Philosophical Papers: Volume 2, Mind, Language and Reality

by Putnam

Professor Hilary Putnam has been one of the most influential and sharply original of recent American philosophers in a whole range of fields. His most important published work is collected here, together with several new and substantial studies, in two volumes. The first deals with the philosophy of mathematics and of science and the nature of philosophical and scientific enquiry; the second deals with the philosophy of language and mind. Volume one is now issued in a new edition, including an essay on the philosophy of logic first published in 1971.

Genres: Philosophy, Linguistics, Nonfiction, Metaphysics, American

476 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1975

Reviews

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first time reading Putnam. He has a rigorous mind and a unique naturalistic approach. His writing style remains simple and clear, even when he tackles very complicated issues. It is beautiful to see him apply himself to a range of philosophical problem. This collection presents 22 papers Putnam published over a range of years; sometimes we get to him present a view in one paper, and refute it in another paper from a later year. It is fascinating to walk alongside Putnam through such development of his thought.

Chapters 1 - 16 focus on problems in philosophy of language, which bleed into problems in scientific realism and metaphysics. Some of my favorite papers from this section address questions such as: Are there analytic statements, and if so, what is the nature of this analyticity? Why is constructing a theory of semantics is so much more difficult than constructing a theory of syntax? How can concepts be independent of theory enough so that reference can remain fixed across theories? Why is meaning not merely conventional? What is meaning?

Chapters 16-22 turns to problems in philosophy of mind. Most of these advance theses such as these: the mind should be defined functionally, rather than physico-chemically; that mental states are not identical with corresponding normative behaviors; and that the traditional treatment problem of other minds is deeply problematic.

Of these chapters, I especially liked 1 "Philosophy and Language", 2 "The Analytic and the Synthetic," and 13 "Language and Reality," 15 "Dreaming and Depth-Grammar". I will briefly summarize some of these chapters here. Chapter 1 clearly shows why traditional analytic philosophy matters; even though today no one can take logical positivism seriously, Putnam argues that this tradition can teach us an important, relevant lesson. We can now see that it is futile reduce ordinary discourse into formal languages. But we must remember that logical positivists embarked on this project for the sake of clarifying traditional philosophical problems and, idealistically, allowing for empirical methods to address such questions. Putnam argues that we should remain cognizant that some of our problems are only illusory, and we should continue to search for non-verificationist but naturalistic ways of addressing the substantial problems. Putnam does just this in some papers in this collection; he deflates certain mainstream questions, discovers the substantial problems lying at their cores, and finds naturalistic solutions, while avoiding problems of the logical positivist approach.

In chapter 2, Putnam responds to Quine's argument that there are no analytic statements. Putnam argues that Quine overlooked that there are categorically different types of statements that are regarded as analytic; and there are indeed statements that are analytic in these different ways. Putnam identifies a linguistic type of analyticity; statements that assert a conventional definition given to a term is analytic in this way (e.g. "all bachelors are unmarried men"). He also identifies a causally/empirically-based type of analyticity; statements of fundamental "framework principles" of systems of knowledge are analytic in this way. The Euclidean geometrical axiom "two lines that are perpendicular relative to a third line will never meet," for example, is analytic in this way. Although this axiom is not absolutely true (since alternative systems of geometry exist), it is indeed analytic in that there can be no isolated experiments that overthrow this axiom. Only the development of a rival theory that does not presuppose this axiom could possibly challenge it. Synthetic statements can be confirmed disconfirmed by experiments, and so are categorically different than such empirically-analytic statements.

In chapter 13, Putnam addresses problems of fixing reference across different theoretical systems. Some philosophers (i.e., Feyerabend) argue that terms are thoroughly theory-dependent (e.g. a modern scientist and a medieval alchemist do not have the same concept of "water"; although the term might exist for them both, it takes on different referents for the two conceptually-differing users). Putnam thinks this view is wrong and argues that the referent of a term remains stable throughout conceptual changes. Putnam argues it is reasonable for us to assume that the people who originally coined a term would allow for us to use the term in different ways than those ways they had used; any term consists of a flexible set of criteria, for defining and fixing a given referent (e.g., "water" defined as a spiritual element of nature v. as H2O remains stable in its referential meaning). This allows for there to be genuine scientific progress (against the Kuhnian thesis of inter-theory incommensurability), and for this progress to evolve the meanings of our words.

Another general thesis Putnam advances throughout various papers is his refutation of the verificationist theory of meaning. According to this theory, only statements that can be empirically verified are meaningful. Putnam shows that this theory is very closely tied to idealism: although verificationists don't assert that all that exists are our sensory experiences, they do assert that sensory experiences determines truthhood and factuality. Putnam's arguments show that philosophers who do not identify with verificationism at all but hold that meaning is theory-dependent (i.e. Feyerabend) are secretly aligned with idealism in a way.

Putnam deals with a wide range of problems. I found some chapters intensely interesting, and I had to skip over others for their irrelevance to the themes in this book with which I am concerned. The benefit of this is that there will likely be some chapters that interest any sort of reader. The con is that I found the chapters of interest presented in a haphazard manner; those chapters touch on related problems, and I wished that Putnam would address how they fit together exactly. By reading through so many different chapters, I gained a sense of an outline of Putnam's higher-order theories, but it would've been great for him to present such theories directly.

