Engaging Putnam

Hilary Whitehall Putnam was one of the leading philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. As student of Rudolph Carnap's and Hans Reichenbach's, he went on to become not only a major figure in North American analytic philosophy, who made significant contributions to the philosophy of mind, language, mathematics, and physics but also to the disciplines of logic, number theory, and computer science. He passed away on March 13, 2016. The present volume is a memorial to his extraordinary intellectual contributions, honoring his contributions as a philosopher, a thinker, and a public intellectual. It features essays by an international team of leading philosophers, covering all aspects of Hilary Putnam's philosophy from his work in ethics and the history of philosophy to his contributions to the philosophy of science, logic, and mathematics. Each essay is an original contribution. “Hilary Putnam is one of the most distinguished philosophers of the modern era, and just speaking personally, one of the smartest and most impressive thinkers I have ever been privileged to know—as a good friend for 70 years. The fine essays collected here are a fitting tribute to a most remarkable figure.” Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology “In Engaging Putnam excellent philosophers engage the writings and ideas of Hilary Putnam, one of the most productive and influential philosophers of the last century. Putnam stands out because of the combination of brilliance and a firm grasp of reality he brought to a very broad range of issues: the logic and the philosophy of mathematics, free-will, skepticism, realism, internalism and externalism and a lot more. Along with this he offered penetrating insights about other great philosophers, from Aristotle to Wittgenstein. All great philosophers make us think. With many, we try to figure out the strange things they say. With Putnam, we are made to think about clearly explained examples and arguments that get to the heart of the issues he confronts. This book is a wonderful contribution to the continuation of Putnam-inspired thinking.” John Perry, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University

Hilary Whitehall Putnam was one of the leading philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. As student of Rudolph Carnap's and Hans Reichenbach's, he went on to become not only a major figure in North American analytic philosophy, who made significant contributions to the philosophy of mind, language, mathematics, and physics but also to the disciplines of logic, number theory, and computer science. He passed away on March 13, 2016. The present volume is a memorial to his extraordinary intellectual contributions, honoring his contributions as a philosopher, a thinker, and a public intellectual. It features essays by an international team of leading philosophers, covering all aspects of Hilary Putnam's philosophy from his work in ethics and the history of philosophy to his contributions to the philosophy of science, logic, and mathematics. Each essay is an original contribution. “Hilary Putnam is one of the most distinguished philosophers of the modern era, and just speaking personally, one of the smartest and most impressive thinkers I have ever been privileged to know—as a good friend for 70 years. The fine essays collected here are a fitting tribute to a most remarkable figure.” Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology “In Engaging Putnam excellent philosophers engage the writings and ideas of Hilary Putnam, one of the most productive and influential philosophers of the last century. Putnam stands out because of the combination of brilliance and a firm grasp of reality he brought to a very broad range of issues: the logic and the philosophy of mathematics, free-will, skepticism, realism, internalism and externalism and a lot more. Along with this he offered penetrating insights about other great philosophers, from Aristotle to Wittgenstein. All great philosophers make us think. With many, we try to figure out the strange things they say. With Putnam, we are made to think about clearly explained examples and arguments that get to the heart of the issues he confronts. This book is a wonderful contribution to the continuation of Putnam-inspired thinking.” John Perry, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University

Hilary Putnam’s Philosophical Naturalism: Making Philosophy Matter for Life offers a faithful illustration of the trajectory of Putnam’s thought to show how, despite the shifts in opinion on issues of central philosophical importance, his thought reveals a systematic backbone and strong continuities.

Across the range of social care, health and welfare professions, it is essential that students and practitioners engage meaningfully with the communities and service users they work with. This book offers a timely and practical guide to the methods and skills related to forming and developing such partnerships. Helping both aspiring and experienced practitioners to empower communities and service users, this book: - Explores how the developing roles of communities and service users influence policy, services and practice - Highlights the different ethical, power and boundary tensions when working with communities and service users and suggests ways to overcome them - Provides examples, case studies, activities and useful resources which help illustrate ways and methods of empowering people and enabling their voices to be heard An accessible and wide-ranging book, Engaging Communities and Service Users is a must have text for students and practitioners in social care, health and welfare.

This volume of original essays by leading political scientists and media scholars examines the nature of political disengagement among the public and offers concrete solutions for how the government and media can stimulate public engagement in the political process.

Hilary Putnam, who turned 88 in 2014, is one of the world’s greatest living philosophers. He currently holds the position of Cogan University Professor Emeritus of Harvard. He has been called “one of the 20th century’s true philosophic giants” (by Malcolm Thorndike Nicholson in Prospect magazine in 2013). He has been very influential in several different areas of philosophy: philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. This volume in the prestigious Library of Living Philosophers series contains 26 chapters original to this work, each written by a well-known philosopher, including the late Richard Rorty and the late Michael Dummett. The volume also includes Putnam’s reply to each of the 26 critical and descriptive essays, which cover the broad range of Putnam’s thought. They are organized thematically into the following parts: Philosophy and Mathematics, Logic and Language, Knowing and Being, Philosophy of Practice, and Elements of Pragmatism. Readers will also appreciate the extensive Intellectual Autobiography.

"Putnam's Automobile Handbook: The Care and Management of the Modern Motor-Car" by H. Clifford Brokaw, Charles A. Starr. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Skepticism is one of the perennial problems of philosophy: from antiquity, to the early modern period of Descartes and Hume, and right through to the present day. It remains a fundamental and widely studied topic and, as Annalisa Coliva and Duncan Pritchard show in Skepticism, it presents us with a paradox with important ramifications not only for epistemology but also for many other core areas of philosophy. This book provides a thorough grounding in contemporary debates about skepticism, exploring the following key topics: the core skeptical arguments, with a particular focus on Cartesian and Humean radical skepticism the epistemic principles that are held to underlie skeptical arguments, such as the Closure and Underdetermination principles the content externalism of Putnam, Davidson, and Chalmers, and how it might help us respond to radical skepticism the epistemic externalism/internalism distinction and how it relates to the skeptical problematic contextualism in epistemology and its anti-skeptical import the various interpretations of a Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology the viability of epistemological disjunctivism, including whether it can be combined with hinge epistemology as part of a dual response to radical skepticism liberal and conservative responses to the Humean skeptical paradox. Both authors are prominent figures who work on skepticism, and so one novelty of the book is that it provides an insight into their own contrasting responses to this philosophical difficulty. With the addition of annotated further reading and a glossary, this is an ideal starting point for anyone studying the philosophy of skepticism, along with students of epistemology, metaphysics, and contemporary analytic philosophy.