The Many Faces Of Realism

Author : Hilary Putnam
Publisher : Open Court Publishing Company
Page : 98 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 1987
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 0812690435

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The Many Faces of Realism by Hilary Putnam Pdf

"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."

Author : Hilary Putnam
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 210 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 1985
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : OCLC:1241119139

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The Many Faces of Realism by Hilary Putnam Pdf

Author : Christopher Norris
Publisher : Manchester University Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0719061962

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Hilary Putnam by Christopher Norris Pdf

This study examines Hilary Putnam's work in epistemology, philosophy of science and mathematics, philosophical logic and semantics and cognitive psychology. It takes account of his various shifts in philosophical viewpoint over the past four decades, and demonstrates how Putnam arrived at the different positions he has occupied during his career, and discusses the various forms of anti-realist doctrine with which he has engaged. The workd offers commentary on Putnam's writing about conceptual problems in the interpretation of quantum mechanics and places Putnam's work in a wider philosophical context, relating it to various contemporary debates in epistemology and the philosophy of science.

Author : Hilary Putnam
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 426 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0674749456

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Realism with a Human Face by Hilary Putnam Pdf

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.

Author : Maria Baghramian
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 336 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2015-10-14
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781317701644

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The Many Faces of Relativism by Maria Baghramian Pdf

This book is a study of relativism as a dominant intellectual preoccupation of our time. Relativism asks how we are to find a way out of intractable differences of perspectives and disagreements in various domains. Standards of truth, rationality, and ethical right and wrong vary greatly and there are no universal criteria for adjudicating between them. In considering this problem, relativism suggests that what is true or right can only be determined within variable contexts of assessment. This book brings together articles published in the International Journal of Philosophical Studies over a period of 17 years, as well as in a Special Issue of the journal published in 2004. The chapters in Section I discuss some of the main forms of relativism. Section II sheds light on the different motivations for relativism, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Section III provides a detailed examination of the vexed question of whether Ludwig Wittgenstein, in his later work, supported relativism. The varied responses to this important question shed light on the issues discussed in Sections I and II. This collection is a lively and engaging resource for scholars interested in the crucial impact relativism has had on the way we think about the meaning of truth, and what is right and wrong. The chapters in this book were originally published in the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.

Author : Rex Brynen,Bahgat Korany,Paul Noble
Publisher : Springer
Page : 345 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2016-07-27
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781349225682

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The Many Faces of National Security in the Arab World by Rex Brynen,Bahgat Korany,Paul Noble Pdf

Two Gulf wars and the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict have highlighted the salience of military factors in the Middle East. This book argues, however, that many of the most serious 'security' challenges to Arab states and societies are rooted not in external military threats but in the imperatives of socio-economic development. Contributors examine the regional security environment; the social and political impact of regional militarization; and underdevelopment as a source of regional insecurity.

Author : Stephen J. A. Ward,Clifford G. Christians
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 446 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2024-03-19
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781527586192

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Anthropological Realism by Stephen J. A. Ward,Clifford G. Christians Pdf

Anthropological Realism is a new theory of ethics that transforms static moral principles into global normative ideals. Two prominent weaknesses in the field provide the rationale for this book. First, as a discipline, ethics lacks a strong theoretical basis. A second concern is moral parochialism. Technologies are global, but international perspectives rarely reflect an ethics anchored in humanity as a whole. Progress in developing a moral globalism as the basis for ethics has been prevented by unproductive dualisms that lead to stalemates. Ethics is typically divided into opposites such as individual and society, consequentialism and deontology, and local and global. To deal constructively with this history of unproductive disputes, the book focuses on a fundamental rivalry in philosophical ethics—the opposition between realism and anti-realism. To move the field forward, the authors create a next-generation moral theory of hybrid moral realism that promotes a sustainable global ethics of humaneness and human flourishing.

Author : Hilary Putnam
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2016-04-11
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780674969131

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Naturalism, Realism, and Normativity by Hilary Putnam Pdf

Hilary Putnam’s writings have shaped fields from epistemology to ethics, metaphysics to the philosophy of physics, the philosophy of mathematics to the philosophy of mind. This volume reflects his latest thinking on how to articulate a theory of naturalism which acknowledges that normative phenomena form an ineluctable part of human experience.

Author : Robert S. Cohen,R. Hilpinen,Ren-Zong Qiu
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 497 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2013-03-09
Category : Science
ISBN : 9789401586382

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Realism and Anti-Realism in the Philosophy of Science by Robert S. Cohen,R. Hilpinen,Ren-Zong Qiu Pdf

Beijing International Conference, 1992

Author : Chhanda Gupta
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 186 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0742513874

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Realism Versus Realism by Chhanda Gupta Pdf

Realism versus Realism defends the metaphysics of 'Internal Realism, ' a view authored by Hilary Putnam, and seeks to build on its basis an immanent realistic position to resolve two conflicts: the conflict between realism and some forms of anti-realism, especially relativism which involves constructivism and subjectivism; and also between two forms of realism itself, namely transcendent and immanent. Contra transcendent realism, author Chhanda Gupta rejects the absolute view of realities that (a) transcend our concept forming powers, (b) transcend our cognitive abilities, and (c) are said to have features by themselves, not as things appear to us. Contra relativism of the anti-realist stripe, Gupta defends conceptual relativity without letting it drift towards constructivism and subjectivism. This general theory of realism minus absolutism, and relativism minus subjectivism and constructivism, may be seen to have a relevance for our moral and social image of the world by showing how pluralism can avoid the ills of absolutism without ushering in intellectual and moral anarchy.

