La tesis de la relatividad conceptualelaborada por Hilaiy Putnam, ha resultado tanfundamental para su propuesta dei realismointerno como problemática para muchos de suscríticos. Según el autor, ella permitiria explicar laexistencia de descripciones dei mundo equivalentespero incompatibles y hacerlo sin caer enuna concepción puramente conteXtualista oconvencionalista de la verdad. Eneste artículo nos proponemos analizar, desde elpunto de vista dei realismo interno, tres de lascríticas más importantes contra la relatividadconceptual: 1) la critica de Donald Davidson a lainteligibilidad de la idea misma de (...) esquemaconceptual; 2) el argúmento, dei mismo Davidson,de qúe, àdemás, la idea dei esquematismo conceptualimplica recaer en el dualismo esquemacontenidoy 3) el sefialamiento, de SimonBlackburn, de que el pluralismo teórico viola laque él llama "el imperativo hacia la unidad deiconocimiento". (shrink)

According to a common line of criticism, Donald Davidson’s argument in “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” is invalid because it moves illicitly from the relatively weak thesis that conceptual schemes cannot be incommensurable to the stronger thesis that the idea of a conceptual scheme itself is incoherent. I argue in this paper that such objections fail because they misunderstand the position that Davidson’s argument is intended to rule out. According to the “scheme-content dualism” Davidson targets, conceptual schemes (...) differ only if they are incommensurable with one another. Thus, if Davidson has successfully shown the idea of incommensurability to be incoherent, then he has shown “the very idea of a conceptual scheme” to be incoherent, as well. (shrink)

A common strategy amongst realists grants relativism at the level of language or thought but denies it at the level of fact. Their point is that even if our concept of an object is relative to a conceptual scheme, it doesn't follow that objects themselves are relative to conceptual schemes. This is a sensible point. But in this paper I present a simple argument for the conclusion that it is false. According to what I call the T-argument, relativism about content (...) entails a relativism about fact. (shrink)

The idea that there are conceptual schemes, relative to which we conceptualize experience, and empirical content, the “raw” data of experience that get conceptualized through our conceptual schemes into beliefs or sentences, is not new. The idea that there are neither conceptual schemes nor empirical content, however, is. Moreover, it is so new, that only four arguments have so far been given against this dualism, with Donald Davidson himself presenting versions of all four. In this paper, I show that in (...) both the general and Davidson’s specific form the first three arguments against scheme-content dualism rely on the fourth. From many there is just one. Then I show that the fate of the first three arguments against scheme-content dualism hangs on that of the fourth. Finally I present four reasons why the fourth argument fails. For the sake of the dualism’s detractors, therefore, one can only hope that forthcoming arguments against scheme-content dualism fare better than those given so far. (shrink)

In the sixth chapter of The View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel aims to identify a form of idealism, to isolate the argument for it and to counter this argument. The position that Nagel takes to be idealist is that what there is must be possibly conceivable by us. In this paper, I show that Nagel has not made a convincing case against this position. I then present an alternative case. In light of this alternative case, we have reason to reject (...) an important example that Nagel offers of a contemporary idealist, namely Donald Davidson. (shrink)

This article defends the thesis that Putnam's theory of the use of empirical concepts constitutes a continuous backbone of his philosophy early and late. Thus, Putnam's theory of empirical concepts should be at least compatible with the most distinctive features of both, his realism (viz., semantic externalism) and his pragmatism (viz., conceptual pluralism). The article suggests the even stronger thesis that Putnam's theory of concepts is essential for the explanatory purposes of both. In doing so, the article proposes reading Putnam's (...) theory as a theory displaying contextual features of language use rather than as one describing metaphysical, epistemic, or cognitional 'underpinnings'. The theory's continuity is thus taken to show that Putnam's realism and pragmatism are and always have been inseparable. (shrink)