"A Traveller's Guide to Putnam's "Narrow Path

Dados Bibliográficos

ID5113079
AutoresDavid Davies (0000-0002-7573-2762, McGill University, autor correspondente)
Ano1996
Volume35
Fascículo1
Páginas117-146
Data de publicação1996-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoDialogue (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0012-2173 • E-ISSN: 1759-0949
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0012217300008118
OpenAlexW2040673389
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas31

It is now over 15 years since Hilary Putnam first urged that we take the "narrow path" of internal realism as a way of navigating between "the swamps of metaphysics and the quicksands of cultural relativism and historicism" (1983, p. 226). In the opening lines of the Preface toRealism with a Human Face, a collection of Putnam's recent papers edited by James Conant, Putnam reaffirms his allegiance to this narrow path, unmoved by Realist murmurings from the swamps and laconic Rortian suggestions that only the quicksands are a proper metaphilosophical abode for those willing to confront our lack of epistemological and metaphysical foundations. If there are changes to be discerned in these writings, Putnam avers, they pertain only to the burden allotted to different considerations in the overall economy of his argument: "It might be said that the difference between the present volume and my work prior toThe Many Faces of Realismis a shift in emphasis: a shift from emphasizing model-theoretic arguments against metaphysical realism to emphasizing conceptual relativity" (p. xi

Allegiance · Epistemology · Historicism · Metaphysics · Political science · Politics · Realism · Relativism · Critical Realism in Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Philosophy and Theoretical Science