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Putnam, Pragmatism, and Democratic Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Matthew Festenstein
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Extract

In a powerful series of texts, Hilary Putnam has criticized what he takes to be a prevalent scientistic conception of objectivity in modern philosophy. This article is concerned with two connected facets of this critique, upon which Putnam himself has laid increasing emphasis: the attempt to reconstruct conceptions of ethical and political value in the wake of his criticism of “metaphysical realist” notions of objectivity, and his affiliation with the tradition of pragmatist philosophy. Four principal manifestations of Putnam's concern with ethical and political value are examined: the internalist argument for moral objectivity; the criticism of instrumental reason; the account of a “moral image”; and the “reconsideration of Deweyan democracy.” It is argued that an interpretation of Dewey's moral and political philosophy provides an illuminating vantage point from to understand the shortcomings of Putnam's ethical and political writings.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 57 , Issue 4 , Fall 1995 , pp. 693 - 722
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1995

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References

1. Especially relevant to the themes of this paper are Putnam, Hilary, Meaning and the Moral Sciences (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978)Google Scholar; Putnam, Hilary, Reason, Truth and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Putnam, Hilary, Realism and Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Putnam, Hilary, The Many Faces of Realism (LaSalle, II.: Open Court, 1987)Google Scholar; Putnam, Hilary, Realism with a Human Face, ed. Conant, James (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Putnam, Hilary, “A Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy,” in Pragmatism in Law and Society, ed. Brint, Michael and Weaver, William (Boulder: Westview, 1991), pp. 217–243Google Scholar; Putnam, Hilary, Renewing Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Putnam, Hilary, Words and Life, ed. Conant, James (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Putnam, Hilary, Pragmatism: An Open Question (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994).Google Scholar

2. Renewing Philosophy, pp. 18–19.

3. Realism with a Human Face, p. 141; Reason, Truth and History, pp. xi, 215; Many Faces of Realism, p. 141.

4. Realism with a Human Face, p. xi.

5. Many Faces of Realism, p. 44.

6. “Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy,” p. 217. See also Words and Life, Part III; Pragmatism; and the interesting interview with Putnam in Borradori, Giovanna, The American Philosopher, trans. Crocitto, Rosanna (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), esp. pp. 61–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a useful discussion of other influences on Putnam's recent thought, see Conant, James, “Introduction,” Realism with a Human Face, pp. xv–lxxiv.Google Scholar In the preface to Words and Life, Putnam explains that his earlier work focused upon dismantling the fact/ value dichotomy, but later essays, “while continuing the criticism of that dichotomy, go on to develop a positive view of the nature of social/ethical problems, which I... find in the writings of John Dewey.” Some of the recent work on pragmatism has been coauthored with Ruth Anna Putnam.

7. These formulations are taken from Sayre-mccord, Geoffrey, “The Many Moral Realisms,” in Essays on Moral Realism, ed. Sayre-mccord, G. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp. 1–23 (p. 5)Google Scholar; Lear, Jonathan, “Ethics, Mathematics and Relativism,” Mind 92 (1983): 38–60 (p. 43)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a now canonical formulation of the position which exercises Putnam, see Mackie, J. L., Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), pp. 15–49Google Scholar.

8. Reason, Truth and History, pp. 138–139; Realism with a Human Face, pp. 166–68.

9. Reason, Truth and History, p. 49. In recent work, he stresses that the claim of metaphysical realism should be thought of as unintelligible rather than false: e.g., “The Question of Realism,” Words and Life, pp. 295–312.

10. Words and Life, p. 156; Realism with a Human Face, p. 139.

11. Realism with a Human Face, p. 138; see Reason, Truth and History, pp. 126–42.

12. Realism with a Human Face, p. 162.

13. Ibid., p. 183.

14. Nor, clearly, have all the dimensions of Putnam's account been brought out; in particular, his arguments in the theory of reference. Helpful guides include Reading Putnam, ed. Clark, P. and Hale, B. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994)Google Scholar; Sosa, Ernest, “Putnam's Pragmatic Realism,” Journal of Philosophy 90 (1993), pp. 605–626.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Cf. Lear, , “Ethics, Mathematics, and Relativism,” pp. 43–44.Google Scholar

16. Williams, Bernard, Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 101–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. “Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy,” p. 232.

18. Many Faces, p. 61.

19. Reason, Truth and History, p. 171.

20. Ibid., p. 172.

21. Ibid., p. 171.

22. Ibid., p. 169.

23. Williams, , Moral Luck, pp. 101–113Google Scholar; Reason, , Truth and History, pp. 169–173Google Scholar; Words and Life, pp. 210–213; Dewey, John, “The Logic of Judgments of Practice,” in The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 8, ed. Boydston, J. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979), pp. 14–83.Google ScholarAlexander, Thomas M., “John Dewey and the Moral Imagination: Beyond Putnam and Rorty toward a Postmodern Ethics,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 29 (1993): pp. 369–400Google Scholar, takes this to be the principal point of convergence between Dewey and Putnam.