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps the most startling idea I encountered in this book by the logician Hilary Putnam was featured in the essay where he shows the W.V. Quine proved that postmodern science is correct in its acceptance of the elements of contrafactual realism in its integral formation as a unique discipline. This highlights and draws me further towards Quine's Word and Object which, I ever get around to reading it, will be as important a discovery as Kant's three critiques. Furthermore, Putnam also demonstrates in these pages that the limits of Wittgenstein's private-language argument are necessarily incorrect, insofar as they are modeled on an incorrect concept of meaning. As Putnam sees it, meaning is produced primarily on the basis of the social context of a community of intention-bearing speakers, who express their views not only in terms of their collective meanings but on the extension of the philosophy of language that proscribes the territorial boundary of their thinking and/or being. As Putnam seems to conjecture, we are awaiting the development of a comprehensive philosophy of language that is on the level of great art in order that each element finds its most proper place in our picture of the world. In my opinion, Putnam's picture of the philosophy of meaning is the end-result of the type of psychological behaviorism that posits that machines and robots have souls, and the human beings are none other than the perfectly constructed Turing machines. Indeed, as Putnam sees it, the only difference between humanity and human-adhering computerized organisms, represents in 2025 as AI humanoid robots, is that heretofore computers cannot experience pain-sensations and thus and denied the status of being alive - at least until they are able to evince this construct as well. Three stars.

[Ageel Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this collection of philosophical papers, I think the most important papers of 'early' Putnam are, "The Analytic and the Synthetic," "The Refutation of Conventionalism," and "The Meaning of 'Meaning.'" In these papers, Putnam criticizes meaning-essentialism and semantic internalism. In "The Analytic and the Synthetic," Putnam considers the distinction of sentences into analytic and synthetic as not important distinction, but he offers a different method of treating this distinction which deviates from the traditional one. The traditional method of making this distinction meaningful (represented by logical empiricists like Reichenbach) tends to falsely equate what Putnam calls 'framework principles' such as geometry in a physical theory with the semantic role of 'bachelor,' and this generally stems from the mistake of classifying the frameworks principles as 'rules of language.' The reason these cannot be classified equally in terms of analyticity is that each one exhibits a different level of 'systematic import of our stipulations.' Theoretical terms are determined by collection of laws which are called by Putnam 'law-cluster concepts,' however, Putnam argues, these principles of conceptual system of science like geometry 'are not abandoned in the face of experiment, they're abandoned because a rival theory is available.'
This externalist tone of early Putnam becomes much more evident in "The Refutation of Conventionalism," where he takes the conventionalist thesis to presuppose meaning-essentialism. Meaning-essentialists (like Quine in his indeterminacy of translation and Reichenbach's metric conventionalism) posit constraints on meaning, and since these constraints are not factually available in the extension of the notion in question, then indeterminacy becomes inevitable. A critique of meaning-essentialism also requires rejecting semantic-internalism. Language for Putnam has a 'division of labour,' and the meanings of natural kinds for example are determined by experts.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hilary Putnam is not only an important figure in the history of analytic philosophy, he is also a very clear writer. That makes this book important, informative, and fun to read.

However, the collection of essays is a bit repetitive.

[Nate Gaylinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of philosophical papers exploring the relationship between language, mind, and reality.

The chapters in this book are standalone publications that discuss and critique specific theories and arguments from other philosophers. Putnam uses this as a way to explore his own ideas, gradually building up a coherent set of theories known as "functionalism." This book touches on the philosophy of mind, language, science, epistemology, and more. The main themes which come up repeatedly are what the "meaning" of a word is, when a person "knows" that meaning, and what research into cybernetics and computation can tell us about the mind / body problem.

I'm interested in how the mind works, so the long stretches where Putnam talks instead about schools of philosophy, thinkers, and ideas that he rejects did get tedious at times. Although there's some build up of ideas, most readers should probably just read the chapters that interest them. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to tell which ones are interesting until you dig into them. Personally, I really enjoyed The meaning of 'meaning' and the later chapters about how Turing Machines relate to the mind / body problem, dualism, and the nature of mental activity. I was very excited to see how well Putnam's ideas about meaning fit with modern AI systems that work with natural language. The ideas he wrote in the 70's were surprisingly prescient.

This is an important and thought-provoking work exploring the philosophy of functionalism and many adjacent ideas. It's a long, dense, read, but for those interested in what cognition really is and how humans collectively understand reality, it explores these ideas from several angles and paints a compelling picture.

[Luca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spesso prende vie troppo attorcigliate o apparentemente ovvie e ho saltato intere parti apparentemente rivolte a dispute interne alla filosofia, ma lui è simpatico e scrive davvero bene. Certe cose mi torneranno utili (differenza mente-corpo, significato, visione cosale)

[Zedder · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Putnam was good. Ah, those were the days.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Functionalism is not the answer.