Hilary Putnam

285 Pages·2005·3.374 MB·English

by  Yemima Ben-Menahem

Hilary Putnam
TherichnessofHilaryPutnam’sphilosophicaloeuvreconsistsnotonlyinthe
broadspectrumofproblemsaddressedbutalsointhetransformationsandre-
structuringhispositionshaveundergoneovertheyears.Theessayscollected
inthisvolumearesensitivetoboththesedimensions.TheydiscussPutnam’s
majorphilosophicalcontributionstothetheoryofmeaning,thephilosophyof
mind, the philosophy of science and mathematics, and moral theory. But, in
addition,tracingthreadsofchangeandcontinuity,theyanalyzethedynamics
underlyingtheunfoldingofPutnam’sthought.Thevolumealsoconstitutesa
critical introduction to a number of central issues in contemporary philoso-
phy,includingquantumlogic,realism,functionalism,the‘mindascomputer’
metaphor,andthefact/valuedichotomy.
YemimaBen-MenahemisamemberoftheDepartmentofPhilosophyatthe
HebrewUniversityofJerusalem.
http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield

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Hilary Putnam
Edited by
YEMIMA BEN-MENAHEM
TheHebrewUniversityofJerusalem
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Contents
List of Contributors page ix
Acknowledgments xi
1 Introduction 1
yemimaben-menahem
2 Putnam’s “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’”: Externalism in
Historical Context 17
julietfloyd
3 The Face of Perception 53
charlestravis
4 Realism, Beyond Miracles 83
axelmuellerandarthurfine
5 Putnam on Skepticism 125
yemimaben-menahem
6 The Tale of Quantum Logic 156
timmaudlin
7 Another Philosopher Looks at Quantum Mechanics, or What
Quantum Theory Is Not 188
nancycartwright
8 Structural Realism and Contextual Individuality 203
johnstachel
9 The Rise and Fall of Computational Functionalism 220
oronshagrir
10 The Pragmatic Turn: The Entanglement of Fact and Value 251
richardj.bernstein
Index 267
vii

Contributors
yemima ben-menahem is a member of the Department of Philosophy at
theHebrewUniversityofJerusalem.Inherpublicationsshehasaddressed
a range of classic problems in the philosophy of science, including expla-
nation, causality, and realism. Her Conventionalism is forthcoming from
CambridgeUniversityPress.
richardj.bernsteinisVeraListProfessorofPhilosophyanddeanofthe
graduatefacultyatNewSchoolUniversityinNewYorkCity.Hehaswritten
widely on political theory, American pragmatism, and critical theory. His
books include Praxis and Action (1971), Beyond Objectivism and Relativism:
Science,HermeneuticsandPraxis(1983),FreudandtheVexedLegacyofMoses
(1998),andRadicalEvil:APhilosophicalInterrogation(2002).
nancy cartwright is a professor of philosophy in the Department of
Philosophy,LondonSchoolofEconomicsandPoliticalScience,andchair
of the London School of Economics Centre for Philosophy of Natural
andSocialScience.SheisalsoaprofessorofphilosophyattheUniversity
ofCalifornia,SanDiego.AmongherbooksareHowtheLawsofPhysicsLie
(1983),Nature’sCapacitiesandTheirMeasurement(1989),TheDappledWorld:
AStudyoftheBoundariesofScience(1999),andMeasuringCauses:Invariance,
ModularityandtheCausalMarkovCondition(2000).
arthurfineisaprofessorofphilosophyandadjunctprofessorofphysics
attheUniversityofWashington.HehasservedaspresidentofthePhilos-
ophy of Science Association and of the Central Division of the American
Philosophical Association. His works in the philosophy of science focus,
inparticular,onthefoundationsoftwentieth-centuryphysicsandinclude,
among others, The Shaky Game: Einstein, Realism and the Quantum Theory
(1986;2ded.1996).
juliet floyd is an associate professor of philosophy at Boston Univer-
sity. She has published on Kant, Wittgenstein, and the philosophy of
ix