Author : Russell B. Goodman
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 1995
Category : Pragmatism
ISBN : 0415909104

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Pragmatism by Russell B. Goodman Pdf

First Published in 1996. This work presents material for understanding pragmatism's contemporary revival. The contributors consider philosophical issues ranging from the distinction between truth, knowledge and the meaning of literature to the practice of reading.

Author : David L. Hildebrand
Publisher : Vanderbilt University Press
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2021-04-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780826502575

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Beyond Realism and Antirealism by David L. Hildebrand Pdf

Perhaps the most significant development in American philosophy in recent times has been the extraordinary renaissance of Pragmatism, marked most notably by the reformulations of the so-called "Neopragmatists" Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam. With Pragmatism offering the allure of potentially resolving the impasse between epistemological realists and antirealists, analytic and continental philosophers, as well as thinkers across the disciplines, have been energized and engaged by this movement. In Beyond Realism and Antirealism: John Dewey and the Neopragmatists, David L. Hildebrand asks two important questions: first, how faithful are the Neopragmatists' reformulations of Classical Pragmatism (particularly Deweyan Pragmatism)? Second, and more significantly, can their Neopragmatisms work? In assessing Neopragmatism, Hildebrand advances a number of historical and critical points: • Current debates between realists and antirealists (as well as objectivists and relativists) are similar to early twentieth-century debates between realists and idealists that Pragmatism addressed extensively. • Despite their debts to Dewey, the Neopragmatists are reenacting realist and idealist stands in their debate over realism, thus giving life to something shown fruitless by earlier Pragmatists. • What is absent from the Neopragmatist's position is precisely what makes Pragmatism enduring: namely, its metaphysical conception of experience and a practical starting point for philosophical inquiry that such experience dictates. • Pragmatism cannot take the "linguistic turn" insofar as that turn mandates a theoretical starting point. • While Pragmatism's view of truth is perspectival, it is nevertheless not a relativism. • Pace Rorty, Pragmatism need not be hostile to metaphysics; indeed, it demonstrates how pragmatic instrumentalism and metaphysics are complementary. In examining these and other difficulties in Neopragmatism, Hildebrand is able to propose some distinct directions for Pragmatism. Beyond Realism and Antirealism will provoke specialists and non-specialists alike to rethink not only the definition of Pragmatism, but its very purpose.

Author : Hasok Chang
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 295 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2022-10-31
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781108470384

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Realism for Realistic People by Hasok Chang Pdf

A new pragmatist philosophy of science that conceives truth and reality as operational ideals achievable in actual scientific practice.

Author : Christopher J. Insole
Publisher : Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Page : 238 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0754654877

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The Realist Hope by Christopher J. Insole Pdf

Taking into consideration analytical, continental, historical, post-modern and contemporary thinkers, Insole provides a powerful defence of a realist construal of religious discourse. Insole argues that anti-realism tends towards absolutism and hubris. Cutting through the tired and well-rehearsed debates in this area, Insole provides a fresh perspective on approaches influenced by Wittgenstein, Kant, and apophatic theology. The defence of realism offered is unusual in being both analytically precise, and theologically sensitive, with a view to some of the wider cultural, ethical and political implications of the debate.

Author : Christopher Norris
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2002-11-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781134595242

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Quantum Theory and the Flight from Realism by Christopher Norris Pdf

This book is a critical introduction to the long-standing debate concerning the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics and the problems it has posed for physicists and philosophers from Einstein to the present. Quantum theory has been a major infulence on postmodernism, and presents significant problems for realists. Keeping his own realist position in check, Christopher Norris subjects a wide range of key opponents and supporters of realism to a high and equal level of scrutiny. With a characteristic combination of rigour and intellectual generosity, he draws out the merits and weaknesses from opposing arguments. In a sequence of closely argued chapters, Norris examines the premises of orthodox quantum theory, as developed most influentially by Bohr and Heisenberg, and its impact on varous philosophical developments. These include the ideas developed by W.V Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Michael Dummett, Bas van Fraassen, and Hilary Puttnam. In each case, Norris argues, these thinkers have been influenced by the orthodox construal of quantum mechanics as requiring drastic revision of principles which had hitherto defined the very nature of scientific method, causal explanati and rational enquiry. Putting the case for a realist approach which adheres to well-tried scientific principles of causal reasoning and inference to the best explanation, Christopher Norris clarifies these debates to a non-specialist readership and scholars of philosophy, science studies and the philosophy of science alike. Quantum Theory and the Flight From Realism suggests that philosophical reflection can contribute to a better understanding of these crucial, current issues.