HILARY PUTNAM AND SOME KEY ASPECTS OF INTERNAL REALISM

Authors

  • Camelia GRADINARU

Keywords:

Internal Realism, Metaphysical Realism, Warranted Assertibility, God’s Eye View, Majority Opinion, Truth, Relativism

Abstract

This paper assumes as a starting point Putnam’s arguments from “In Defense of Internal Realism” and “Realism with a Human Face”. I try to present some important aspects of Putnam’s thesis on internal realism. My analysis insists upon the way in which the Ameri-can philosopher connects the ideas of impossibility to map a language-free reality and of impossibility to have a God’s Eye View with the idea of idealized rational acceptability. I follow Putnam’s assertions as he tries to avoid both what he calls metaphysical realism and relativism. His efforts to preserve concepts as truth or objectivity inside his version of in-ternal realism raise a few important difficulties as well as criticism from philosophers as J. R. Searle or Richard Rorty.

Author Biography

Camelia GRADINARU

Ph. D. (2008), with a thesis on The Postmodern Philosophical Discourse. Jean Baudrillard. She has been an associated teaching assistant at the „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iassy (2005-2007) and she is a member of the Seminar of Discursive Logic, Theory of Reasoning and Rhetoric. Currently she is editor at the Institutul European Publishing House. She has translated the books      The Main Philosophical Concepts. 4. Metaphysics and Religion (Yves Cattin) and      The Basic Forms of Dialectics (Jean Piaget). She has published papers, introductory studies and reviews in rhetoric, media studies and postmodern philosophy.

References

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Putnam, Hilary, “The meaning of ‘meaning’”, in Mind, Language and Re-ality. Philosophical Papers, Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, 1987 (1975), pp. 215-271.

Putnam, Hilary, Realism with a Human Face, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, 1992 (1990).

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Rorty, Richard, Obiectivitate, relativism si adevar. Eseuri filosofice 1, translated by Mihaela Cabulea, Bucuresti, Editura Univers, 2000.

Searle, J. R., Realitatea ca proiect social, translated by Andreea Deciu, Iasi, Editura Polirom, 2000.

Published

2015-05-20