Hilary Putnam Quotes on Truth
Putnam's Reason, Truth and History (1981) introduced the famous brain-in-a-vat argument and the doctrine of internal realism that organized his middle-period philosophy. The brain-in-a-vat thought-experiment — that we cannot coherently suppose ourselves to be such brains, since the supposition is self-undermining on a properly causal-externalist semantics — supplied a novel response to global skepticism. Internal realism rejected metaphysical realism (the view that there is a single way the world is, independent of all conceptual schemes) without sliding into outright relativism: truth is idealized rational acceptability within a conceptual scheme, not correspondence to a noumenal world. The later Putnam abandoned internal realism for a more direct realism while preserving the central anti-metaphysical commitments.
Quotes
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Attributed to Hilary Putnam:
“Cut the pie any way you like, meanings just ain't in the head.”
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Attributed to Hilary Putnam:
“The mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the world.”
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Attributed to Hilary Putnam:
“Philosophy without skill in argument is impossible; but skill in argument is not enough.”
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Attributed to Hilary Putnam:
“What science cannot tell us, mankind cannot know.”
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Attributed to Hilary Putnam:
“The fact-value dichotomy is itself untenable.”
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Attributed to Hilary Putnam:
“The progress of philosophy lies more in revising our questions than in answering them.”
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“These papers are all written from what is called a realist perspective. The statements of science are in my view either true or false (although it is often the case that we don't know which) and their truth or falsity does not consist in their being highly derived ways of describing regularities in human experience. Reality is not a part of the human mind; rather the human mind is a part - and a small part at that - of reality.”
Introduction: Science as approximation to truth -
“Introduction: Science as approximation to truth”
These papers are all written from what is called a realist perspective. The statements of science are in my view either true or false (although it is often the case that we don't know which) and their truth or falsity does not consist in their being highly derived ways of describing regularities in human experience. Reality is not a part of the human mind; rather the human mind is a part - and a s -
“Introduction: Science as approximation to truth”
If the importance of science does not lie in its constituting the whole of human knowledge, even less does it lie, in my view, in its technological applications. Science at the best is a way of coming to know, and hopefully a way of acquiring some reverence for, the wonders of nature. The philosophical study of science, at the best, has always been a way of coming to understand both some of the na -
“In closing, I can only apologize for not having given any positive account of either mathematical truth or mathematical necessity. I can only say that I have not given such an account because I think that the search for such an account is a fundamental mistake. It is not that there is nothing special about mathematics; it is that, in my opinion, the investigation of mathematics must presuppose and not seek to account for the truth of mathematics. But this is the beginning of another paper and not the end of this one.”
Truth and necessity in mathematics" (1964) -
“Truth and necessity in mathematics" (1964)”
In closing, I can only apologize for not having given any positive account of either mathematical truth or mathematical necessity. I can only say that I have not given such an account because I think that the search for such an account is a fundamental mistake. It is not that there is nothing special about mathematics; it is that, in my opinion, the investigation of mathematics must presuppose and -
“Truth and falsity are the most fundamental terms of rational criticism, and any adequate philosophy must give some account of these, or failing that, show that they can be dispensed with.”
Philosophical Papers Volume 2: Mind, Language and Reality(1975) | "Introduction: Philosophy of language and the rest of philosophy" -
“Lecture I: Is There Still Anything to Say about Reality and Truth?”
The Many Faces of Realism(1987)