โ Scribed by J. Brakel; B. A. C. Saunders
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
The purpose of this paper is to raise a point about the moral and political implications of pragmatism. To make our point, the story must be concrete: we present certain philosophical views of Putnam and Rorty painting Putnam white and Rorty black. By performing on our stage as the white and black knight, together they serve a good cause. 1
We should stress at the outset that we are sympathetic to a point made by both Putnam and Rorty as well as others, that there is no reason to think of argument as good and rhetoric as bad, or to think of science as objective and ethics or literary criticism as subjective. Our aim in this paper is not to present a narrowly conceived argument, but to raise an issue that may promote subsequent discussion.
To set the scene we first comment on early American pragmatism and some central Enlightenment ideas and we explain what we mean by "moral and political implications". Then, we present certain aspects of Rorty's position, followed by a summary and elaboration of the central part of Putnam's The Many Faces of Realism. 2 We go on to compare the types of pragmatism present in the positions of Rorty and Putnam (as we depict them) and end with a plea for the belief that it makes sense to say that certain things are good and others are bad.
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES
This pioneering guide to Maimonides incorporates material from his philosophical, legal, and medical works, thus providing a synoptic picture of the philosophical views of one of the most important Jewish thinkers of all time. The book covers a broad range of topics, including divine predication, pr