New Releases by Hilary Putnam

Hilary Putnam has been at the center of contemporary debates about the nature of the mind and of its access to the world, about language and its relation to reality, and many other metaphysical and epistemological issues. In this book he turns to pragmatism - and confronts the teachings of James, Peirce, Dewey, and Wittgenstein - not solely out of an interest in theoretical questions, but above all to respond to the questions of whether it is possible to find an alternative to corrosive moral skepticism, on the one hand, and to moral authoritarianism on the other.

Putnam offers a sweeping account of the sources of several central problems of philosophy. A unifying theme of the volume is that reductionism, scientism, and old-style disenchanted naturalism tend to be obstacles to philosophical progress.

Desde que Kant estableciera la distincion entre la filosofia academica o escolastica, y la filosofia mundana o universal, ha persistido la dificultad de tender un puente entre ambas, esto es, de ser capaz de usar los conceptos y los argumentos tecnicos del filosofo de tal manera que sirvan para iluminar los problemas filosoficos que interesan al hombre de la calle, y, a la inversa, de introducir en la discusion tecnica de los filosofos cuestiones relevantes para la vida humana. Pues bien, esta es una de las caracteristicas del trabajo filosofico de Hilary Putnam, especialmente apreciable en Las mil caras del realismo. Putnam es uno de los filosofos americanos mas importantes de nuestros dias. Entre sus muchos aportaciones a la discusion filosofica hay una por la que en los ultimos anos se ha hecho mas famoso: su teoria del realismo interno. Con ella pretende dar respuesta a una de las preguntas mas inquietantes de la filosofia: hasta que punto podemos decir, con cierto fundamento, que conocemos el mundo real? Lo que nos ofrece en esta pequena obra maestra es una sintesis de las consecuencias de esa teoria cuando el mismo tipo de argumentacion que la sustenta se aplica al resto de las grandes cuestiones filosoficas, en especial a la de la filosofia moral.

One of America''s great philosophers says the time has come to reform philosophy. Putnam calls upon philosophers to attend to the gap between the present condition of their subject and the human aspirations that philosophy should and once did claim to represent. His goal is to embed philosophy in social life.

”Hilary Putnam, einer der größten Philosophen dieses Jahrhunderts, ist der Erfinder des Funktionalismus, einer der einflußreichsten Ideen in der Philosophie des Geistes. In Repräsentation und Realität zeigt er nun unter anderem, warum der Funktionalismus nicht richtig sein kann.“ (Stephen Schiffer). (Quelle: www.suhrkamp.de).

Putnam geht es in diesem Buch darum, eingefleischte Dichotomien aufzulösen und zu zeigen, wie scheinbar ganz verschiedenartige Standpunkte zusammenhängen. Wahrheit und Rationalität, Tatsachen und Werte - dies sind die Gegenstände seiner Untersuchung. Einerseits wird dargelegt, daß althergebrachte Etiketten wie ”Objektivismus“ und ”Subjektivismus“ keine rein durchzuhaltenden Standpunkte bezeichnen. Andererseits macht Putnam deutlich, daß scheinbar völlig unzusammenhängende oder gar gegensätzliche Positionen auf ähnlichen Illusionen und verfehlten Denkstrategien beruhen und so mit den gleichen Argumenten entkräftet werden können. Ausgehend von grundlegenden sprachanalytischen Überlegungen und mit an Kant und Wittgenstein geschultem Problembewußtsein stellt Putnam dar, daß jede Wahl eines Begriffssystems notwendig Wertsetzungen widerspiegelt und daß es keineswegs unmöglich ist, rationale Entscheidungen darüber zu treffen, welche Werte gut und welche Werte schlecht sind. (Quelle: www.suhrkamp.de).

The author, one of the first philosophers to advance the notion that the computer is an apt model for the mind, takes a radical view of his own theory of functionalism in this book.

Cerebros en una cubeta - Un problema acerca de la referencia - Dos perspectivas filosóficas - Mente y cuerpo - Dos concepciones de la racionalidad - Hecho y valor - Razón y historia - El impacto de la ciencia en las concepciones modernas de la racionalidad - Hechos, valores y cognición.

"The first two lectures place the alternative I defend -- a kind of pragmatic realism -- in a historical and metaphysical context. Part of that context is provided by Husserl''s remark that the history of modern philosophy begins with Galileo -- that is, modern philosophy has been hypnotized by the idea that scientific facts are all the facts there are. Another part is provided by the analysis of a very simple example of what I call ''contextual relativity''. The position I defend holds that truth depends on conceptual scheme and it is nonetheless ''real truth''. "In my third lecture I turn to the Kantian antecedents of this view, explaining what I think should be retained of the Kantian idea of autonomy as the central theme of morality, and extracting from Kant''s work a ''moral image of the world'' that connects the ideals of equality and intellectual liberty. In this lecture I defend the idea that moral images are an indispensible part of our moral and cultural heritage. "In the final lecture I defend the idea of moral objectivity. I compare our epistemological positions in ethics, history, analysis of human character, and science, and I argue that in no area can we hope for a ''foundation'' which is more ultimate than the beliefs that actually, at a given time, function as foundational in the area, the beliefs concerning which one has to say ''this is where my spade is turned''. In ethics such beliefs are represented in moral images of the world."

This is the third volume of Hilary Putnam''s philosophical papers, published in paperback for the first time. The volume contains his major essays from 1975 to 1982, which reveal a large shift in emphasis in the ''realist'' position developed in his earlier work. While not renouncing those views, Professor Putnam has continued to explore their epistemological consequences and conceptual history. He now, crucially, sees theories of truth and of meaning that derive from a firm notion of reference as inadequate.

''This is a timely book, with penetrating discussion of issues very much in the forefront of the contemporary philosophy. Despite the prominence of negative arguments it contains much to contribute positively to our understanding of what is needed for a conception of rationality and objectivity that covers ethics and value theory generally as well as physics.''

This volume deals with the philosophy of mathematics and of science and the nature of philosophical and scientific enquiry.

Professor Hilary Putnam''s most important published work is collected here in two volumes.

It is proved that every consistent formula of quantification theory has a model in Mostowski''s field of set.

An example is constructed of a recursively enumerable family of recursively enumerable sets which can not be recursively enumerated without repetitions.

A necessary and sufficient condition is given for a family of sets to be the family of all sets representable in a theory.

Hilbert''s tenth problem is the problem of finding an algorithm for determining, given a diophantine equation, whether or not it has a solution. (More abstract material excluded here).