Anti-fact And Value Of Thinking

Hilary Putnam is a well-known contemporary American philosopher. He works primarily in the tradition of analytical philosophy, but he is also one of the most important neo-pragmatists. Also, Putnam is known for his wide philosophical interest and rigorous philosophical argument. This paper discusses the debate between realism and anti-realism against the background of Putnam's stance of anti-metaphysics. Also, it examines the practical dimension of his internal realism as opposed to metaphysical realism. Finally, I try to take a look at how Putnam applies his argument to the dichotomy between fact and value. At first glance, there are many different points of views on the problem of realism. However, they all attack the dichotomy dominant in traditional philosophy, such as subjective vs. objective, fact vs. value and dogmatism vs. relativism, etc.Through his examination of the dichotomy between fact and value, Putnam criticizes the deformation of this dichotomy in modern philosophy: "fact" was deemed to squarely and rigorously belong to the field of objective physics while "value" fell into the domain of subjective ethics. He first points out that science cannot avoid rational and reasonable criteria which can be viewed as objective cognitive values. In so doing, he saves value from the subjective domain. Then, he saves ethics from the subjective domain by rejecting moral subjectivism.My thesis is divided into two parts: First, I discusses Putnam's stance of realism. There are three sub-parts under this part: (1) The origin of the problem of realism; (2) The combination between realism and anti-realism; (3) Internal realism which is anti-dichotomy. Second, I discusses the dichotomy between fact and value. This part is further divided into five sub-parts: (1) The origin of the dichotomy between fact and...