unlike a lot of contemporaries read through the end of the 20th century / beginning of the 21st, putnam was a rigorous and important philosopher (as opposed to, say, jerry fodor, who should be lauded for generating interest in philosophy and opening new discussions but whose arguments are almost uniformly terrible, technically).
i'd forgotten about his direct realism, but it makes sense given his sort of instinctual bent toward wittgenstein. i wish more analytic philosophers were adventurous enough to reject platonist place-holders and carry their views out to the furthest logical extent.
sorry that this comment was so vague, but what else could it be? just wanted to post that we've lost a great mind.
some random reading in the realm of what i'm talking about:
http://philpapers.org/rec/FINWOR (doesn't mention putnam if i recall, but the wittgensteinian considerations here can shed light on what i'm talking about re: putnam's instincts)
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23171-hilary-putnam-pragmatism-and-r... the quick summary of direct realism here corresponds very well with how many of us chicago-wittgensteinians are pulled toward direct realism; once you discard the idea of a correspondence theory of truth and knowledge, and start to recognize that truth conditions are ubiquitously context dependent (in terms of what the speaker is trying to accomplish with the words, the shared cultural knowledge of speaker and listener, etc etc), so too can you get rid of many of the pesky oddities of traditional 20th century analytic philosophy of mind: (abstract?) mental items, qualia (maybe), etc etc. if i see a cow, i don't see "cow + some LaTeX symbol" that exists just-for-me--that's not how language works, and we're not talking about magic observational souls, we're saying that guy over there looked and saw a cow--or whatever we're actually talking about).
anyway, putnam is very worth reading, if only to remember rigor and honesty. as with all philosophy, the conclusions you can take or leave.
i'd forgotten about his direct realism, but it makes sense given his sort of instinctual bent toward wittgenstein. i wish more analytic philosophers were adventurous enough to reject platonist place-holders and carry their views out to the furthest logical extent.
sorry that this comment was so vague, but what else could it be? just wanted to post that we've lost a great mind.
some random reading in the realm of what i'm talking about:
http://philpapers.org/rec/FINWOR (doesn't mention putnam if i recall, but the wittgensteinian considerations here can shed light on what i'm talking about re: putnam's instincts)
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23171-hilary-putnam-pragmatism-and-r... the quick summary of direct realism here corresponds very well with how many of us chicago-wittgensteinians are pulled toward direct realism; once you discard the idea of a correspondence theory of truth and knowledge, and start to recognize that truth conditions are ubiquitously context dependent (in terms of what the speaker is trying to accomplish with the words, the shared cultural knowledge of speaker and listener, etc etc), so too can you get rid of many of the pesky oddities of traditional 20th century analytic philosophy of mind: (abstract?) mental items, qualia (maybe), etc etc. if i see a cow, i don't see "cow + some LaTeX symbol" that exists just-for-me--that's not how language works, and we're not talking about magic observational souls, we're saying that guy over there looked and saw a cow--or whatever we're actually talking about).
anyway, putnam is very worth reading, if only to remember rigor and honesty. as with all philosophy, the conclusions you can take or leave.