Putnam, Hilary - The Content and Appeal of "Naturalism"

06/22/2012

Philosophy in an Age of Science, Harvard University Press, 2012

Author complains that "naturalism" is often undefined but ascribed to, and one place it is defined, in Boyd, Gasper, & Trout's Philosophy of Science glossary, is a disjunctive definition, comprised of two possibilities:
1. all phenomena are subject to natural laws
2. the methods of natural science is applicable in every area of inquiry

Author considers both using an example of a phenomenon of a usually clear writer composing a paragraph that is difficult to interpret. (pg 110-111) In the first case, the definition is trivial or absurd, and in the second it seems risible to claim that interpretation has a scientific approach like physics does, author argues. To really understand naturalism, author argues, one must inspect the alternative; it isn't "supernaturalism" or "occult", but "conceptual pluralism". Author's conceptual pluralism involves the "insistence that various sorts of statements" are as fully valid and true as the statements of empirical science. (pg112)

Author starts with the instability of the naturalist approach; that it can slip into Richard Rorty's anti-naturalism or a kind of Lewisonian Aristotelianism. Author talks about a common move in naturalism: to take a "minimalist" perspective toward one's ontology, in that anything that is real can be reduced to a description in "first grade" conceptual systems. The problem is (as usual) intentional conceptual schemes, where meaning, reference, beliefs and so on enter. Quine famously denied these were real things, most notably (according to author) by attacking reference (pg115). Quine argued that "x verbs y" is equivalent to "(cosmos minus x) verbs (cosmos minus y)." Because of the indeterminacy of reference, it does not pick anything out. (Using causation rather than correspondence is no help-pg116) Thus language is an internal system that does not extensionally connect to the world (pg116), which author points out looks a lot like Rorty's anti-realist picture. So minimalist naturalism may collapse into Rortian anti-realism. (pg117) Author pauses briefly to give a preview of his alternative picture (pg118). Author points out an alternative picture of reference, given by Lewis, in which there are "objective similarities" between objects/properties/classes. Author argues that in order to capture predicates like "is a chair", you need to add sortal elements like "affords sitting" rather than just color, shape, mass, etc. Thus there may be objective intentional objects, which author declares to be highly medieval/Aristotelian. (pg118-9)

The next (final) discussion is about the appeal of naturalism, and author discusses two arguments:
1. Argument from composition/evolution: the origin of the universe was fields and particles, until evolution, which is composed of fields and particles. (pg119-120)
2. If you can't reduce everything, something is "unexplained" (pg120)
Author spends the most time refuting 1 by first attacking how using 'mereological sums' to reduce objects will miss the similarities between objects that are slightly composed differently, and will miss modal discussions, since there is no "me" that ate a different dinner last night-- that would be a different person. (pg 120-123)
To deal with argument 2, this is simply something not to be afraid of. Author talks about how philosophers admit that an empirical inquiry like geology is legitimate but has yet to be reduced to physics, but nevertheless has acceptable terms like "true/false" "refer", etc. (pg124)