Philosophical Review

Reason, Truth and History by Hilary PutnamReview by: Michael DevittThe Philosophical Review, Vol. 93, No. 2 (Apr., 1984), pp. 274-277Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2184588 .

Accessed: 24/06/2014 23:34

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Duke University Press and Philosophical Review are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Philosophical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.77.48 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 23:34:47 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS

tein basically got things right, it may be that the line between defending Wittgenstein's views and defending views about Wittgenstein's views has become a bit blurred for Canfield.

Unfortunately, the editorial work in the book could have been better. On p. 126 Canfield misdescribes what he has said on p. 123. The phrase 'ex hypothesis' is used instead of 'ex hypothesi' throughout. Parts of two sentences from p. 164 are repeated on p. 165. Some words or sentences appear to have been left out on the bottom of p. 163 and there are mis- prints on pp. 61, 71, 75, 87, 88, 127, 145, 181, 182, 191, and 215. Also, the book's usefulness is considerably diminished by the lack of an index.

ROBERT COBURN

University of Washington

The Philosophical Review, XCIII, No. 2 (April 1984)

REASON, TRUTH AND HISTORY. By HILARY PUTNAM. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp. xii, 222.

In this book Putnam continues with theses he first proposed in Meaning and the Moral Sciences. ' The present work is more thorough, accessible, and generally readable than the earlier one. It offers, with Putnam's charac- teristic verve, a near-total world view. Aside from the topics of the title, the book covers realism, reference, knowledge, mind, relativism, science, and values. References range widely across the history of philosophy and the contemporary scene (including a nice discussion of recent French philosophy).

Putnam's aim is to "break the strangle hold" of a number of di- chotomies, particularly that between "objective and subjective views of truth and reason." The former view he associates with those committed to a ''copy" or "correspondence" theory of truth; the latter, with philoso- phers like Kuhn, Feyerabend and Foucault (p. ix). He offers a neoKantian alternative "the metaphor" for which is: "the mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the world" (p. xi). Truth is identified with idealized rational acceptability (p. 55). He rejects the "God's Eye View" (p. 74) of "metaphysical realism": that "externalist perspective" is replaced by an "internalist" one (p. 49). Next, "being rational involves having criteria of relevance" and "all our values" are involved in those criteria. "A being with

'(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978).

274

This content downloaded from 62.122.77.48 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 23:34:47 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS

no values would have no facts either" (p. 201). This dissolution of the fact/value dichotomy leads to a "non-alientated" view of truth (p. xii).

Putnam's new world is an anti-realist one. I take it that he has basically two arguments for that world, one from reference, the other from values. Both are worthy of attention but I shall consider only the former.

The argument starts by posing the problem of reference. Briefly, how do our words and thoughts reach out to the world? It is clear from the lengths to which he goes in pressing this question that he does not think it is taken seriously enough. I think he is right. To suppose that a word, picture, or mental representation has an intrinsic connection to its object is to have a "magical" theory of reference (p. 3). Neither operational con- straints, theoretical constraints nor the fact of evolutionary success deter- mines reference: "nature does not single out any one correspondence between our terms and external things" (p. 41).

Putnam makes the problem vivid by frequent uses of the brain-in-the- vat example. He points out that if we were brains in vats we could not think that we were, because there would be nothing in our thoughts that reached out to brains and vats (pp. 7-17). He goes further: though it is physically possible that we are brains in vats it is not philosophically possible (p. 15). Putnam connects this further conclusion with deep issues about the tran- scendental nature of philosophy (pp. 7, 16). So, a theory of what we could refer to leads to a theory of what there could be and to reflections about philosophy.

This sort of procedure is now common. It is central to Putnam's argu- ment for anti-realism. In my view it is mistaken in just the same way that foundationalist epistemology is mistaken: it runs the wrong way. Guided by our best science, we should start with a realist view of the largely imper- sonal and inanimate world, and go on, in a naturalistic spirit, to consider the explanation of the only part of that world where reference might have a place: people. Though it is possible that this explanation should lead us to revise our original realism, it is most unlikely. And there is no call for a transcendent philosophy. Putnam's procedure puts the semantic cart be- fore the ontological horse.

From a naturalistic perspective the task of singling out a reference rela- tion between words and things looks difficult but far from hopeless. It seems, for example, as if a person's interaction with Reagan has a special role in explaining his thoughts and behavior involving 'Reagan'. We hope for a causal theory of reference. Putnam has already rejected this hope2 and does so again: it requires "a magical theory of reference" (p. 47).

2Ibid., pp. 126-127; "Models and Reality,"Journal of Symbolic Logic, 45 (1980), pp. 464-482.

