A survey such as this by one of the world's leading thinkers of his entire philosophical canon, is clearly as important as it is fascinating.

In the course of the discussion, Professor Quine pinpoints the difficulties involved in translation, brings to light the anomalies and conflicts implicit in our ...

Hilary Putnam deals in this book with some of the most fundamental persistent problems in philosophy: the nature of truth, knowledge and rationality. His aim is to break down the fixed categories of thought which have always appeared to define and constrain the permissible solutions to these problems.

The aim of this paper is to highlight an individualist streak in both Davidson’s conception of language and Chomsky’s. In the first part of the paper, I argue that in Davidson’s case this individualist streak is a consequence of an excessively strong conception of what the compositional nature of linguistic meaning requires, and I offer a weaker conception of that requirement that can do justice to both the publicity and the compositionality of language. In the second part of the paper, (...) I offer a comparison between Davidson’s position on the unreality of public languages, and Chomsky’s position regarding the epiphenomenal status of “externalized” languages. In Chomsky’s case, as in Davidson’s, languages are individuated in terms of the formal theories that serve to account for their systematic structure, and this assumption rests upon a similarly strong and similarly questionable understanding of what it is to employ finite means in pursuit of an infinite task. The alternative, at which I can only hint, is a view of language as a social and historical reality, i.e., a realm of social fact that cannot be exhausted by any formal theory and cannot be reduced to properties of individual speakers. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to highlight an individualist streak in both Davidson’s conception of language and Chomsky’s. In the first part of the paper, I argue that in Davidson’s case this individualist streak is a consequence of an excessively strong conception of what the compositional nature of linguistic meaning requires, and I offer a weaker conception of that requirement that can do justice to both the publicity and the compositionality of language. In the second part of the paper, (...) I offer a comparison between Davidson’s position on the unreality of public languages, and Chomsky’s position regarding the epiphenomenal status of “externalized” languages. In Chomsky’s case, as in Davidson’s, languages are individuated in terms of the formal theories that serve to account for their systematic structure, and this assumption rests upon a similarly strong and similarly questionable understanding of what it is to employ finite means in pursuit of an infinite task. The alternative, at which I can only hint, is a view of language as a social and historical reality, i.e., a realm of social fact that cannot be exhausted by any formal theory and cannot be reduced to properties of individual speakers. (shrink)

Human beings have the unique ability to view the world in a detached way: We can think about the world in terms that transcend our own experience or interest, and consider the world from a vantage point that is, in Nagel's words, "nowhere in particular". At the same time, each of us is a particular person in a particular place, each with his own "personal" view of the world, a view that we can recognize as just one aspect of the (...) whole. How do we reconcile these two standpoints--intellectually, morally, and practically? To what extent are they irreconcilable and to what extent can they be integrated? Thomas Nagel's ambitious and lively book tackles this fundamental issue, arguing that our divided nature is the root of a whole range of philosophical problems, touching, as it does, every aspect of human life. He deals with its manifestations in such fields of philosophy as: the mind-body problem, personal identity, knowledge and skepticism, thought and reality, free will, ethics, the relation between moral and other values, the meaning of life, and death. Excessive objectification has been a malady of recent analytic philosophy, claims Nagel, it has led to implausible forms of reductionism in the philosophy of mind and elsewhere. The solution is not to inhibit the objectifying impulse, but to insist that it learn to live alongside the internal perspectives that cannot be either discarded or objectified. Reconciliation between the two standpoints, in the end, is not always possible. (shrink)

When is political compromise acceptable--and when is it fundamentally rotten, something we should never accept, come what may? What if a rotten compromise is politically necessary? Compromise is a great political virtue, especially for the sake of peace. But, as Avishai Margalit argues, there are moral limits to acceptable compromise even for peace. But just what are those limits? At what point does peace secured with compromise become unjust? Focusing attention on vitally important questions that have received surprisingly little attention, (...) Margalit argues that we should be concerned not only with what makes a just war, but also with what kind of compromise allows for a just peace. Examining a wide range of examples, including the Munich Agreement, the Yalta Conference, and Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, Margalit provides a searching examination of the nature of political compromise in its various forms. Combining philosophy, politics, and history, and written in a vivid and accessible style, On Compromise and Rotten Compromises is full of surprising new insights about war, peace, justice, and sectarianism. (shrink)

In this book Putnam turns to pragmatism - and confronts the teachings of James, Peirce, Dewey, and Wittgenstein - not solely out of an interest in theoretical ...

Putnam's goal is to embed philosophy in social life. The first part of this book is dedicated to metaphysical questions.

From the ashes of the Holocaust we have come once again to learn the terrible truth, that the power of Evil cannot be underestimated. Nor can the effect of the spoken and written word. It has been but a halfcentury since the liberation of Nazi death camps, a little more than a decade since the First International Conference on the Holocaust and Human Rights, and a few short years since the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum first put on display its (...) documentation of horror. Yet today that form of historical revisionism popularly called "Holocaust denial" abounds worldwide in all its full foul flourish. As the generation of survivors dwindles, whose words will win? In a global environment increasingly dominated by mass media of manifold form and format, we have also begun to understand that what is printed on paper or broadcast on television or bytten into cyberspace affects everyone, actually or subliminally. Conversely, what is rejected or otherwise left out is doomed to the World of Communication Failure or, worse, of Ignorance and Misunderstanding. Who decides what is to appear in the vast and burgeoning marketplace of ideas? Many of those important choices are vested in editors and publishers, upon whom the Constitution confers almost unfettered discretion. Restrictions are few and seldom imposed; for the most part journalists can write, say, depict - or ignore - just about anything they want. And that's the way we like it. That's the American way. Freedom of thought and expression, after all, is one of our most hallowed liberties - limited only by circumstances where actual harm has been caused or is reasonably perceived as imminent. If a line can be drawn at all between unfair suppression of thought on the one hand and good editorial judgment on the other, it is sometimes exceedingly faint, often entirely arbitrary, and always fundamentally subjective. The greater the opportunity for excess in the exercise of the power of the press, the more profoundly difficult the consequences in the protection of civil liberties for individuals. That axiom has been brought into sharp focus by Holocaust deniers, whose goal is both enhanced and complicated by the aura of "political correctness" which nowadays surrounds a great deal of editorial decision-making. Nowhere is this more pervasive than in Academia. What should be the most receptive place for honest intellectual inquiry and discourse has instead become one where all assumptions are open to debate - even documented historical facts. This has had an unsettling effect on student editors, who have long been responsive to the pressures of political correctness. When they become entangled in the black and nefarious thickets of Holocaust denial, their exercise of editorial discretion can be intellectually excruciating. So can the emotional pain suffered by victims of group libel. Remedies for that malady have not been clearly established in American law. Nor has the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress been adequately tested against traditional free-speech guarantees. Explored least of all is the effect upon a free society when the dissemination of demonstrably false ideas is Constitutionally protected. Must writers and speakers who deny the Holocaust be guaranteed equal access to curricula and classrooms? Should responsible libraries collect and classify work born of blatant bigotry? Have survivors been injured when their victimization has been repudiated? More profoundly, can we reject spurious revisionism, or punish purposeful expressions of hatred, and still pay homage to the liberty of thought ennobled by the First Amendment? Should the People have the power to suppress the misrepresentation of historical fact when it is motivated by nothing more than racial animus? Are some conflicts between freedom of expression and civility as insoluble as they are inevitable? Can history ever be proven as Truth? This Article attempts to answer those questions. (shrink)