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sciences (which he insists must be called "social studies"), history, lit–
erature, and ethics. These views were expressed rather technically in
Meaning and the Moral Sciences
(1978), and have been more fully
developed and articulated for a less-professional audience in
Reason,
Truth, and History (1981).
Reason, Truth, and History
opens with a discussion of a familiar
"hypothetical" used in academic philosophy of language: if an ant
crawling on a beach happens to form a path in a shape which looks,
to us, remarkably like Winston Churchill, in what sense can it be
said that this "picture" really "represents" or "refers to" Churchill?
Putnam believes - rightly, I think - that the answer to this question
can have an important connection to all the contemporary questions
of meaning, intention, interpretation, and reference. His conclu–
sion, quite different from what he believed ten years ago, is that
neither the world nor our minds alone fix the meaning of words, but
that it is out of the interaction of the two that meaning is created.
Meaning is neither a "fact" out there waiting to be found, nor a "fic–
tion" of our minds, of our society, or some ruling class . This view is,
of course, not novel to Putnam; what makes it worth noting is how
this "metaphysical realist" arrived at it, and his extension of it.
Putnam believes that the real consequences of rejecting a "cor–
respondence theory of truth" is that we can say
many
true things
about the world - we can have both Kepler and Kandinsky - and
should never expect to be able to say the
one
true thing about the
world. Putnam takes quite seriously the writing of those who want to
push antifoundationalism to a far more radical, relativistic conclu–
sion; it just turns out, however, that every one of such conclusions is,
in the end, self-refuting. "Anarchism" in the philosophy of science–
the view that scientific theories at different times in history and in
different cultures are utterly "incommensurable" because they as–
sume different worldviews- is a contradiction, because to "prove"
incommensurability one must first be able to compare theories. And
radical relativism is thoroughly inconsistent: when is the last time
you heard someone say, "Relativism is true where I'm coming from,"
Putnam asks.
Putnam is especially good in discussing Foucault and other
contemporary French thinkers, for he has correctly diagnosed that
the reason their work on the social and historical roots of knowledge
affects us so deeply is that these forces seem "irrational by our
present lights." "The French thinkers are not
just
cultural relativists;
