1 - Introduction

Summary

I am not writing philosophy for the next historical epoch and for our post-human descendants; I am writing for human beings in the present period.

Hilary Putnam, Meaning and Knowledge (1976a (v): 63)

Philosophy experiences few seismic shifts in the course of centuries. Hilary Putnam has been responsible for at least two in a single generation: functionalism about mental phenomena, and externalism about meaning. Major thinkers epitomize the possibilities of the art and sometimes change them. Putnam has had that kind of dramatic influence on the interpretation of quantum mechanics, on the formulation of alternative versions of realism, on the relative status of logic and mathematics, on the development of current pragmatist approaches to philosophical problems, and on the clarification of the conceptual settings within which various social scientific investigations take place. His enquiries into the history, methods, aims and role of philosophy have stimulated a more widespread and purposeful selfquestioning among its practitioners than could have been predicted even ten years ago.

This book attempts to satisfy curiosity and stimulate thought about Putnam's contributions to philosophy, insisting on the importance of the effect of the whole and opposing the usual emphasis on certain leading papers. For the primary hermeneutic problem posed by his work, the question which drives the present enquiry, is the problem of integrity. How are unity, wholeness and consistency manifest in this constantly developing body of philosophical argument and writing?