275

This content downloaded from 62.122.77.48 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 23:34:47 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS

However this rejection begs the question.3 Putnam claims that "if refer- ence is only determined by operational and theoretical constraints" then the reference of terms in that theory of reference will be indeterminate (pp. 45-46). Maybe so, but if reference is determined causally, as the theory says it is, then the reference of those terms will be determinate.

Foundationalist epistemology would not allow any talk of relations to a mind-independent world in the explanation of knowledge. For, how do we know of such relations? Such a world is not immediately accessible to the mind. Similarly-and this is my explanation of the question-begging- Putnam will not allow talk of these relations to explain reference. For, how do we refer to such relations? There could be nothing more to reference than is immediately accessible (internal) to the mind; for example, the operational and theoretical constraints (see pp. 45-48, 51, 66, 73, 211). The image in both cases is of our theorizingfrom scratch, locked within our minds. But we need not start from scratch in epistemology and semantics: we can use well-established theories in physics, biology, etc.; we can talk of the entities (divided into kinds; cf. p. 53) and relations those theories posit. According to the naturalistic perspective, that is what we should do.

Putnam's solution to the problem of reference is to give up the idea that reference is to a mind-independent world. Just as Kant closed the epis- temic gap by bringing the world into the mind, in some sense, so also does Putnam close the referential gap. In what sense? How is the earlier meta- phor to be cashed?

'Objects' do not exist independently of conceptual schemes. We cut up the world into objects when we introduce one or another scheme of descriptions [p. 52].

This construction of objects is not from conceptually uncontaminated ex- periential inputs for those inputs are "themselves to some extent shaped by our concepts" (p. 54).

Is there anything that is uncontaminated? Presumably there must be to account for the constraints, other than coherence, on construction; that is, to account for the extent inputs are not shaped by our concepts. Putnam does talk, in a Kantian way, of the noumenal world and of things-in-them- selves, yet ultimately he seems to regard this talk as "nonsense," even if perhaps psychologically irresistable (pp. 61-62, 83), If the talk is nonsense then there is nothing that Putnam can say about the constraints (except coherence). This avoids the "facile relativism" of "anything goes" (p. 54) by fiat: we simply are constrained and that's that. Even if the talk is not

3As I have argued before: "Realism and the Renegade Putnam: A Critical Study of Meaning and the Moral Sciences," Nofts, 17, no. 2 (1983), pp. 291-301.

276

This content downloaded from 62.122.77.48 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 23:34:47 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOOK REVIEWS

nonsense, it lacks any explanatory power. To say that our construction is constrained by something beyond reach of knowledge or reference is whis- tling in the dark. We might as well settle for the dogmatic anti-relativism.

Finally, what are we to make of the talk of constructing objects? Surely such talk can be nothing but a metaphor. The proposal could not be that objects are literally made up of the conceptually contaminated experiences. If we remove the metaphor, all that is left, I suggest, is the experiences and the theories they lead to. That is all there is: the objects apparently posited by the theories do not really exist. What is left is a radical idealism.

Putnam concludes his main discussion of metaphysical realism boldly: "What we have is the demise of a theory that lasted for over two thousand years" (p. 74). I think this is too hasty and that Putnam's internalist alterna- tive is implausible. However I expect many others will not. In a vivid and comprehensive way Putnam has captured most of the intuitions that moti- vate anti-realism. These intuitions have always had some appeal in philoso- phy and have recently become popular. Even those who do not share them will find this book worthwhile and entertaining.

MICHAEL DEVITT

University of Sydney

The Philosophical Review, XCIII, No. 2 (April 1984)

REALISM, RATIONALISM, AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD. PROBLEMS OF EMPIRICISM. Volumes 1 and 2. By P. K. FEYERABEND. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1981. Vol. I, pp. xiv, 353; Vol. II, pp. xii, 255.

All but three of this collection of papers by Paul Feyerabend have been published before (including a much abbreviated version of his thesis). Original publication dates range from 1955 ('52 in German) to 1980. A six page introduction, appearing in each volume, attempts to convey that these two volumes are really books and not merely collections of essays. This it hopes to accomplish by the claim that the papers discuss three ideas important in the "history of science, philosophy and civilization: criticism, proliferation, and reality." On the other hand, "some articles defend ideas which are attacked in others." After all, "good arguments can be found on opposite sides of any issue." In a book, however, one might expect either an on-balance conclusion or an explanation of why this is impossible or inappropriate.

The papers concern a wide variety of different topics. Some are typical

277

This content downloaded from 62.122.77.48 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 23:34:47 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions