an epistemic situation was, at bottom, just the H. W. P.: I gave up internal realism years ago. In Reason, traditional epistemological one. My picture still retained the Truth and History (1981), in the course of writing on subjects basic premise of an interface between the knower and that went far beyond my pre-1975 interests, I made what I everything "outside". But while the need for a "third way" now see as a false start by defending a version of anti-realist besides early modern realism and Dummettian idealism is semantics that I sometimes called "internal realism". I gave something I feel as strongly as ever, such a third way must it up for a more "realist" position by 1990, as I stated in my undercut the idea that there is an "antinomy", and not reply to Simon Blackburn at the conference on my simply paste together elements of early modern realism and philosophy at the University of St.

Load more