SUMMARYWhile commentators have noted that the revival of pragmatism in recent decades can be understood in the context of a larger turn towards anti-foundational thought, they have largely ignored the important and complicated role that Ludwig Wittgenstein's ideas about foundationalism played in that revival. By tracing Wittgenstein's influence on the philosophers Stanley Cavell and Thomas Kuhn, the author first suggests that the revival of neo-pragmatism is better understood in the context of mid-century analytic philosophy they inherited, as well as Wittgenstein's (...) unique contribution and challenge to that tradition. Next, by showing how the Wittgensteinian ideas of Cavell and Kuhn played an important role in the decades-long debate between Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam, arguably the most important catalyst of neo-pragmatist thought, the author shows that Wittgenstein's reframing of Kantian epistemology places the emergence of neo-pragmatism in a larger context of Enlightenment thought in the United States, rather than making it an easy ally of anti-foundational post-structuralism. (shrink)

In recent philosophy of science there has been much discussion of both pluralism, which embraces scientific terms with multiple meanings, and eliminativism, which rejects such terms. Some recent work focuses on the conditions that legitimize pluralism over eliminativism – the conditions under which such terms are acceptable. Often, this is understood as a matter of encouraging effective communication – the danger of these terms is thought to be equivocation, while the advantage is thought to be the fulfilment of ‘bridging roles’ (...) that facilitate communication between different scientists and specialisms. These theories are geared towards regulating communication between scientists qua scientists. However, this overlooks an important class of harmful equivocation that involves miscommunication between scientists and nonscientists, such as the public or policymakers. To make my case, I use the example of theory of mind, also known as ‘mindreading’ and ‘mentalizing’, and broadly defined as the capacity to attribute mental states to oneself and others. I begin by showing that ‘theory of mind’ has multiple meanings, before showing that this has resulted in harmful equivocations of a sort and in a way not accounted for by previous theories of pluralism and eliminativism. (shrink)

After stressing how the attempt to provide a plausible account of the connection between language and the world was one of Putnam’s constant preoccupations, this article describes the four stages his thinking about the concepts of truth and reality went through. Particular attention is paid to the kinds of problems that made him abandon each stage to enter the next. The analysis highlights how all the stages but one express a general non-epistemic stance towards truth and reality—the right stance, according (...) to Putnam, in order to develop full-blooded realism. Since the last stage combines a version of direct realism with a pluralist conception of truth, the article proceeds by focusing on Putnam’s alethic pluralism, carefully distinguishing it from alethic deflationism. Finally a suggestion is made as to where Putnam’s alethic pluralism may be placed within the constellation of current pluralist positions about truth. (shrink)