Abstract

The book is divided into two parts: Pragmatism and Realism, with brief introductions to each. In the Pragmatism section, the authors include Hilary Putnam himself, who gave the conference keynote address, Ruth Ann Putnam, Richard Warner, Robert Brandom, and Nicholas Rescher. The Realism section includes John Haldane, Tadeusz Szubka, John Heil, Wolfgang Künne, Gary Ebbs, and Charles Travis. Putnam replies, sometimes at length, to each one, and this is one of the more valuable features of the collection. The paper by Putnam summarizes his current views and his latest version of realism. Missing in action, but discussed briefly by Putnam and some contributors, Richard Rorty has written quite a bit about Putnam, Putnam not as much on Rorty, and as these two eminent philosophers approach the end of their extensive careers, this would have been an excellent occasion for them to comment on their similarities and differences. Is Rorty really “the Evil Putnam”? Further, because Putnam has always been interested in the history and philosophy of science, it is ironic and regrettable that Kuhn gets only one brief mention, by Putnam in his reply to Rescher. He believes that Kuhn misinterprets “the significance of paradigm-change in a relativistic way,” and of course such a comment deserves defense. Both Kuhn and Rorty are directly relevant to Putnam’s arguments about the disconnect between metaphysics and physical law and it would good to have a more detailed account of his views on their historicism and “relativism.”