Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T22:45:01.987Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Traveller's Guide to Putnam's “Narrow Path”*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2010

David Davies
David Davies
Affiliation:
McGill University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is now over 15 years since Hilary Putnam first urged that we take the “narrow path” of internal realism as a way of navigating between “the swamps of metaphysics and the quicksands of cultural relativism and historicism” (1983, p. 226). In the opening lines of the Preface to Realism with a Human Face, a collection of Putnam's recent papers edited by James Conant, Putnam reaffirms his allegiance to this narrow path, unmoved by Realist murmurings from the swamps and laconic Rortian suggestions that only the quicksands are a proper metaphilosophical abode for those willing to confront our lack of epistemological and metaphysical foundations. If there are changes to be discerned in these writings, Putnam avers, they pertain only to the burden allotted to different considerations in the overall economy of his argument: “It might be said that the difference between the present volume and my work prior to The Many Faces of Realism is a shift in emphasis: a shift from emphasizing model-theoretic arguments against metaphysical realism to emphasizing conceptual relativity” (p. xi).

Type
Critical Notices/Études critiques
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , Winter 1996 , pp. 117 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allison, Henry 1983 Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, Donald 1984 “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme.” In Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 183–98.Google Scholar
Davies, David 1987 “How Not to Outsmart the Anti-Realist.” Analysis, 47: 1–8. 1991CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, David 1991 “Works, Texts, and Contexts: Goodman on the Literary Artwork.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 21: 331–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, David 1992a “Curbing the Realist's Flights of Fancy.” Dialogue, 31: 243–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, David 1992b “Perspectives on Intentional Realism.” Mind and Language, 7, 3: 264–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, David 1995a “The Model-Theoretic Argument Unlocked.” In Québec Studies in the Philosophy of Scence: Part I. Edited by Marion, M. and Cohen, R.. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 273–84.Google Scholar
Davies, David 1995b “Acceptability and Truth: The ‘True’ Difference between Putnam and Rorty.” Unpublished manuscript, McGill University.Google Scholar
Demopoulos, William 1982 “The Rejection of Truth-conditional Semantics by Dummett and Putnam.” Philosophical Topics, 13, 1: 135–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
M., Devitt 1983 “Realism and the Renegade Putnam.” Nous, 17: 291–301.Google Scholar
Field, Hartry 1972 “Tarski's Theory of Truth.” Journal of Philosophy, 69: 347–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Field, Hartry 1982 “Realism and Relativism.” Journal of Philosophy, 79: 553–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, Arthur 1986 The Shaky Game. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Fine, Arthur 1989 “Truthmongering: Less Is True.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 19, 4: 611–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, Clark 1982 “Conceptual Scheming.” Synthese, 51: 169–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Alan H. 1984 “Fanciful Arguments for Realism.” Mind, 93: 19–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Alvin 1986 Epistemology and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goodman, Nelson 1978 Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacking, Ian 1983 Representing and Intervening. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horwich, Paul 1990 Truth. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Johnston, Mark 1993 “Objectivity Refigured: Pragmatism without Verificationism.” In Reality, Representation, and Projection. Edited by Haldane, J. and Wright, C.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 85–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koethe, John 1979 “Putnam's Argument against Realism.” Philosophical Review, 88: 92–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lear, Jonathan 1982 “Leaving the World Alone.” Journal of Philosophy, 79: 382–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David 1984 “Putnam's Paradox. “Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 62: 221–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Hilary 1978a “The Locke Lectures: Meaning and Knowledge.” 1976 rpt. In Meaning and the Moral Sciences. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 7–80.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary 1978b “Realism and Reason.” 1976 rpt. In Meaning and the Moral Sciences. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 123–40.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary 1978c Meaning and the Moral Sciences. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary 1981 Reason, Truth, and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Hilary 1983 Realism and Reason: Philosophical Papers. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Hilary 1987 The Many Faces of Realism. La Salle, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary 1990 Realism with a Human Face. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Quine, Willard van O. 1953 “Two Dogmas of Empiricism.” In From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard 1993 “Putnam and the Relativist Menace.” Journal of Philosophy, 90: 443–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sellars, Wilfred 1963 Science, Perception, and Reality. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Smart, J. J. C. 1982 “Metaphysical Realism.” Analysis, 42: 1–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smart, J. J. C. 1986 “Realism v. Idealism.” Philosophy, 61: 295–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Michael 1986 “Do We (Epistemologists) Need a Theory of Truth?” Philosophical Topics, 14: 223–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar