What Is Realistic about Putnam’s Internal Realism?

Philosophical Topics 20 (1):49-83 (1992)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Failure to recognize the "realistic" motivations for Putnam's commitment to internal realism has led to a widely shared misunderstanding of Putnam's arguments against metaphysical realism. Realist critics of these arguments frequently offer rebuttals that fail to confront his arguments. Simply put, Putnam's arguments --the brains in a vat argument as well as the model-theoretic argument -- are "reductios" that are intended to show that "metaphysical realism itself is not sufficiently realistic". If that claim can be substantiated then Putnam can go on to argue that his own view is, by comparison, more realistic than metaphysical realism.

Similar books and articles

Internal Realism, Truth and Understanding.Gordon Steinhoff - 1986 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986:352 - 363.
Is Putnam's causal theory of meaning compatible with internal realism?Valer Ambrus - 1999 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 30 (1):1-16.
Putnam's model-theoretic argument(s). A detailed reconstruction.Jürgen Dümont - 1999 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 30 (2):341-364.
A Defense of Internal Realism.Hilary Putnam - 1982 - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 15 (3-4):30--42.
Realism, Beyond Miracles.Axel Mueller & Arthur Fine - 2005 - In Yemima Ben-Menahim (ed.), Contemporary Philosophy in Focus: Hilary Putnam. Cambridge University Press. pp. 83-124.
Magic, semantics, and Putnam’s vat brains.Mark Sprevak & Christina Mcleish - 2003 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 35 (2):227-236.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
535 (#30,512)

6 months
115 (#27,828)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

David Leech Anderson
Illinois State University

Citations of this work

Taking models seriously and being a linguistic realist.Raoni Wohnrath Arroyo & Gilson Olegario da Silva - 2022 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 26 (1):73-94.
Models, truth and semantics.Barbara Abbott - 1997 - Linguistics and Philosophy 20 (2):117-138.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references