HILARY PUTNAM
275
only a version?" may free us from "flat footed philosophy." He is not
suggesting, as I understand it, that philosophers construct "worlds of
worlds" irresponsibly; but he is suggesting that a recognition that
philosophy is construction and not description of things-in-them–
selves, is compatible with recognizing that the philosopher is respon–
sible to evolving requirements of objectivity - requirements of "fit"
with respect to his subject matter, and with respect to the self that he
is both constructing and expressing.
What Ayer's book lacks is any sense of the way in which philos–
ophy (like the arts) has become agonized, tormented by the weight of
its past, burdened by predecessors whom it cannot escape. His tone
is progressive throughout. But the fact that the key moves in Ayer's
philosophy - postulating a primitive act of "primary recognition,"
and reviving causal realism (or more accurately, equivocating be–
tween causal realism and subjective idealism) were in vogue before
Kant even started to write the first
Critique-
explodes this particular
conception of "progress." The authors that Ayer discusses in the sec–
ond half of his book have almost all, in one way or another, under–
mined these moves .
If
few of these authors ever comes quite into
focus, it is because he has to fit their work into his own picture of
philosophical "progress." And he cannot, for they are all in another
world.
We are saddened
by
the death of
JAMES ERNST.
