Philosophy in an Age of Science: Physics, Mathematics, and Skepticism

Description

Hilary Putnam’s unceasing self-criticism has led to the frequent changes of mind he is famous for, but his thinking is also marked by considerable continuity. A simultaneous interest in science and ethics―unusual in the current climate of contention―has long characterized his thought. In Philosophy in an Age of Science, Putnam collects his papers for publication―his first volume in almost two decades. Mario De Caro and David Macarthur’s introduction identifies central themes to help the reader negotiate between Putnam past and Putnam present: his critique of logical positivism; his enduring aspiration to be realist about rational normativity; his anti-essentialism about a range of central philosophical notions; his reconciliation of the scientific worldview and the humanistic tradition; and his movement from reductive scientific naturalism to liberal naturalism. Putnam returns here to some of his first enthusiasms in philosophy, such as logic, mathematics, and quantum mechanics. The reader is given a glimpse, too, of ideas currently in development on the subject of perception. Putnam’s work, contributing to a broad range of philosophical inquiry, has been said to represent a “history of recent philosophy in outline.” Here it also delineates a possible future. Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Introduction: Hilary Putnam: Artisanal Polymath of Philosophy Part One. On the Relations between Philosophy and Science Chapter 1. Science and Philosophy (2010) Chapter 2. From Quantum Mechanics to Ethics and Back Again (2012) Chapter 3. Corresponding with Reality (2011) Chapter 4. On Not Writing Off Scientific Realism (2010) Chapter 5. The Content and Appeal of “Naturalism” (2004) Chapter 6. A Philosopher Looks at Quantum Mechanics (Again) (2005) Chapter 7. Quantum Mechanics and Ontology (2011) Chapter 8. The Curious Story of Quantum Logic (2011) Part Two. Mathematics and Logic Chapter 9. Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics (2006) Chapter 10. Revisiting the Liar Paradox (2000) Chapter 11. Set Theory: Realism, Replacement, and Modality (2007) Chapter 12. On Axioms of Set Existence (2011) Chapter 13. The Gödel Theorem and Human Nature (2011) Chapter 14. After Gödel (2006) Chapter 15. Nonstandard Models and Kripke’s Proof of the Gödel Theorem (2000) Chapter 16. A Proof of the Underdetermination “Doctrine” (2011) Chapter 17. A Theorem of Craig’s about Ramsey Sentences (2011) Part Three. Values and Ethics Chapter 18. The Fact/Value Dichotomy and Its Critics (2011) Chapter 19. Capabilities and Two Ethical Theories (2008) Chapter 20. The Epistemology of Unjust War (2006) Chapter 21. Cloning People (1999) Part Four. Wittgenstein: Pro and Con Chapter 22. Wittgenstein and Realism (2007) Chapter 23. Was Wittgenstein Really an Antirealist about Mathematics? (2001) Chapter 24. Rules, Attunement, and “Applying Words to the World”: The Struggle to Understand Wittgenstein’s Vision of Language (2001) Chapter 25. Wittgenstein, Realism, and Mathematics (2002) Chapter 26. Wittgenstein and the Real Numbers (2007) Chapter 27. (With Juliet Floyd) Wittgenstein’s “Notorious” Paragraph about the Gödel Theorem: Recent Discussions (2008) Chapter 28. Wittgenstein: A Reappraisal (2011) Part Five. The Problems and Pathos of Skepticism Chapter 29. Skepticism, Stroud, and the Contextuality of Knowledge (2001) Chapter 30. Skepticism and Occasion- Sensitive Semantics (1998) Chapter 31. Strawson and Skepticism (1998) Chapter 32. Philosophy as the Education of Grownups: Stanley Cavell and Skepticism (2006) Part Six. Experience and Mind Chapter 33. The Depths and Shallows of Experience (2005) Chapter 34. Aristotle’s Mind and the Contemporary Mind (2000) Chapter 35. Functionalism: Cognitive Science or Science Fiction? (1997) Chapter 36. How to Be a Sophisticated “Naïve Realist” (2011) Acknowledgments Index