Putnam's anti‐naturalism

Abstract

AbstractUp through the early 1970s, Putnam was another conspicuous naturalist, e.g., he suggested that a correspondence theory of truth might emerge from an ordinary empirical investigation of the effectiveness of human language use. By the late 1970s, he comes to regard the correspondence theory as emblematic of an extra-scientific ‘metaphysical realism’, which he rejects in favour of an equally extra-scientific account of truth in terms of idealized rational warrant. As with Kant and Carnap, the Second Philosopher finds this two-level view unmotivated and its methods unclear. The chapter goes on to examine Putnam's various objections to ‘naturalism’ as he understands it and to show how they miss the mark if addressed to Second Philosophy.