|
 Philosopher
of the Month
June
2002 - Hilary Putnam
Jack
Ritchie
The
one thing that can definitely be said of Hilary Putnam is that he
is not afraid to change his mind. Some might think that is a weakness,
indicating he bends with the winds of fashion, rather than engages
in detailed defence of his theories. This would be a mistake. His
changes of philosophical heart always arise from deep critical reflection
on the problems and assumptions of his own former views. So, to
understand what Putnam thinks now, it is vital to see how his new
views develop out of his old.
His
early philosophical career was marked by the influence of logical
postivism and in particular Carnap. But in the sixties and seventies
he began to develop a clear and distinct philosophical position
all his own. In the philosophy of science, Putnam rejected his positivist
past and defended a form of realism, the view that mature scientific
theories are (approximately) true. His original contribution was
to suggest that scientific realism be understood and defended as
a high-level empirical hypothesis: the best explanation of the success
of the mature sciences was that they were approximately true and
most of the terms in those theories referred to real entities.
In
the philosophy of mind, again Putnam adopted a realist position.
He denied that mental states can be reduced to physical, brain states,
on the grounds that it is possible to imagine creatures with different
physical constitutions - people, aliens, maybe robots - that had
the same mental states but different, or no, brains. In its place
he suggested a position known as functionalism which sees the mind
as analogous to a computer. Psychology, so understood, is an abstract
software description of the thinking organism.
A
third influential position which emerged during this realist period
was semantic externalism. Putnam asked us to consider a world exactly
like ours except that instead of water, it contains a substance
with all the same gross properties - it's liquid, refreshing, etc.
- but a different microconstitution, XYZ, not H2O. The inhabitants
of this world happen to call this substance water too. Now imagine
there is somebody physically identical in all respects to you in
this world. You both come across a pool of liquidy, refreshing stuff
and have the thought 'water is refreshing'. Do you think the same
thing? Putnam argues not, since what the thought is about is different
in each case. It is about H2O for you, XYZ for your twin. But since
by hypothesis you are physically identical, that difference cannot
be accounted for by any internal state. Meanings, as Putnam says,
just ain't in the head.
The
first doubts about his own brand of realism emerged when Putnam
realised that his scientific argument for realism would work using
any definition of truth - realist or anti-realist. If that is so
then there seems no more need to regard it as an argument for scientific
realism than for anti-realism. In addition, using technical results
from model-theory, Putnam claimed to prove that one cannot draw
a distinction between ideal justification and truth. This led Putnam
to adopt 'internal realism': a position that seeks to make sense
of notions like truth by employing concepts (such as justification)
internal to our non-philosophical practice. Normally, this is interpreted
as a version of anti-realism since Putnam appears to be suggesting
that there is no more to truth than ideal justification.
His
present views reflect a working through of the tensions implicit
in his functionalism, externalism and internal realism. First, consider
the relation between functionalism and externalism. If there is
more to meaning than what goes on in the head, then functional states,
understood as internal states of the organism, cannot really be
mental states. Putnam has also come to see that his advocacy of
functionalism is at least partly responsible for people's conviction
that his internal realism is just yet another version of anti-realism.
If we limit ourselves only to what is internal to our world-view,
then given the functionalist story of mental states, it can seem
a mystery how our mind or language connects with reality. It can
appear then, that Putnam is offering an anti-realist construal of
meaning and truth in order to overcome these problems. For these
reasons, among others, Putnam has abandoned his functionalism and
modified his internal realism. He now argues for what he calls a
deliberate naiveté or realism with a small r. The mind is
not to be thought of as an organ but a 'system of object-involving
capacities'. Putnam is also anxious to revive the pre-philosophical
and metaphysically innocent senses of terms like realism and meaning.
Strongly influenced by the work of the later Wittgenstein, Putnam
today eschews direct philosophical theorising. Instead he offers
descriptions of our use of words like meaning and truth and insists
on the importance of considering what role these everyday uses play
in our lives.
Putnam
tomorrow? Well, we can't rule out another change of mind.
Suggested
reading
Renewing Philosophy, Hilary Putnam (Harvard University Press)
The Threefold Cord, Hilary Putnam (Columbia University Press)
A
new philosopher of the month will be featured early-July 2002
Join
Our Café mailing list
To
receive *very* short messages, letting you know when the Café
has been updated, just fill in your email address below - and press
submit.
[If
you wish to unsubscribe from the mailing list, simply fill in your
subscriber email address, select "Unsubscribe", and press Submit.]
Previous
Philosophers of the Month
|
