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2024 | 72 | 1 | 43-60

Article title

Putnam’s Natural Realism and Its Problems

Authors

Content

Title variants

PL
Problemy realizmu naturalnego Putnama

Languages of publication

Abstracts

PL
Hilary Putnam (1926–2016) miał skłonność do zmieniania swoich poglądów filozoficznych oraz do ich ciągłej modyfikacji. Ostatni okres rozwoju jego filozofii jest znany jako faza realizmu naturalnego lub zdroworozsądkowego. Realizm ten został najpełniej przedstawiony w Wykładach Deweyowskich z 1994 r. Artykuł dotyczy trzech aspektów stanowiska w nich wyłożonego, a następnie ulepszanego i uzupełnianego. Wskazane są trzy trudności tego stanowiska. Po pierwsze, Putnam twierdzi, że we współczesnym sporze o realizm mamy z jednej strony do czynienia ze zwolennikami ekstrawaganckiego realizmu metafizycznego, z drugiej zaś z entuzjastami rozmaitych wersji nieodpowiedzialnego antyrealizmu. Niestety Putnamowski zarys tej debaty jest zbyt uproszczony, ponieważ jest wiele postaci realizmu metafizycznego, natomiast scalanie w jedną całość różnych odmian antyrealizmu prowadzi na manowce. Po drugie, naiwny realizm bezpośredni Putnama trudno pogodzić z zaproponowanym przez niego transakcjonalizmem w teorii percepcji. Po trzecie, przez jakiś czas Putnam był pod wpływem Wittgensteinowskiego kwietyzmu, który zniekształcał charakter wysuwanych przez niego koncepcji filozoficznych.
EN
Hilary Putnam (1926–2016) was prone to change his mind on variety of philosophical issues and almost constantly to modify his views. The last period of the development of his philosophy is known as the phase of commonsense or natural realism, eloquently presented in his 1994 Dewey Lectures. This paper is focused on three facets of his position and tries to identify three difficulties it encounters. Firstly, Putnam claims that in the contemporary realism debate we have, on the one hand, proponents of extravagant metaphysical realism, and, on the other hand, advocates of various versions of irresponsible antirealism. Unfortunately, the delineation of the debate is too coarse-grained, since there are many forms of metaphysical realism, and lumping together various antirealisms is confusing and unhelpful. Secondly, Putnam’s naïve direct realism in the philosophy of perception seems incompatible with his transactional account of perception. Thirdly, for some time Putnam was under a spell of Wittgensteinian quietism that distorted the true character of his philosophical ideas.

Year

Volume

72

Issue

1

Pages

43-60

Physical description

Dates

published
2024

Contributors

  • University of Szczecin

References

  • Auxier, Randall E., Douglas R. Anderson, and Lewis E. Hahn, eds. 2015. The Philosophy of Hilary Putnam. Chicago: Open Court.
  • Conant, James. 2022. “An Introduction to Hilary Putnam.” In Engaging Putnam, edited by James Conant and Sanjit Chakraborty, 1–46. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
  • Dummett, Michael. 2005. “The Justificationist’s Response to a Realist.” Mind 114 (3): 671–88.
  • Dummett, Michael. 2007. “Reply to Hilary Putnam.” In The Philosophy of Michael Dummett, edited by Randall E. Auxier and Lewis E. Hahn, 168–84. Chicago: Open Court.
  • Dummett, Michael. 2015. “What Do Permutation Arguments Prove?” In Auxier, Anderson, and Hahn, 419–36.
  • Fish, William. 2021. Philosophy of Perception: A Contemporary Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.
  • Łukasiewicz, Jan. 1970. “On Determinism.” In Selected Works, by Jan Łukasiewicz, edited by Ludwik Borkowski, 110–28. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
  • Macarthur, David. 2004. “Putnam’s Natural Realism and the Question of a Perceptual Interface.” Philosophical Explorations 7 (2): 167–81.
  • Macarthur, David. 2017. “On Metaphysical Quietism and Everyday Life.” In The Cambridge Companion to Philosophical Methodology, edited by Giuseppina D’Oro and Søren Overgaard, 249–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • McDowell, John. 2009. “Wittgensteinian ‘Quietism’.” Common Knowledge 15 (3): 365–72.
  • McDowell, John. 2015. “Putnam on Natural Realism.” In Auxier, Anderson, and Hahn, 643–58.
  • Passmore, John A. 1985. Recent Philosophers: A Supplement to “A Hundred Years of Philosophy”. London: Duckworth.
  • Putnam, Hilary. 1994. “Sense, Nonsense, and the Senses: An Inquiry into the Powers of the Human Mind.” The Journal of Philosophy 91 (9): 445–517. Reprinted with minor amendments in Putnam 1999, 1–70.
  • Putnam, Hilary. 1999. The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body, and World. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Putnam, Hilary. 2007/2016. “Between Scylla and Charybdis: Does Dummett Have a Way Through?” In The Philosophy of Michael Dummett, edited by Randall E. Auxier and Lewis E. Hahn, 155–67. Chicago: Open Court. Reprinted in Naturalism, Realism, and Normativity, by Hilary Putnam, edited by Mario De Caro, 114–27. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Putnam, Hilary. 2008/2022. “12 Philosophers – and Their Influence on Me.” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 82 (2): 101–15. Reprinted in Philosophy as Dialogue, by Hilary Putnam, edited by Mario De Caro and David Macarthur, 327–44. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Putnam, Hilary. 2009. “[Answers to 5 Questions].” In Mind and Consciousness: 5 Questions, edited by Patrick Grim, 145–54. Copenhagen: Automatic Press.
  • Putnam, Hilary. 2011/2012. “Wittgenstein: A Reappraisal.” In Philosophy in an Age of Science: Physics, Mathematics, and Skepticism, by Hilary Putnam, edited by Mario De Caro and David Macarthur, 482–92. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Putnam, Hilary. 2012. “From Quantum Mechanics to Ethics and Back Again.” In Philosophy in an Age of Science: Physics, Mathematics, and Skepticism, by Hilary Putnam, edited by Mario De Caro and David Macarthur, 51–71. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Putnam, Hilary. 2013. “The Revival of Naïve Realism.” Rivista di filosofia 104 (3): 505–21.
  • Putnam, Hilary. 2015a. “Intellectual Autobiography.” In Auxier, Anderson, and Hahn, 1–110.
  • Putnam, Hilary. 2015b. “Reply to Michael Dummett.” In Auxier, Anderson, and Hahn, 437–50.
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  • Putnam, Hilary. 2016. “Perception without Sense Data.” In Naturalism, Realism, and Normativity, by Hilary Putnam, edited by Mario De Caro, 152–68. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Soteriou, Matthew. 2016. Disjunctivism. London: Routledge.
  • Spiegel, Thomas J. 2021. “What Is Philosophical Quietism (Wittgensteinian and Otherwise)?” In Quietism, Agnosticism and Mysticism: Mapping the Philosophical Discourse of the East and the West, edited by Krishna M. Pathak, 17–31. Singapore: Springer.
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  • Szubka, Tadeusz. 2007. “The Viability of the Epistemic Conception of Truth: The Case of Putnam.” Polish Journal of Philosophy 1 (1): 101–10.
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Document Type

Publication order reference

Identifiers

Biblioteka Nauki
31233200

YADDA identifier

bwmeta1.element.ojs-doi-10_18290_rf24721_3
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