24. Reason, Truth and History, p. 172.

25. Many Faces, p. 51.

26. Ibid., pp. 51,57,58.

27. Ibid., p. 51.

28. Ibid., p. 52.

29. Ibid., p. 61.

30. Ibid., p. 62.

31. See Habermas, Jürgen, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Lenhardt, C. and Nicholson, S. Weber (Cambridge: Polity, 1990)Google Scholar; Habermas, Jürgen, Justification and Application, trans. Cronin, C. P. (Cambridge: Polity, 1993)Google Scholar; Apel, Karl-otto, Towards a Transformation of Philosophy, trans. Adie, G. and. Frisby, D. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980)Google Scholar; Apel, Karl-otto, Charles S. Peirce: From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism, trans. Krois, J. M. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981)Google Scholar. More detailed critiques, which tend to bear out Putnam's conclusions, include Wellmer, Albrecht, The Persistence of Modernity, trans. Midgley, D. (Cambridge: Polity, 1991)Google Scholar; Heller, Agnes, “The Discourse Ethics of Habermas,” Thesis Eleven 10/11 (1984/5): 5–17.Google Scholar

32. Many Faces, pp. 53–56; “Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy,” pp. 229–32.

33. “Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy,” p. 231.

34. Ibid. Compare Benhabib, Seyla, Situating the Self (Cambridge: Polity, 1992), pp. 37–38Google Scholar, for whom the principle “neminem laede” ought not to be violated since to do so would be to undermine the possibility of a moral dialogue.

35. Compare Walker, R. C. S., Kant (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), pp. 10–13,122–27Google Scholar; Lear, Jonathan, “Moral Objectivity,” in Objectivity and Cultural Divergence, ed. Brown, S. C. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 135–70Google Scholar (esp. pp. 159–60).

36. Habermas faced a similar difficulty with an earlier construction of his theory around the concept of an “emancipatory interest”: see Habermas, Jürgen, Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Shapiro, J. J. (London: Heinemann, 1972).Google Scholar

37. The declared relationship to Dewey is in fact slightly unclear: e.g., “although I shall state it [the epistemological justification of democracy] in my own words, I shall deliberately select words which come from Dewey's own philosophical vocabulary” (“Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy,” p. 217).

38. Words and Life, pp. 215–16; “Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy,” p. 220.

39. Words and Life, p. 216.

40. Ibid., p. 217. Compare Many Faces, p. 51.

41. Words and Life, p. 430.

42. A leitmotif in Putnam and Putnam's essay on Dewey's Logic (Words and Life, pp. 198–220) is the relevance of Peirce's essay on the fixation of belief to understanding Dewey's theory of inquiry. In the terms of that essay, Putnam only establishes that we must have some method for fixing our beliefs about our interests, but not what that method should be; Peirce, Charles S., Collected Papers, ed. Hartshorne, Charles and Weiss, Paul, and Burks, Arthur W., 8 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931–1958), 5: 223–47 (5: 358–87).Google Scholar There is a further, logically independent consideration offered under the heading of the “epistemological justification” of democracy, which Putnam draws from Dewey. This is the plausible, pessimistic hypothesis to the effect that political elites are susceptible to a distorted vision of others' interests, and to developing their own sectional interest which interferes with their capacity (such as it is) for good government (Words and Life, p. 217). On Dewey's version, see Matthew Festenstein, “Autonomy and Politics in Dewey's Democratic Theory” (forthcoming).

43. “Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy,” p. 227.

44. Words and Life, pp. 175–76.

45. Realism with a Human Face, p. 304. Compare Goodman, Nelson, Ways of Worldmaking (Indiana: Hackett, 1978), pp. 138–39.Google Scholar

46. “Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy,” pp. 220,226; Words and Life, pp. 216–17.

47. Maclntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue, 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1985), p. 2.Google Scholar

48. Dewey, , Middle Works, 5: 194–95.Google Scholar

49. Dewey, John, The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 7, ed. Boydston, J. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), p. 287.Google Scholar

50. Middle Works, 5: 352.Google Scholar

51. Ibid., p.261.

52. Later Works, 7: 302.Google Scholar

53. Ibid., p. 306; cf. Middle Works, 12:181.Google Scholar

54. Later Works, 7: 302.Google Scholar

55. Middle Works, 5: 392.Google Scholar

56. Later Works, 15:181.Google Scholar

57. Middle Works, 15: 51Google Scholar; Later Works, 3:113Google Scholar; Later Works, 11:220Google Scholar; Later Works, 13: 39.Google Scholar

58. Middle Works, 5: 392.Google Scholar

59. Baldwin, Thomas, “MacCallum and the Two Concepts of Freedom,” Ratio 26 (1984): 125–42.Google Scholar

60. Later Works, 5: 113–14.Google Scholar

61. Ibid., 2:329.

62. Ibid., 12:166.

63. Ibid., 14: 224.

64. Ibid., pp. 224–30.

65. Cf. Warren, Mark, “Democratic Theory and Self-Transformation,” American Political Science Review 86 (1992): 8–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66. Later Works, 3: 327–28.Google Scholar

67. Middle Works, 9: 7–8.Google Scholar

68. Later Works, 2: 327Google Scholar

69. Later Works, 11: 56.Google Scholar

70. Nor do I want to suggest that it is a uniquely “pragmatist” intellectual achievement: it draws on, and owes much to, Aristotle, Hegel and J. S. Mill, as well as (more immediately) the British idealists.

71. I discuss these questions in Matthew Festenstein, Pragmatism and Political Theory (forthcoming), and Festenstein, Matthew, “Pragmatism and Liberalism: Interpreting Dewey's Political Philosophy,” Res Publica 1 (1995); 131–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar