Putnam, Hilary - From Quantum Mechanics to Ethics and Back Again

06/15/2012

Philosophy in an Age of Science, Harvard University Press 2012

This chapter is first autobiographical about author's interests in ethics throughout author's career. Author continues to believe that ethics is a legitimate realm of knowledge, as author wrote in 1974. But the autobiographical remarks go on to consider how author is misunderstood to be leaving behind scientific realism for "common sense realism". This kicks off an examination of the term "scientific realism". The first discussion of "internal realism", which Putnam is accused of being in his mid-career, came in 1976 under the "Realism and Reason" address to the APA (Eastern). But really author prefers to have used "scientific realism" rather than "internal" in his opening remarks back then. By the end of the 1976 paper, author had formulated a new theory called "internal realism", which was different from the quick reference author made at the outset. This led to much confusion, particularly evident in De Gaynesford's book. What this confusion brought out was a deeper understanding of the limit of scientific realism, or of internal realism, in that author advanced it as another empirical theory, but as such the anti-realist must reject at least one empirical theory. This, according to author, begs the question against anti-realism, or at least should allow one to be both an anti-realist for language but a scientific realist for empiricism (pg56).

Author attempts to show how conceptual relativity may be compatible with realism in metaphysics (pg56). The idea is that cognitive equivalence of theories and preservation of explanations do not need to preserve "ontology", or the real objects that are supposed by the theory. Author also talks about not needing mereological sums or all the particular axioms that mereology may entail, and the question about whether sums /really/ exist as a pseudo-question. (pg57-8) 

The next discussion is about why author gave up functionalism: two reasons: (1) it wouldn't allow for reference to objects in the world, it didn't allow for "world-involving abilities" and (2) not only are mental states compositionally plastic, but also computationally plastic [this somehow is a refutation...]. (pg59) With reference being a relation between people and actual objects, it is possible to avoid the layer of sensations that were part of Cartesian dualism (pg60-1).

The point of this discussion was to return to rejecting one form of metaphysical realism (that there is precisely one way to describe the world), and also still allow for other forms, compatible with conceptual relativity. Author then describes how that is possible (pg63-4): allow for independent descriptions of the same one world. This is different, according to author, from conceptual pluralism (pg64) which has non-translatable forms of the world (levels). Within the field of science, physics perhaps the most salient case, there are translatable but also separate interpretations of the physical world.

Author then turns to a few objections and sore spots his view might touch. The first is the Wittgensteinian sense that thinking about realism and anti-realism is just thinking about nonsense. Author rejects that out of hand. The second is that talk of "states of affairs" ("aspects of reality") is unclear and imprecise; this is a sort of Quinean/Davidsonian objection (pg66-7). Quine eschewed in ontology anything without precise identity and non-identity conditions, and with things like states of affairs (and many intentional states), they were not precise enough and thus were discarded in science. Author answers by claiming that the term "states of affairs" is a 'broad-spectrum notion' that is a paraphrase of more precise understandings of objects. Davidson's purpose is to remain far away from even the specter of the correspondence theory of truth. Author: use a disquotational theory of truth where nothing is added by asserting the truth of a proposition (pg68).

Author closes by considering himself in the pragmatist tradition, and specifically admiring two beliefs from them: (1) language is not just description and evaluation, two categories which must never touch. (2) Philosophy should matter to our "moral and spiritual lives". (pg71) Interestingly author says that it is a "pipe dream" that philosophy will become a "cumulative body of knowledge".